The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 260 - Oscar Night’s Big Winner: Trump!

On Sunday night, Moonlight shocked America by defeating heavily favored Best Picture contender La La Land. It won for one simple reason: intersectionality. Those in Hollywood decided that intersectionality should defeat Hollywood s self-aggrandizement this year. And this is how you know Hollywood is dying: They reward stories that appeal only to themselves, and reassure themselves of their importance every single year, either by making movies telling them how important they are, or by taking on the issue of the day in after-school special fashion. It doesn t make for good entertainment, which is why TV, which actually tells stories rather than getting hung up on the self-important nonsense of the movie industry, now outranks the movie business in terms of quality. Ben Shapiro breaks down everything that happened on Oscar night, and why it s no coincidence that an Oscars ceremony that opened with Kimmel tweaking President Trump ended with the Academy giving the Best Picture Oscar to Brokeback in Inner City Miami. Ben Shapiro is a writer and host of the podcast "The Ben Shapiro Show" and is a regular contributor at The Weekly Standard. He's also the host of "The Weekly Standard" and hosts the show "The View From The Top" on SiriusXM Radio's "Your Day Off" and "The Rachel Maddow Show." He's a frequent contributor for the New York Times, NPR, and the Hollywood Reporter. and a host of other media outlets. He can be reached at ben.shaperson@whatiwatched.co.nz and is on the air at 888-803-14131313. You can also become a Friend of The Ben Shapiro on social media by using the hashtag . and Ben Shapiro can be found on Insta: on Instapaper and Insta-Reeves on insta-lycie and Instapreneurs on . He also can be heard on The FiveThirtyEight on the Four Corners Podcast on , and on The Six Sigma , and The Six Degrees of Political Correctness on AIM, and The Five Things You Need to Know About Ben Shapiro: . Thanks for listening to Ben Shapiro's work on The Ben's Show. Ben's new book is out now: Ben's New Book is out on Amazon Prime Video is out! Subscribe to Ben's newest book is Out! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Podchaser and Subscribe on Itunes

00:00:00.000 On Sunday night, Moonlight shocked America by defeating heavily favored Best Picture competitor La La Land.

00:00:05.000 It won for one simple reason.

00:00:07.000 Those in Hollywood decided that intersectionality should defeat Hollywood's self-aggrandizement this year.

00:00:12.000 Here's the thing about Moonlight.

00:00:13.000 It's not a very good movie.

00:00:14.000 It's interesting in the way that all character studies are kind of interesting.

00:00:17.000 It's a look at a place and at a time and at a person, but it doesn't truly uplift or soar or actually do much of anything.

00:00:23.000 It won because the Academy voters preferred not to hear another year of griping about hashtag Oscars so white, and because those same voters could feel good about supposedly slapping Donald Trump in the face with diversity.

00:00:33.000 It's no coincidence that an Oscars ceremony that opened with Kimmel tweaking President Trump, remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars was racist?

00:00:41.000 Ended with the Academy giving the Best Picture Oscar to Brokeback Inner City Miami.

00:00:45.000 This isn't to say there can't be a great movie made about a black gay coming-of-age story.

00:00:49.000 There can, but this wasn't it.

00:00:51.000 This isn't the first time the Academy has bowed to political correctness rather than quality, of course.

00:00:55.000 And this year's Oscar battle featured two battling Hollywood priorities.

00:00:58.000 Honoring itself, and honoring the most politically correct picture of the year.

00:01:02.000 In recent years, this battle has become pretty much the entirety of the Best Picture race.

00:01:05.000 In 2014,

00:01:06.000 Hollywood rewarded its own importance with Birdman instead of the far superior Whiplash or American Sniper.

00:01:11.000 In 2013, Hollywood rewarded the rather forgettable 12 Years a Slave instead of Gravity or Dallas Buyers Club.

00:01:17.000 In 2012, Hollywood gave an Oscar to Argo.

00:01:19.000 Yay! 0.99

00:01:20.000 Hollywood does foreign policy! 0.98

00:01:21.000 Instead of Zero Dark Thirty or Lincoln.

00:01:23.000 In 2005, Hollywood had its biggest PC off in a Best Picture fight between Brokeback Mountain, Crash, and Munich.

00:01:29.000 Capote was actually a better picture than all of those three.

00:01:31.000 One of the reasons Hollywood no longer rakes in the big bucks other than on tentpole features is that it sees only the profound movies as those that center on intersectional concerns, upholding the virtue of identity politics or the importance of art itself, rather than movies that tell people stories that they want to see.

00:01:47.000 La La Land is a far better, more watchable movie than Moonlight, but there were at least three other movies that were better than either this year.

00:01:53.000 Hell or High Water, Arrival, and Hacksaw Ridge, and all three were nominated.

00:01:56.000 That doesn't include what I thought was the most entertaining flick of the year, 10 Cloverfield Lane.

00:02:00.000 Unfortunately for those pictures, they weren't concerned with black gay children or the wonders of Hollywood.

