Salon.com > Oscars http://www.salon.com Fri, 03 May 2013 22:55:11 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 How “Life of Pi” anticipated 9/11 http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/a_boy_a_boat_and_a_tiger_life_of_pi_as_contemporary_fable_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/a_boy_a_boat_and_a_tiger_life_of_pi_as_contemporary_fable_partner/#comments Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13283310 Los
Angeles Review of Books
PERHAPS THE BIGGEST SURPRISE at the 2013 Oscar ceremony was that Ang Lee beat out Steven Spielberg for Best Director with his adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi. Martel’s novel was itself a surprising Man Booker Prize award winner in 2002. You may remember that a controversy followed: according to some, Martel’s book, about a boy in a lifeboat with a tiger, was suspiciously similar to that of Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar’s 1981 novella Max and the Cats, about a man in a lifeboat with a jaguar. In a short essay titled “How I Wrote Life of Pi,” Martel has accounted for the influence that Scliar’s novel — or rather, what he recalls as John Updike’s negative review of the novel in The New York Times Book Review — had on him. (In fact, Updike never seems to have reviewed the book at all, and the only review that ran in The Times was positive.) Martel — who claims he only read Max and the Cats after the accusations of plagiarism surfaced in 2002 — borrowed Scliar’s basic premise, trying to turn it into a novel that was more successful than the one Updike had allegedly reviewed:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/28/a_boy_a_boat_and_a_tiger_life_of_pi_as_contemporary_fable_partner/feed/ 6 Is Obama to blame for North Korea? http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/is_obama_to_blame_for_north_korea_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/is_obama_to_blame_for_north_korea_partner/#comments Fri, 05 Apr 2013 11:47:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13262499 Global Post BOSTON — It's been a busy week for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Over just a few days, he has unilaterally nullified the 1953 armistice with South Korea; vowed to restart his uranium enriching and plutonium programs; and issued "final approval" for "merciless" nuclear strikes against the United States.

He taunted South Korea's new leader, and shut down the Kaesong industrial estate, which served as unusual example of cooperation between the two Koreas. Most recently, he transported a missile to the east coast — either in an attempt to lob a warhead in America's general direction (he lacks the capability to actually hit the continent), or more probably, to test it, perhaps on the April 15 birthday of deceased founding father Kim Il Sung. "Is there a more bizarre and frightening figure in the world today than North Korea's young, impetuous and untested leader?" writes GlobalPost senior foreign affairs columnist Nicholas Burns.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/is_obama_to_blame_for_north_korea_partner/feed/ 3 Tim Graham: “Average viewer would not be able to guess Karen Finney is African-American” http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/tim_graham_average_viewer_would_not_be_able_to_guess_karen_finney_is_african_american/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/tim_graham_average_viewer_would_not_be_able_to_guess_karen_finney_is_african_american/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:21:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13259327 In a series of Twitter responses to the announcement that Karen Finney would be hosting a new show on MSNBC, Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center, said that Finney's skin is not dark enough for the "average viewer" to guess that she is African-American.

Finney served as the first African-American spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee and has been an MSNBC political analyst and guest host since 2009.

Tim Graham has been a Media Research Center "watchdog" since 1989. He has been a racially clueless idiot probably since forever.

Here are his tweets:

[embedtweet id="319180589049724929"]

[embedtweet id="319190014498062337"]

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/02/tim_graham_average_viewer_would_not_be_able_to_guess_karen_finney_is_african_american/feed/ 12 I’ll tell you what’s funny http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/ill_tell_you_whats_funny/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/ill_tell_you_whats_funny/#comments Sat, 02 Mar 2013 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13216471 Humor is a complicated phenomenon, and highly dependent on context, as Seth MacFarlane recently learned. The Oscar host’s much-discussed performance – and in particular his quasi-ironic opening musical number, “We Saw Your Boobs” – has inadvertently launched a cultural debate about several interlocking subjects, including sex and gender in Hollywood, whether p.c. attitudes are destroying humor, and the role of Twitter and other social media during major cultural events. That’s without even getting into the unresolvable and inherently subjective question of what’s funny and what’s not.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/ill_tell_you_whats_funny/feed/ 135 The week in 10 pics http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/the_week_in_10_pics_3/ http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/the_week_in_10_pics_3/#comments Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13216701 http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/the_week_in_10_pics_3/feed/ 1 How to do outrage http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/how_to_do_outrage/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/how_to_do_outrage/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:43:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13214006 This has been a banner week in near-universal opprobrium. I say near-universal, because in the department of backlash to the backlash, there are already claims that the Internet has merely emboldened the "humor police," whether it's criticizing Seth MacFarlane's Oscar hosting or the Onion's supposedly brave joke about a 9-year-old girl. So let me offer a conditional defense of outrage politics.

