The Force Awakens to win Academy Award for diversity?
Manohla Dargis writes in the NY Times:
[D]irector J. J. Abrams (and his team) also provided moviegoers with more than just competency and characters; he created a sequel that complicates a pop myth with its real-world diversity. “The Force Awakens” may not be anywhere near as beautiful-looking as “The Revenant” or as provocative a critical plaything as “The Hateful Eight,” but it does more than get the job done. And while its populism is commercially driven, it feels as if it’s trying to appeal to more than cultists, critics or the Academy — which may itself be an argument for it as best picture.
So a mediocre movie is supposed to win an Academy Award for best picture, even though the original and much better movie it was copied from failed to win that award, merely because the new movie has “real-world diversity.”?
What they should do is retroactively take back the best picture award from Annie Hall and give it to Star Wars the original. Annie Hall is a cute movie and worth watching (and I especially enjoyed the scene where Diane Keaton orders a corned beef sandwich on white bread with mayonnaise at Katz’s Deli), but it’s no Star Wars. (On the other hand, maybe Annie Hall is a quintessential 70s movie in the way that St. Elmo’s Fire is a quintessential 80s movie, although the latter movie was not thought of as being in any way Oscar-worthy.)
Lion of the Blogosphere 
American civilization will have officially jumped the shark if Force Awakens wins Best Film.
DdR
January 6, 2016 at 10:01 AM
“And the award for Best Associated Merchandise Collection goes to …”
Glengarry
January 6, 2016 at 11:14 AM
I think they may be disappointed with the merchandise sales after this one. Unless I am mistakes, little boys’ parents are the main buyers of Star Wars toys, lunchboxes, etc. However they put no strong male lead in the movie. Does a white or Asian boy (the most likely to have parents with disposable income) want to buy a figure of Rey, the super girl? Or the bumbling black sidekick? Or the never-seen Venezuelan pilot guy?
The writers clearly are too stupid or too pozzed to understand that the underlying theme of Star Wars is the father/son, teacher/student dynamic, that it is about a male adolescent growing up to become a powerful man, and coming to understand and accept his deficient father. That is what was driving those toy sales. Nor just the spaceships and light saber duels.
I guess that is just too hard too accept for the metrosexual communists who must have written the latest installment. Giving an obvious male heir to Skywalker, with whom boys world over could have identified, would have supported the patriarchy after all.
Lowe
January 6, 2016 at 3:08 PM
“Or the never-seen Venezuelan pilot guy?”
I would never have known he was anything other than white if I hadn’t read on the internet that he was Latino.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 6, 2016 at 4:33 PM
Everyone that is a white male is either old or evil. Everyone that is a NAM or woman is good and strong. That’s not reflecting real-world diversity, that’s a big FU to beta white males.
DdR
January 6, 2016 at 5:23 PM
It’s worth noting you almost never hear this about non accomplished white looking hispanics
Lloyd Llewellyn
January 6, 2016 at 7:42 PM
@ LotB
I went in the movie having heard from you, or someone else, that Oscar Isaac was practically white. I disagree. I could tell instantly that he was not white, and children will be able to as well.
This is beside the point though, because the guy is barely in the movie. He’s in the first 15 minutes then the last 20, or something like this. He has few lines and is absent for almost all the action. Even if they do bother to give him more than a supporting role in the next one, it’s a little late.
Lowe
January 7, 2016 at 11:28 AM
George Zimmerman (cough)
Glengarry
January 7, 2016 at 11:33 AM
Per your own terms, if you’re going to revoke Annie Hall’s Oscar and award it to another film from 1977, that film ought to be “Saturday Night Fever.”
martinslag
January 6, 2016 at 10:57 AM
Oh yeah, maybe Saturday Night Fever is the quintessential 70s movie. Or maybe it’s too focused on guidos to represent the entire decade for the entire country. But SNF is definitely the quintessential guido movie.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 6, 2016 at 11:03 AM
SNF did not define the 70s (maybe only in the NYC-Tristate Area). Another guido movie the Godfather and the subsequent film, would be more influential. Despite IAs clamoring about Hollywood’s depiction of greaseballs being dumb guidos, the Godfather proved otherwise. Michael Corleone was Ivy League educated.
JS
January 6, 2016 at 12:31 PM
FWIW, SNF was Gene Siskel’s favorite move of all time.
ScarletNumber
January 6, 2016 at 5:41 PM
Sure, why not. Give it twenty Oscars for real-world diversity. The only regret is they can’t give Tarantino another twenty for his Hateful Eight. (… Or perhaps they can? Just throwing that out there.)
Glengarry
January 6, 2016 at 11:13 AM
I was watching Grease (from 1978) the other day. The lead actors and main supporting actors are all white. i.e all of the T-Birds and Pink Ladies are white. I think it would be pretty much impossible to make a movie like that today. The unwritten rule is that there needs to be at least one sympathetic main black character.
Even if the movie is taking place in an American high school in the 1950s. Either they will sacrifice historical accuracy and just plop in a cool black person without explanation. Or they will cast a Wise Groundskeeper or similar role.
If this new Star Wars movie wins Best Picture, this trend is likely to get worse.
All of this is part of the reason I hardly ever go to the movies any more. The point of a movie is to escape from reality for a while. If I wanted to have political correctness crammed down my throat, there are much easier ways to do it.
sabril
January 6, 2016 at 11:26 AM
Diverse-icrats are utterly soulless idiots. They have no ability to see and value, beauty, or substance outside of diversity.
