Sarah Lenti
The blog that I was planning to write last night went up in flames…
Let me explain.
The plan was to write a rapid response piece to all the snarky, ill-willed and unfounded political comments that were supposed to be made at last night’s 82nd Academy Awards (following in true form after eight years of disgusting commentary on an administration that, quite frankly, gave wind to The Hurt Locker – and, oh, by the way – the democratic elections that took place in Iraq yesterday).
In expectation of writing this exciting blog post, I e-mailed what was supposed to be my opening few sentences to Heath:
“So, if you’re going to talk about it – politics – and, at the Academy Awards, no less… then I am going to blog about it.
“My sister and I have always believed that Washington D.C. is Hollywood for ugly people. And, on the flip, that Hollywood is the Ivy Leagues for not-so-smart people.
“Let the games begin. I am keeping tally of all the good, bad and ugly comments made at this 82nd Academy Awards.”
The problem: There was absolutely zero fuel for the fodder. And, therefore, my original blog post went up in the air, or up in flames. Take your pick.
For @(#@’s sake – Alec Baldwin didn’t even have anything outrageous, offensive or on-point for me to argue with. Neither did Tina Fey. Why?
• Is this Administration simply immune from comment? Or…
• Is the Academy just trying to set an example for Congress? (You know – let’s play nice, let’s vote from the heart, let’s not be uber-political or money-derived!)
Instead of any fire(y) political mish-mash, we were fed a very odd/wrong five minutes of interpretive dance torture. (Wow… the Academy needs to fix that next year. What was that? If anyone has any insight at all, please comment.)
The take-aways from the night, for me, were actually astounding. I won’t attempt to blog on them all in one evening… so stay tuned for additional commentary later in the week. That said, let me make just a few observations on our winner, The Hurt Locker.
Observation 1 – at a time when the Congress is telling us that spending is more, the academy just demonstrated that spending less is more.
• The Wall Street Journal notes that, “In a David-and-Goliath style showdown, ‘The Hurt Locker’ became the lowest-grossing film ever to win the Oscar for best picture, beating out the most successful movie in history, ‘Avatar’ for the film industry’s highest honor.”
• At a time when the economy is in such distress, it was nice and rather comforting to view a non-flashy flic.
Observation 2 – at a time when America is struggling with how to think about Iraq, Afghanistan and the legacy of what is left to endure in the region, a woman (Kathryn Bigelow) just produced a movie that, in her own words, “avoided political persuasion… neither left, nor right.” Bravo.
• How wonderful.
• Thank you for producing a movie that gives credit where and to whom credit is due. Our military.
• Thank you for not making this a political commentary.
• Thank you also for giving us insight into importance of our servicemen. (The movie really was all about servicemen… and she caught it… more on that later.)
• Also, thank you for giving us insight as to the dangers of what war can do to the psyche of men. The last scene – the crib scene – said it all. I’d rather trade in my son for an IED souvenir.
Lenti currently works as a policy consultant and advisor to Republican Party leaders, executives and candidates. She has worked in New Mexico and other states on presidential and congressional races and has a background in national security. Contact her at sarah.lenti@gmail.com.