Take the misogyny and bigotry on display at the Oscars Sunday, and everything that followed. Salon's Andrew Leonard may be right when he says that "in our pre-Twitter past, we might have simply turned off the TV or switched channels once MacFarlane started singing his dumb song about boobs. But now we stay watching to share our hate!" (Wait, how can we know what people did before Twitter? Maybe I can put a call out on Twitter.) Sharing that "hate" en masse happens to be a communal experience, something that has its own virtues in this atomized, time-shifted age. But it also exorcises demons that without something specific on which to fix righteous rage, are suppressed or implicitly accepted by society. Everyday slights and institutional discrimination are hard to point out on your own. Watching them on a screen or finding them in a tweet helps make them visible.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/28/how_to_do_outrage/feed/ 170 California lawmakers call out the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for sexism http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/california_lawmakers_call_out_the_academy_of_motion_picture_arts_and_sciences_for_sexism/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/california_lawmakers_call_out_the_academy_of_motion_picture_arts_and_sciences_for_sexism/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:32:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13213996 Two California state lawmakers have joined other smart men and women in condemning Oscar host Seth MacFarlane's comments during Sunday's awards presentation.

Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal and Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, both Democrats who lead the Legislature's women's caucus, sent a letter to Academy president Hawk Koch on Tuesday calling on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to use "better judgment" when selecting a host for next year.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/california_lawmakers_call_out_the_academy_of_motion_picture_arts_and_sciences_for_sexism/feed/ 54 Ben’s right: Marriage is work. That’s not necessarily a bad thing http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 20:02:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13213903 When Ben Affleck picked up the Oscar Sunday night for "Argo," the actor/producer/director/Jimmy Kimmel love slave turned those boring last minutes of the broadcast into a memorably strange statement about marriage. As he looked out at his beautiful wife, Jennifer Garner, he told her – and the world – "I want to thank my wife, who I don't normally associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage for 10 Christmases. It’s good. It is work, but it’s the best kind of work, and there’s no one I'd rather work with." And if nothing else had happened the entire broadcast, it would have been worth it for the pinched, "Honey, whaaaaaa?" smile on Garner's face as he said that.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/bens_right_marriage_is_work/feed/ 20 Tina Fey: “No way” would I host Oscars http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/tina_fey_no_way_would_i_host_oscars/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/tina_fey_no_way_would_i_host_oscars/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:43:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13213217 Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are on most everyone's short list to host the Oscars, after their star turn at the Golden Globes and the unfunny douchebaggery of Seth MacFarlane.

But Fey told the Huffington Post that she has no interest in the job. "I just feel like that gig is so hard," she said. "Especially for, like, a woman -- the amount of months that would be spent trying on dresses alone ... no way."

The reaction to Amy and you hosting the Golden Globes was really great.
Oh, thank you. We had fun.

It's disappointing to hear, "No way." I was hoping for at least "a one in a million chance."
I wish I could tell you there was.

Anyone you would like to see host next year? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/tina_fey_no_way_would_i_host_oscars/feed/ 11 “We saw your junk”: The inevitable parody arrives http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_junk_the_inevitable_parody_arrives/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_junk_the_inevitable_parody_arrives/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212826

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_junk_the_inevitable_parody_arrives/feed/ 9 Anne Hathaway: Hollywood’s most polarizing star http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/anne_hathaway_hollywoods_most_polarizing_star/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/anne_hathaway_hollywoods_most_polarizing_star/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211734 Anne Hathaway has it all: The movie star jumps between lucrative studio pictures like "The Dark Knight Rises" and and passion projects like "Rachel Getting Married." She recently wed boyfriend Adam Shulman in a Valentino gown. And her occasional missteps haven't hurt her one bit -- potential career-enders like "One Day" and "Get Smart" give way to bigger and better movies. Her former boyfriend's imprisonment for running a Ponzi scheme was brushed aside. She flopped as an Oscar host in 2011, but came back to win the best supporting actress trophy for "Les Misérables" at this year's ceremony.