It’s like the Virginia Tech massacre. The black poet laureate of the school found comfort in the fact that the victims were diverse!
fakeemail
January 6, 2016 at 11:34 AM
The 70s were a fantastic decade in movies; maybe the best ever certainly in terms of the truly great blockbuster that truly captured the imagination; as opposed to the video game crapfests that are mass produced today by Disneycorp.
Godfather, JAWS, Rocky, Star Wars, Superman The Movie. . .Just the best stuff ever.
fakeemail
January 6, 2016 at 11:38 AM
Taxi Driver is my favorite film of all time. One of these days, I’m gonna get organizized.
slithy toves
January 6, 2016 at 1:37 PM
Two great 70s vigilante movies: Death Wish and Taxi Driver. In both, real men refuse to take the savagery any longer, stand up and begin to eradicate the vermin that roam the streets.
Lewis Medlock
January 6, 2016 at 2:08 PM
The vigilantes from movies that conservatives enjoy are meant to be seen as bad guys and mentally insane.
fakeemail
January 6, 2016 at 5:01 PM
“Two great 70s vigilante movies: Death Wish and Taxi Driver. In both, real men refuse to take the savagery any longer, stand up and begin to eradicate the vermin that roam the streets”
i really didn’t see Taxi Driver that way. His vigilantiism was portrayed not as a noble defence of soceity, but rather the desperation of an alienated loser trying to achieve some value and meaning in his life through an act of heroism. His ‘you looking at me’ scene in front of the mirror hardly portrayed him as a ‘real man’ rather a powerless fantasist.
prolier than thou
January 6, 2016 at 5:46 PM
I’ve said this here before, but the Oscars are an industry awards show that is taken way too seriously. The awards they hand out might mean something in the technical categories that no one outside Hollywood pays attention to, and they try to make sure that every major screen actor and screen actress wins at least one Oscar at some point during their career. But the “Best Picture” awards have always been jokes. Some of them have been given to movies that are actually bad and not worth watching. There are various awards given by actual movie critics that should be taken semi-seriously.
But yes, they missed on the original “Star Wars”, one of the classic movies of all time. I agree with LOB that no one has quite managed to make a good additional “Star Wars” movie, and this includes the overrated “Empire Strikes Back.” It would be a worse joke than usual if a generic Hollywood action adventure movie, packaged as a Star Wars movie, is even considered for best picture, given that all the other “Star Wars” movies and all the other modern generic action adventure movies don’t get this treatment.
Ed
January 6, 2016 at 1:16 PM
Just imagine how many Oscars the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot will win…
With it’s HOT all female cast, and i bet the ghosts will be white…
They must be, and at least one of those ghosts has to be a confederate!
Lesbians hunting them cracker ghosts, who doesn’t want to see that?
guest
January 6, 2016 at 2:13 PM
Lesbians hunting them cracker ghosts
Attendance at this will be mandatory, upon pain of losing gov’t benefits.
bomag
January 6, 2016 at 5:24 PM
“Mommy, why are the spooks white?”
Glengarry
January 7, 2016 at 5:38 AM
“What they should do is retroactively take back the best picture award from Annie Hall and give it to Star Wars the original.”
“Annie Hall” is the quintessential New York Jewish film. And the 70s was the decade in which Jews, after decades of striving, finally took over from the desiccated WASP aristocracy to become the premiere cultural leaders in America. “Annie Hall” was their coming out statement, and giving it Best Picture was basically Jews in New York and Hollywood saying to America “we’ve arrived.”
“Star Wars” on the other hand is like an old WASP cowboy movie with space ships. There’s usually some kind of political statement behind the Best Picture selection, in some years more than others of course.
I didn’t go through the entire list, but I think “Annie Hall” was the first explicitly Jewish movie to win. Notice how the next couple of years saw more Jewish-centric best pictures.
1978 – “The Deer Hunter” — not Jewish, but anti-war, which most Jews were. A big political statement.
1979 – “Kramer vs Kramer” — Jew vs Jew
1980 – “Ordinary People” — messed up WASP kid helped by Jewish psychiatrist (terrible movie)
1981 – “Chariots of Fire” — English Jew runs to overcome anti-Semitism! (never saw it)
peterike
January 6, 2016 at 5:04 PM
While I can’t disagree that Annie Hall was a Jewish movie, the rest of this stuff is nonsense.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 6, 2016 at 5:35 PM
Did everyone here see the critical comments by George Lucas last week?:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/movies/george-lucas-criticizes-latest-star-wars-installment.html?_r=0
Camlost
January 6, 2016 at 5:08 PM
He says the film is “too retro” and that he envies filmmakers from the Soviet Union.
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 6, 2016 at 5:39 PM
Katz’s is from When Harry Met Sally. To be fair, it’s an Annie Hall ripoff.
ScarletNumber
January 6, 2016 at 5:44 PM
You will know that PC has got REALLY out of hand if in the next Star Wars film they change ‘The Force’ to ‘The Consent’.
prolier than thou
January 6, 2016 at 5:59 PM
I’m not big on JJ Abrams, but I think “Cloverfield” was a much better movie than TFA.
Camlost
January 6, 2016 at 8:58 PM
…
You’re right, Cloverfield was a much better movie, but it was directed by Matt Reeves,
who also directed Let Me In and Dawn of Planet of the Apes.
Abrams was only the producer of Cloverfield.
…
Nedd Ludd
January 7, 2016 at 12:18 AM
Ok, finally saw the new Star Wars movie, so I could read this post without spoilers.
Annie Hall deserved the Oscar that year. It was a far better movie than Star Wars. Granted, I wouldn’t have said that in 1977, because I was 6. But I’ll watch Annie Hall again when it comes on cable next time. I won’t watch Star Wars.
Dave Pinsen
January 11, 2016 at 2:51 AM