Koto is too black for Hollywood

What a country! We’re fighting terrorism around the globe, bringing peace and justice to the Middle East, and purifying our political system of every taint of corruption, but, still, we are not too busy to worry about the finer things in life, such as the Academy Awards. It’s a sign of racism, according to the left, that Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, and Sidney Poitier all received Oscars, because such recognition is so long overdue. Not so, say conservatives; there is no racism in Hollywood, and we’re proud to honor these great artists regardless of race. What a country.

Mr. Washington was apparently in a dead heat with Will Smith, who told the cameras that the African-American stars were nominated only because they deserved it. If that is so, it would be the first time in Hollywood history. The Oscars are not given out as a tribute to excellence in film, but as pats and hugs to make the “industry” feel good about itself. For several years, it was actresses playing hookers; other years it has been the handicapped or AIDS “victims.” This year it is African Americans. There is nothing wrong in the method. Hollywood lives on illusion and self-gratification, and to introduce objective standards into Hollywood would be like injecting morality into drug trafficking. The great thing about the Oscars is that they let the winners know, in Sally Field’s famous confession, “You like me, you really like me.” As Lord Melbourne said of the Garter: “I like the Garter; there is no damn merit in it.”

Miss Berry is an attractive girl, and that is more than can be said of Sally Field, and though I have not seen Monster’s Ball, it must have required something (if only a strong stomach) for Miss Berry to take off her clothes and have virtual with Billy Bob Thornton, but then, I suppose, that was the point of the movie: White people really are disgusting.

Will Smith, on the other hand, cannot even act as if he is acting, but Denzel Washington is a classic Hollywood type like James Stewart or Sylvester Stallone. Within a narrow range, he can be convincing, and his part is usually that of the “harmless Negro” who makes white conservatives feel good about themselves, a Sidney Poitier for the new millennium. Washington has more dignity than most screen actors, white or black, and the award was inevitable, though not necessarily this year. Of course, whenever Denzel steps outside the box--as in Kenneth Branaugh‘s disastrous production of Much Ado About Nothing, in which Denzel’s stick-figure Prince of Aragon speaks with an ebonic lisp--must be the Moorish influence.

There are black film actors with a broader range of convincing performances--Samuel L. Jackson and Yaphet Kotto, for example--but they are not so reassuring. Mr. Koto, unfortunately, seems stuck in a rut of villains and tough cops, while Mr. Jackson defies Hollywood by choosing to appear in small movies he believes in. Put another way, Koto is too black for Hollywood, and Jackson too militant. (As part of a student protest, he held several Moorhouse College trustees hostage--including Martin Luther King, Jr.) Denzel is just right.

The rest of the world is scarcely any better than America, but I don’t live in the rest of the world, and the spectacle of journalists and talking heads seriously discussing the politics of the Oscars is not encouraging. Hollywood is owned and operated by people who hate not only America but everything decent and good in the Western tradition. I’m not saying we should not go to movies. Otherwise decent married men have been caught watching a strip-tease act, and we think no ill of them, but if they marry the stripper or begin seriously discussing the ecdysiast’s art, we might suspect that something is wrong.

Topping the Oscar story was Rosie O’Donnell’s decision to come out of her glass closet to campaign for the rights of homosexuals to adopt children. Miss O’Donnell, who might politely be described as a TV presenter, is best known for her foul-mouthed comedy routines and a short-lived acting career that revealed that her talents were not quite up to the part of Betty Rubble in The Flintstones. Now, like so many other failed entertainers who make a second career by taking up causes--remember Ron Silver? Mike Farrell? Ed Asner?--she has made herself an expert on adoption.

Obviously off her diet and off her rocker, a strident Rosie was bellowing self-righteously to her fellow ex-/anti-Catholic Bill O’Reilly in an exclusive interview. When poor O’Reilly, as dumb as Rosie herself, ventured to suggest that maybe it was more “natural” for heterosexuals to adopt children, Rosie thundered out that, since 10 percent of every animal species are homosexuals, homosexual parenting is entirely natural. I wonder about the guppies, and I also wonder about how a “gay” tiger goes about making a pass.

Of course, homosexual behavior is commonly observed in caged animals and as a ritualized behavior among aggressive male mammals, but a primary orientation towards same-sex copulation is extremely rare in every species, including the human. Though in the zoo that American cities and suburbs have become, homosexuality is becoming increasingly common, the figure does not even remotely approach Miss O’Donnell’s 10 percent, but what if it did? Homosexuals have, by definition, eliminated themselves from the mating game.

Only a very sick society would consider giving adoption rights to homosexuals, but ours is a very sick society. This does not mean that a homosexual should not be permitted to adopt his orphaned nieces and nephews or rescue an abandoned child that comes his way. These are matters for families, not governments, to work out. I think my homosexual friends would be more morally responsible in taking care of children than most social workers, but that is not the point.

Then what is the point? It is to eliminate all distinctions of right and wrong, normal and not, us and them. The normal, hard-working and responsible Christian Americans who made this country and gave it whatever virtues it still possesses are to be put into the moral equivalent of concentration camps. We are the problem, while they--anyone that is not a straight white Christian male--are the solution. This is old hat for readers of Chronicles, but it is something we should remind ourselves of from time to time, lest in this upsurge of patriotism we get to thinking that this is still our country. There is nothing to be gained from pointing an accusing finger at Mr. Washington or Miss Berry. As Denzel will probably be saying in a forthcoming movie, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”