So, the Oscars tanked. Are you surprised? The pundits are. They just can't believe it. And they're blaming the Europeans.
In one sense I don't have a problem with that. Why not blame the Europeans? Of course, it would be a lot more palpable to me if they narrowed the field down to the French.
But seriously, more than 75 percent of the news stories that I have perused since last Sunday's Awards show – and I've looked at hundreds of them – blame the Europeans for the poor ratings.
To be fair, there is some merit to the claim.
All four of the major acting awards went to relative unknowns from Europe.
And the movies in which those Europeans played all tanked at the box office.
Clearly, America isn't as enamoured with European talent as the critics are.
Oh sure, Europe has its uses. It's a nice place to go on vacation. And certainly in a world dominated by political correctness, it is nice to know that Europe has become the reservoir continent for the West. Europe is the multicultural mecca (even more tied to that ideology than Canada), and as an ethno-filter, it acts as a buffer for America, ensuring that for the near future at least, Islamo-fascism will tend to migrate to Europe at a proportionally greater rate. But immigration trends, both legal and illegal, will eventually change that.
In any event, the pundits seem pretty adamant that the Oscars failed because of the headline talent. And after having spent the better part of January extolling the artistic genius of the Europeans, they have basically reversed their position to save face.
Clearly, their loyalties rest with Hollywood, not Europe. After all, Hollywood and the Oscars are about as American as apple pie.
The critics are right about one thing – did I mention that the Oscars tanked?
Nielsen Media Research says an estimated 32 million viewers watched the three-and-a-half-hour telecast. That may sound pretty good if you don't pay attention to TV ratings, but the number is actually down 21 percent from last year's ceremony – hosted by Ellen Degenerate – making this year's awards show the lowest rated Oscars ever.
To put this into even more perspective, this year's show actually repelled viewers! What began with the dismal opening rating of 32 million viewers in its first half-hour actually disintegrated into a show that averaged 25 million in its final hour. And the rating records reveal that most viewers who did tune in only stayed with the program for an average of 6 minutes.
When you compare those figures to this year's Super Bowl, which raked in 93 million viewers, almost all of them glued to the boob tube from start to finish, you get the picture.
And if that weren't bad enough for the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the biggest single drop in viewership this year came in the 18-40 age group, the demographic most coveted by the TV executives at ABC.
Like I said, the Oscars tanked.
Network executives did their best to spin the ratings debacle, noting that this year's "Oscars did better than any of the other award shows including NBC's Golden Globes." And with perforated pride, they added that "the Oscars fared very well in all major city centers like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles."
Call it schadenfreude, but I actually take comfort in the misfortunes of both the Oscars and Hollywood. And that shouldn't come as any surprise. I've written as much in several columns last year.
But this time, I have to say the pundits have it all wrong. Hollywood's failures have very little to do with the nationality of the actors or the movie producers. And it isn't even the writer's strike. The Oscars tanked for two reasons.
First, Americans are becoming better-educated consumers.
Very few American moviegoers are going to spend their money at the box office to be lectured and preached to by Eurocrats telling them that America is a greedy, unsavory, money-grubbing, oil-gluttonous and environmentally plundering capitalist globetrotting pig. It's bad enough when the coke-snorting Hollywood elite do it – which is why movies like "Rendition" and producers like Robert Redford all had failures this year. Americans just aren't going to pay $12.50 (and that doesn't even include a drink and popcorn) knowing that the European interlopers are going to pocket a portion of the box-office proceeds after they face-slap every American in the theater.
Hollywood and its media minions naturally reject this analysis.
Noted film critic, writer and broadcaster Leonard Maltin put it this way: "The Oscars are supposed to honor excellence … should they suddenly start nominating 'Spider-man 3' and 'Alvin and the Chipmunks'?" Then he added, "It's an awards ceremony that happens to be a TV show, and not the other way around. People need to remember that. I say, God bless the Academy for maintaining its standards."
Yes indeed, Mr. Maltin. God bless the Academy. But His blessing might not be what you'd expect, which gets us to the second and most important reason for the Oscar failure. I believe God's blessing is taking the form of some good old-fashioned Old Testament heart-hardening.
Remember when God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that He could make an example of the Egyptians and rescue the children of Israel? The more Hollywood insists on proliferating its godless, anti-American, left-wing, conservative-mocking liberal propaganda, the more I'm convinced that God in His wisdom is hardening the hearts of liberal Hollywood elites so that they will eventually fall on the sword of their own making.
And whether He's using the greed that was part of the writers strike, pathetic anti-American movies or European sycophants makes absolutely no difference.
As I've written before, I believe Hollywood is dying. It is an industry that's taken almost a billion dollar hit, with potentially even more losses to come, and it's thankfully becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Oh. Did I mention that the Oscars tanked?
Related special offers:
"Help! Mom! Hollywood's in my Hamper"