And her public finds it all so infuriating.

Hathaway is the subject of more vituperative, angry scrutiny than perhaps any actress working today. "Shut up. Shut up, Anne Hathaway. I honestly don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m jealous, but I don’t feel jealousy. I watch her in outtakes, and I feel like she’s not a real person," wrote a blogger for women's-interest site Crushable. "I don’t find her perfection charming. I find it annoying."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/anne_hathaway_hollywoods_most_polarizing_star/feed/ 167 “We Saw Your Boobs” celebrates rape on film http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_boobs_is_a_celebration_of_rape_on_film/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_boobs_is_a_celebration_of_rape_on_film/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:10:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212333 Seth MacFarlane has made millions off being an immature man-child. In fact, it was the success of his particular brand of gross-out offensive humor (served with a smile, of course) that got him the Oscar gig in the first place.

So it came as little surprise, then, when base misogyny and racism dominated MacFarlane's performance on Sunday. And while the musical opener "We Saw Your Boobs" has been called immature (true) and sexist (also true) -- it wasn't just a harmless roundup of spicy movie scenes. Four of the films MacFarlane crooned about featured nudity during or immediately following violent depictions of rape and sexual assault, stripped of their context and played for laughs. Scarlett Johansson found herself on the list because of a real-life violation: Her nude photos were stolen from her phone and leaked online.

Oh, your privacy was invaded and your breasts were splashed across the Internet against your will? That is hilarious!

So let's talk about those "boob" scenes and see how "funny" they play in context.

"The Accused"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/we_saw_your_boobs_is_a_celebration_of_rape_on_film/feed/ 391 How to mock a child http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/there_is_a_way_to_make_fun_of_a_child/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/there_is_a_way_to_make_fun_of_a_child/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 16:29:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212442 Hey, everybody who thinks we're the PC police: It's not that you can't make a joke about a child. It's that the rules of comedy apply no matter the subject matter -- you have to be funny about it.

As we all well now know, Oscar night 2013 will be remembered as that time Seth MacFarlane made joshing reference to Quvenzhané Wallis as an imminent object of George Clooney's sexual attentions, and then the Onion drastically upped the ante by calling her "kind of a cunt." (They later deleted and apologized for it.) The backlash to both outbursts was swift and loud, followed inevitably by the "Can't you take a joke?" backlash to the backlash.

One of the most agonizing side effects of a controversial comedy routine – generally a crude one that involves violence, tragedy, or is at the expense a minority group  -- is the scramble to explain why some things are funny and some are not. And explaining a joke is only slightly more magic-defusing than watching how sausage is made. Comedy is alchemy. The minute we say, "That's not funny because…" we risk the approbation of those who'd call us humorless scolds, uptight and fussy party poopers.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/there_is_a_way_to_make_fun_of_a_child/feed/ 32 Seth MacFarlane says he won’t host Oscars again http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/seth_macfarlane_says_he_wont_host_oscars_again/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/seth_macfarlane_says_he_wont_host_oscars_again/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:30:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212342 Depending on how you viewed "Family Guy" and "Ted" creator Seth MacFarlane's polarizing performance at the Oscars ceremony on Sunday, you will either be saddened or elated to know that MacFarlane is not likely to ever host the awards show again. MacFarlane recently tweeted:

[embedtweet id="306316660833386496"]

These celebrities are probably pretty be happy about this announcement:

But MacFarlane also deflected some of the criticism directed towards his jokes, including the above boob song, by tweeting and retweeting the following:

[embedtweet id="306315487304876032"]

[embedtweet id="306063431243534336"]

Despite the criticism, ratings for this year's Oscars were up since last year; 40.5 million viewers tuned in to watch, according to Nielsen, beating last year's show hosted by Billy Crystal.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/seth_macfarlane_says_he_wont_host_oscars_again/feed/ 11 Must-see morning clip: Colbert on the Oscars http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/must_see_morning_clip_colbert_on_the_oscars/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/must_see_morning_clip_colbert_on_the_oscars/#comments Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:20:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13212307 Stephen Colbert was outraged to report that Michelle Obama presented the award for Best Picture at Sunday's Oscars, what he called "big government out of control."

