In the annals of Hollywood crybaby sagas, none climb to heights as high as those by the right-wing hissy-fitters responsible for 2016: Obama’s America. This alleged documentary starred, and was based on the book by, conservative shill Dinesh D’Zouza. It had some success at the box office due to the gullibility of Teabagging moviegoers, but was universally panned by objective critics, and its standards for accuracy and honesty were of the toilet bowl variety.
Nevertheless, the producers were so convinced of their own brilliance that they fumed when they did not get recognition from the documentary branch members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – who obviously know better. And now producer Gerald Molen has formalized his objections in a letter to the Academy that asks them to remove Governing Board member, and respected documentarian, Michael Moore from his post.
Unfortunately, this vacant bleating is nothing more than a lame cry for attention that fails to take into consideration that Moore has only one vote out of 172 members of the Academy’s documentary branch. He has no other role in choosing the winners or even selecting the nominees.
Molen’s letter made some rather egregious errors in enumerating the reasons for his pique. In addition to his ridiculous charge that Moore was among “the gatekeepers in charge of which films get nominated,” he repeatedly notes that the box office returns for his film count in some way toward whether it should be nominated for an Oscar. However, there is no correlation between financial success and creative merit. In fact, last year the next two highest grossing documentaries were “Chimpanzee” and “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” but neither of them received Oscar nominations either. Even Moore’s last film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” was not in Oscar contention despite being one of the biggest moneymakers of all time. Yet you didn’t hear any of these filmmakers whining about bias.
Molen complained in his letter that he was the victim of political bias saying, “Like many who enjoyed and commented on the film, I find myself wondering if it was excluded for ‘other’ reasons.” Indeed, it was. However the ‘other’ reasons had to do with how badly it sucked, as well as how poorly it adhered to the standards of truth-telling that determines the quality of a documentary feature. These reasons were articulated more diplomatically by the Academy in their response to Molen:
“We’ve discussed your letter and the concerns you raise. First of all, I want to assure you that 2016: Obama’s America was treated the same as all the other 125 films that were submitted in the Feature Documentary category for the most recent Academy Awards. Your film definitely received consideration and it was not ignored. It merely didn’t get the votes it needed to move onto the short list.”
Molen’s bitchfest was predictably taken up by Fox News on their lie-riddled Fox Nation web site. In an article sourced to the ultra-rightist NewsBusters, they regurgitated Molen’s complaints and expressed their disapproval that the documentary that won last year’s Oscar, “Searching for Sugar Man” was an undeserving winner because “‘2016’ sold ten times as many tickets.” Once again, they are mistaking money for merit, a common logical flaw suffered by conservatives.
This sort of unseemly sniveling by right-wing losers is nothing new. Specifically with regard to ‘2016,’ the principle character, Dinesh D’Souza threw a similarly distasteful tantrum just prior to the Oscar program last February. Instead of demonstrating some class and an appreciation for his fellow filmmakers, D’Souza rudely insulted them saying…
“I join most Americans in leaving them in deserved obscurity. I haven’t heard of any of them, and like most people, I haven’t seen them.”
How he determined that the nominees deserved obscurity without having even seen them is a mystery and says more about him than it does about the films. But the juvenile consistency shown by Molen and D’Souza is evidence of just how low these cretins will sink to unfairly disparage other artists in pursuit of their own ego-soaked self-interest.
