Vanity Fair

10,000 miles to Baghdad?

Get It Try It

A lot of people will be hating for this, but Moonlight for the Oscar is recurring proof that Hollywood is politicised beyond repair. All that could have been better is if the protagonist was not only black and gay, but also muslim, transsexual, without limbs, deaf, dumb, and blind. Kudos to Naomie 'Moneypenny' Harris for donning the Bancroft robes, and kudos to all who made the movie of course, but this is yet another typical example of how gushy La La Land (the state of mind, not the movie) is out of touch with reality.

La La Land, for all its pluses and minuses, is a superb production, totally over the top, a landmark movie - even if you didn't like it. Excellence in moviemaking is what it's all about - it's not about making cheap political statements.

What a shame it had to happen to Warren Beatty, who once had a landslide epic with Reds - but there was NO FUCKING WAY Hollywood would recognise a movie that dared consider the merits of communism! That's not 'the American way'! And Warren did his best on stage for the occasion, stating that it was only in the good old US of A that such a movie could ever be made - which of course was an outright lie.

The Oscars have always been politicised. One perhaps remembers Marisa Tomei's win as an example. And the neurotic inhabitants of La La Land (the state of mind, not the movie) who desperately need to feel good about themselves, with or without the able but otherwise deadly and - for outsiders - expensive assistance of one L Ron Hubbard, are always going to wax sentimental - right before they go out to their obscene and obnoxious parties and afterwards somehow make it up for that long-planned appointment with their Brentwood shrinks. (The mental health industry will always boom at this time of year, in case you didn't know.)

Films are a wonderful thing, perhaps the best form of communication known to mankind, but Hollywood pabulum is not an example of how the art form should be used. The best movies - the really best movies - are often movies that are not made by La La Land (the state of mind, not the movie).

The industry remains the one thing the US can still claim as homegrown. All else is superseded, whether or not the Donald can 'MAGA'. They certainly have the technique and technology. And those things can be used to good effect, at least in theory.

But a sobbing gushing Meryl Streep type of token 'compassion' is only so those wackos can feel good about themselves. As they motor up Rodeo Drive in their Rolls-Royce cabriolets, pretending they enjoy their miserable wasted lives.

We who consume their crap - we who make them so filthy rich - won't agree with them on their choices. We value and award quality - not sentimental rubbish.

But in that cutthroat La La Land (the state of mind, not the movie) such things matter not. It's all propaganda anyway. The White House East may have choice words for the White House West, home of the only royalty the US can ever have, and L Ron's bastion at the White House West may have finally lost that legendary grip on the people of the world. (And it's fucking about time.) Finally: excellence in front of a camera - or anywhere on or near a sound stage - is not equivalent to wisdom in matters politic. A comment from someone from La La Land (the state of mind, not the movie) is not more valuable than a comment from anyone else: all it means is that an idiot is more well known than the rest.

Postscript

It's long way from La La Land (the place, not the movie) to Baghdad. It's eleven time zones. Almost halfway around the planet. Clearly you who live in La La Land (the state of mind or the place, not the movie) don't have much of a care what goes on there. Or in Syria. Or even on the European continent, for that matter.

But we do.

You joke about how the peoples of another 200+ countries hate you. And you laugh. You really laugh. Because you're so far away you don't have to give a shit. Things could be different if there was another attack on Hawaii, but that's so remote, isn't it? You don't give a shit. And so you can laugh.

We who live outside the US aren't laughing. We don't care if it's a Gary Johnson, or a Donald Trump, or a Jill Stein who runs things - as long as it's not a warmonger like Hillary, like her friends at State, like Robert and Fred Kagan, like Kimberly Kagan, like Victoria Nuland, like John Kerry, like Lindsey Graham, like Madman John McCain, like so many other emotionally stunted pests who want to harm this planet and those that live on it. Those who, like Robert Kagan and William Kristol once proclaimed, advocate all-out thermonuclear war because it can be won and they're goddamned sure they're going to win. And somehow be OK.

The same people who ridiculed Hillary in 2008 are back again now, supporting her. Go figure. The most important ones in that twisted demographic come from La La Land (the state of mind or the place, not the movie). As Jim Morrison once sang: 'you got the guns but we got the numbers'. You're not likely to forget that, and we certainly won't. We find your presence on our planet to be a pestilence and an intrusion, and we resent you.

And we got the numbers.

According to Wikipedia, a 'fair' is 'a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities'. There are different types of fairs - such as trade fairs for the travel industry, street fairs that celebrate the character of a neighbourhood, and so on.

If so, what then is a 'vanity fair'?