Politics always sneaks in the Oscar gala, generally through Democratic-leaning comments, since “celebrities” like to wash their billionaire conscience by adhering to the liberal-progressive cause of the moment: “Barbie” feminism, “Gore” environmentalism or “Black Panther” (anti)racism ». In this installment, the presenter Jimmy Kimmel He “joked” wondering if Trump shouldn’t already be in jail.
The presidential elections are close and part of the elites (whether from the Pentagon, Silicon Valley or Hollywood) are nervous about a possible return of Trump. Interestingly, one of the hysterical fears stirring in 2016 was that Trump might press the red nuclear button. Today it is ironic, being -now yes- on the brink of a third nuclear world war (it is not known whether with Russia, China, Iran, Korea or several of them). And all thanks to the Biden Government!
And it is even more ironic that one of the winning films at the ceremony is Oppenheimer, whose plot revolves around the atomic bomb. The most revealing thing is its ending, of which we will make a “spoiler” below (or, put without anglicisms: that we are going to spoil the film). The last scene shows a kind of prophetic vision in which the scientist Oppenheimer witnesses the nuclear holocaust and the destruction of the planet.
What is most worrying is not the proliferation of the weapon that Oppenheimer brought to the world, but the proliferation among our elites of his terrible “the ends justify any means” mentality. Although the film tiptoes over it, Oppenheimer participated in the decision to use the bomb against Japanese civilians. He even proposed to personally attack the ancient capital of Kyoto, with thousands of Buddhist temples and world heritage sites. The idea was dismissed as excessive by the US military itself, who chose Hiroshima and Nagasaki (with equally criminal but less culturally scandalous criteria). Oppenheimer never regretted the use given to his creation, maintaining to the end of his days that it would have served to force a quick surrender of Japan that ended World War II without wasting more lives. Today we know, thanks to revisionist historians like Gar Alperovitz or Howard Zinn, that this reasoning was a hoax, that Japan was going to surrender anyway and that the bombs were dropped to intimidate the Soviet Union.
Russia continues to be, years after the Cold War, an obsession for the US that even penetrates the Oscars. Last year, the statuette for best documentary went to “Navalny,” a propaganda piece produced by the American CNN about the recently deceased Russian dissident. This year, the “in memoriam” video (the classic images of famous people who died during the course) began with Navalny himself, in a scene from the documentary in which he speculated about his possible future assassination. Although the hypothesis that his death was ultimately caused by Russia is ruled out even by the Ukrainian intelligence service, “The Academy” also hints at it.
The Academy Awards 2024 In Memoriam tribute | #Oscars pic.twitter.com/4SEzym7WIG
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 11, 2024
In addition, the same documentary award that in 2023 went to “Navalny” has been, in 2024, for “20 days in Mariupol”, a Ukrainian production that was withdrawn from a festival in Serbia for being considered “anti-Russian propaganda.” The film portrays the devastating living conditions under the military siege to which Russia subjected said city between February and May 2022. The documentary recovers images as emblematic as that of Marianna Vyshemirsky, pregnant and injured after a Russian bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital. Later, she herself would deny having been a victim of a Russian bombing but rather of a possible Ukrainian artillery attack. She also claimed that journalists had recorded her against her will to use her as a propaganda tool, as we just saw at the Dolby Theatre. And she further confirmed Moscow’s narrative that the hospital complex was taken over by soldiers.
This is literally what this fanfic masquerading as a “documentary” got the Oscars for – one big fat lie. pic.twitter.com/pGC1SkQHjX
— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) March 11, 2024
The Ukrainian National Guard barely appears in the documentary, which focuses on terrible civilian suffering. This conceals the uncomfortable reality that the defense of Mariupol was led by the «Azov Regiment», an ultra-nationalist unit with neo-Nazi elements that had settled in the city since 2014 after repressing its inhabitants, expelling part of its population and torturing dissidents. These previous eight years of terror do not appear in the documentary, nor does the era after 2022, in which Mariupol has been rebuilt as Russian territory and has suffered periodic long-range missile attacks by the Ukrainian military (including health facilities such as the Yalta Health Center).
Evidently, the documentary serves as a tool of US cognitive warfare against Russia, showing the horrors of the Russian army while hiding those of the «Azov». And it is not the first time that the documentary Oscars whitewash extremist armed groups, for the greater glory of American geopolitics. In 2017 he was awarded “White Helmets”, an advertorial about the Syrian opposition, closely related to Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Jonathan Glazer’s speech also pointed towards the Middle East, who collected the Oscar for best foreign film for The area of interest. His film chronicles the idyllic life of a family of Nazi officials, just a wall away from the Auschwitz crematoriums. The director decided to compare this frivolous situation with that of Israelis who, today, go about their daily lives oblivious to the genocide that their country is unleashing on the other side of the fence in Gaza. “I refuse to let Jewish identity and the memory of the Holocaust be hijacked by an occupation government that has brought conflict to so many innocent people.”, he claimed. Glazer, a Jew, thus attacked the fundamental argument of the state of Israel: that every Jew should support Zionism, which is responsible for any crime after what was suffered in the Holocaust.
Glazer has said that he is not interested in World War II films that serve to say “look what was done back then”, but rather in reflecting on “what we are doing now”, because “dehumanization is a thing of the past and of the present. His words have been quickly answered from Israel by Amichai Chikli, minister for the diaspora and anti-Semitism, who called Glazer an “anti-Semitic Jew,” abounding in the rhetoric that no Jew could criticize the state of Israel. Chikli also took issue with the comparison between Nazism and Zionism, which would supposedly trivialize the crimes of the former. Curious, coming from a minister who has stated that the moderate Palestinian Authority is “a neo-Nazi entity.”
Despite the warmongering efforts of more and more countries, the 96th edition of the Oscars left us with a massive demonstration at the doors of the building for an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, as well as the dedication of its award by the lead actor of Oppenheimer: for all those who—even in the current situation—continue to work for peace.