"Now the private sector can't even broadcast its own self-congratulatory strokefest without federal intervention?" Colbert asked. "What's next, regulatory limits on how much Joaquin Phoenix can eat during the ceremony?"

Watch:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/26/must_see_morning_clip_colbert_on_the_oscars/feed/ 1 Report: Onion staffers angry over Wallis apology http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/onion_writers_angry_over_wallis_apology/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/onion_writers_angry_over_wallis_apology/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:25:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211927 The fallout from the Onion's crude tweet about Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis continues.

The tweet, which described the 9-year-old "Beasts of the Southern Wild" star using a vulgar anatomical term in order to seemingly mock the way the media describes starlets, was deleted shortly after being published. It was, perhaps, of a piece with the satirical publication's general tone of irreverence -- which is perhaps why the apology from the newspaper's CEO has struck such a wrong note with Onion employees.

"No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire," wrote the CEO, Steve Hannah.

"My reaction was, 'It wasn't a great joke, but big deal,'" one former Onion editor told BuzzFeed.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/onion_writers_angry_over_wallis_apology/feed/ 127 The Oscar posters that should have been http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/the_oscar_posters_that_should_have_been_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/the_oscar_posters_that_should_have_been_2/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:34:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211482 http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/the_oscar_posters_that_should_have_been_2/feed/ 1 Seth MacFarlane to Rush Limbaugh: Now I understand why conservatives hate the media http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/seth_macfarlane_to_rush_limbaugh_now_i_understand_why_conservatives_hate_the_media/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/seth_macfarlane_to_rush_limbaugh_now_i_understand_why_conservatives_hate_the_media/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211802 Seth MacFarlane has another admirer: Rush Limbaugh.

On Monday's radio broadcast, Limbaugh said he sent the widely derided Oscars host an "attaboy note." MacFarlane's response, according to Rush? "You know what? I kind of understand how you conservatives feel about the media now."

Limbaugh was fired up about the Oscars, and saw evidence of a liberal conspiracy to create a totalitarian world, and also a political tug-of-war between Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein.

Speaking of Michelle Obama's appearance via video link to hand out the best picture Oscar with Jack Nicholson, Limbaugh said:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/seth_macfarlane_to_rush_limbaugh_now_i_understand_why_conservatives_hate_the_media/feed/ 59 Jennifer Lawrence’s fall to grace http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/jennifer_lawrences_fall_to_grace/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/jennifer_lawrences_fall_to_grace/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:46:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211616 Last night, a debate broke out among our friends on whether the 22-year-old Jennifer Lawrence, now crowned by the academy as the best actress for her terrific performance in "Silver Linings Playbook," will have staying power. One insisted she was a flash in the pan. The rest of us, who first fell hard for her in "Winter's Bone," argued that she really does have the chops. Who can say, really. Remember, Dr. Haing S. Ngor won an Oscar for his brilliant performance in "The Killing Fields," and that was pretty much the last we saw of him. So, only time will tell how her career pans out, though she's poised — with the Hunger Games franchise, and a new deal to reteam with David O. Russell — to stick around for a while. Really, the question that lingers is: Why are young women held to such scrutiny?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/jennifer_lawrences_fall_to_grace/feed/ 22 The Onion’s hipster misogyny http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/the_onions_hipster_racism/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/25/the_onions_hipster_racism/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2013 18:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13211626

I turned off the Oscars a short while after M.C. Seth MacFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” routine. The skit was framed by a stern-looking William Shatner playing "Star Trek’s" Captain Kirk, returned from the future. He was chastising MacFarlane for the trashy routine that Kirk predicted he would soon be doing. There was very little funny about it, and a quick pan of the audience revealed a bunch of famous women not laughing — including Charlize Theron — who nevertheless “classed up” the trashy routine by following up with a ballroom-style dance with Channing Tatum.  I’m not sure how Theron felt about it, given her subsequent participation, but I’m assuming my response was somewhat shared by many of the straight-faced actors in the audience.

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