The Oscars Glitz and Delusion

I am an actor. Acting is my first art. It is often I think neglected as intangible and insignificant. Yet the Entertainment Industry has been the number one export of America. It is one of the fallacies I have experienced. I have had some woman in Florida tell me it was just pretending on Twitter. I have had men tell me I need to move on to them and give it up. I have to give up having fun and being a happy person who loves who I am and likes to expand my mind and explore my own emotions. I have to stop feeling and thinking and just be an animal in a body that can not be independent and individual? That is what I am fighting when I refuse to stop being an actor for others. It is my own identity. My own right to artistic Expression under the first Amendment. It is why I am angry with my UNION for ostracizing me because I am not worth a million a movie and no one will legally fight for me because I was not born with the right connections or with the right look. Yet I still refuse to move on and give up.

The Oscars were this week. I do not typically watch them. To me they are one day a year and span a few months of campaigning by the Hollywood top tiers. In truth they only represent a small part of the work for actors and from actors. Yet this year more than any before I am realizing how powerful that small part is. For months it eclipses the rest of the industry. Yet I question, is it still a beacon of HOPE.

I am a woman who loves acting. I do not do well with people outside of the acting art world. I just do not. IN my life the only times I felt whole and healthy and connected to others was when I was doing my craft. As a kid I would read books and lived in my head. I constantly made art and I did not realize that was what I was doing. I started writing poetry at 7 or 8. As soon as I learned to write I would play with words. They were my favorite toys. I suffered from the stigma I think many have that ART is very tangible. It is hung on a wall or sits on a pedestal. It is something to display and not something to experience. Yet this is not true. Because even the art on display is meaningless if we do not experience it. If we do not have a reaction to it then it is nothing.

I have been drowning in emotional pain, ostracized and bullied from being who I am cut off from my art. Yet I do not feel sane without my mind being free to play. It is disgusting to me that there are people who want me to be their ideal of sane- I have no emotional expression and I am cold and ruthless. I mean this. That is who I see the people who demanded I quit- A troll on twitter who is clearly mentally ill injured my sanity. This person or persons does not have the capacity to care about the damage. They want me to commit myself to a path that does not reflect who I really am,

To me the Oscars this year are a step backward. Someone I communicate on twitter expressed this. She described the Oscars as going back to 2005. When I requested an understanding, she informed me she chose 2005 because that was the year before YouTube took off. This years Oscars felt like they were made for a pre streaming age. I just looked and the ratings for the Oscars are at an all time low. I think there is a disjoint. I think this observation is significant. I think it says that the Oscars are losing the majority. I believe in excellence but their is a difference between quality and elitist arrogance.

The wealthy of Hollywood do not perceive the distance they have from the average American though in truth, I do not think they care. For example, recently Rose McGowan took to question the efforts of Natialie Portman and her support of Female Directors. I get both women and what they are trying to do. I think Portman maybe needs to hear the criticism and I hope she has. But I also think Portman wanted to promote a change. I also see McGowan’s pain who had to take a brave stand against very powerful people and speak out about sexual assault. I too am a victim of assault. I see that in desperation and a need to work many women have compromised their integrity to stay alive. It takes courage to speak out. I wish the public would recognize that. That is a reference to the ME TOO movement. It seems the OSCARS did not seem to be too political this year at all. Bombshell was nominated but on reflection that film lays the blame for the sexual assaults completely at the feet of Roger Ailes and paints a portrait of the rest of FOX as being above it. I question now how truthful it is. I also am biased now as many of the cast members of a film called THE MASTER have treated me poorly. Both Bombshell and the MASTER are ANNAPURNA FILMS. THE MASTER is also a WEINSTEIN production. Weinstein has been accused of assaulting 100 plus women. He is only on trial for a small percentage of his supposed crimes.

Weinstein and his trial. I did not hear anything in the news that ANYONE acknowledged what was going on with him or the countless women destroyed by HIM at the OSCARS. It is the most important event for women in the INDUSTRY who are ACTORS right now. Women are not whores. We are not objects. Slavery was supposed to be over in AMERICA in 1865. We have had the right to VOTE since 1920. 100 years this year. We need a PARTY for this. Someone on twitter actually referred to the woman a leading man dated over the years as whores. HE was like that guy should be considered the best because he has dated the best whores. How can women be safe in America if the women at the top who are the most visible are personified as objects and not people deserving of dignity and genuine concern. I should add that ANNAPURNA PICTURES made the film HUSTLERS.

I want to say I am happy Parasite Won for best film. I have an ex boyfriend who is Korean. I do not like him. But I am aware of how difficult Korea has had it. North Korea is a wasteland I think worse then Russia or China in its suppression of its people. They need HOPE. They need to be seen and heard. I actually joined TWITTER in 2009 to help get the two American Women journalists arrested in North Korea free. I am a person who does not like bullies and I do not like the suppression of individual thought or expression. I especially do not like the arrest of artists and journalists just for telling their truths. Though Parasite is South Korean it is still a significant accomplishment for all Koreans.

I wish the OSCARS were more diverse. I wish their were more women represented. Technically being a woman is considered being in a minority. We are over 50% of the population and yet we are treated as insignificant by media, awards shows, government, employees, and in our number one export.

I live in East Hollywood. It is not all glitz. The Oscars are held in a rather small pricey strip mall. It is one block of the city. Walk a block away and you have city urban life. You have people struggling to make a living. You also have many people with dreams and those dreams are not personified in the OSCARS. I think that for America to improve, the number one export needs to start getting a little more real with its art. For the quality of all work to improve it needs to become more HUMAN and less glitz. The OSCARS are a gift but one that is becoming less appealing because it is becoming more unattainable and less relatable. It is very political. But that politics is internal to Hollywood and not reflective of the politics of the people.

Maybe I am too Star Trek but I want the values of Star Trek to be real. Let people be who they are. The OSCARS are a facade of the elite. The real reason that Hollywood people are beautiful is not face lifts, but because the people in Hollywood eat better and live better than most Americans. There are people in America who need better food and a better way of life. I am not asking for socialism. I am asking for Hollywood and My UNION even to remember that this is a democracy and not an oligarchy. Maybe I am deluding myself. We are an oligarchy but on paper and historically we are not supposed to be. Again walk a block from where the Oscars and Jimmy Kimmel shoot and there are people just trying to survive.

I leave you with my favorite event from the Oscars this year besides Pitt and his comment about the 45 impeachment, Eminem “Lose Yourself.”