00:02:04.000 If somebody ever makes a movie about a half-black, half-Native American bisexual transgender trying to make his or her way in Hollywood, you can hand them the Oscar right now. 0.99

00:02:12.000 And this is how you know Hollywood is dying.

00:02:14.000 Instead of telling particular stories with general appeal, Hollywood tells stories that appeal only to themselves.

00:02:19.000 They reassure themselves of their importance every single year, either by making movies telling them how important they are, or by making movies trying to show how important they are by taking on the issue of the day in after-school special fashion.

00:02:31.000 It doesn't make for good entertainment, which is why TV, which actually tells stories rather than getting hung up on the self-important nonsense of the movie industry, now outranks the movie industry in terms of quality.

00:02:42.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:02:42.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:02:47.000 So we'll talk everything Oscars in just a minute.

00:02:49.000 We will also be talking about the Democrats picking a new leader and what you need to know about Tom Perez, that new leader.

00:02:55.000 But first, we have to say thank you to our sponsors over at My Patriot Supply.

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00:04:35.000 Okay, so, we can jump right into the Oscars.

00:04:38.000 So, the big winner at the Oscars last night was not Moonlight.

00:04:40.000 The big winner at the Oscars last night was Donald Trump.

00:04:43.000 That was the big winner at the Oscars last night, because Donald Trump basically could sit there and watch Hollywood make a mockery of itself.

00:04:50.000 Sally Cohn, one of my favorite people on the left of MSNBC and CNN fame, you remember her, hands up don't shoot, Sally Cohn tweeted out right before the Oscars that she hoped every single speech was political. 0.75

00:05:00.000 To which I tweeted, so does every Republican in the country.

00:05:03.000 We all want every speech to be political.

00:05:05.000 Because the more political these speeches are, the better off Republicans are, because watching all of these

00:05:11.000 All of these sort of comforted, rich, limousine liberal socialists ripping on America is really something that off-puts a lot of voters, and people react to that by voting for people on the Republican side of the aisle.

00:05:24.000 Hollywood has never driven people into the arms of the Democrats, except through kind of their subtle cultural moments, but they don't drive people into the arms of the Democrats by just shouting about how terrible Republicans are.

00:05:33.000 This is something that Hollywood gets wrong.

00:05:35.000 The stuff that Hollywood is good at

00:05:36.000 Creating story, creating character.

00:05:38.000 That stuff can help convince people that Democrats are right.

00:05:40.000 But it doesn't convince people Democrats are right when Marlon Brando sends up Sachin Littlefeather at the Oscars in 1973, a Native American spokeswoman, to pick up his award and rant and rave about how America's means to the Native Americans.

00:05:51.000 Nobody voted Democrat because of that.

00:05:53.000 And nobody voted Democrat in 2003 because Michael Moore got up at the Oscars and talked about the fictional president, George W. Bush, getting us into a fictional war.

00:06:01.000 Hollywood people think that we want to hear what they have to say.

00:06:03.000 We don't. 1.00

00:06:04.000 We want to hear the stories they have to tell, but we don't actually want to hear the things they have to say because the things they have to say are generally stupid. 0.99

00:06:09.000 They don't know anything about politics, so why in the world would we listen to them when it comes to politics? 0.98

00:06:14.000 But again, Hollywood doesn't know that, so instead what Hollywood does is they think that we're watching because we want to hear their opinions on politics.

00:06:20.000 So Jimmy Kimmel just couldn't help himself.

00:06:22.000 He opened up with a bunch of jokes about Trump.

00:06:23.000 Here were just a few of them.

00:06:24.000 And it was joke after joke about Donald Trump and how terrible Trump was, and look how wonderful we are, and we love Meryl Streep, and Meryl Streep's the best, because she made fun of Donald Trump that one time at some ceremony, and yeah, we love her, and sure, she was in a really crappy movie, Florence Foster Jenkins, that nobody ever saw, but it doesn't matter, because Meryl Streep, guys, Meryl Streep.

00:06:41.000 So, yeah, he does all of these jokes in a row about Donald Trump, and we're all supposed to sit there and be like, yeah, this is great, yeah!

00:06:48.000 The real reaction is, can you guys get over yourselves, please?

00:06:51.000 Really, this is the best that you can do?

00:06:53.000 These are your best jokes about Donald Trump, calling him racist?

00:06:55.000 And calling, presumably, the people who voted for him racist?

00:06:58.000 That's a great way to alienate an audience that's already not watching any of your Best Picture nominees.

00:07:02.000 Nothing that was nominated for Best Picture this year did well at the box office.

00:07:05.000 I think the only exception, as far as a movie that did well at the box office, was Arrival.

00:07:10.000 I'm not aware of any other movie that was nominated for Best Picture this year that did over $100 million in business.

00:07:14.000 Did Arrival end up doing $100 million in business?

00:07:15.000 If it did, it was real close.

00:07:17.000 It was not a blockbuster blowout out of the ballpark.

00:07:21.000 It was a good movie.

00:07:21.000 I enjoyed it.

00:07:22.000 But all of the movies that were nominated this year, again, were seen by pretty much the people in this particular room.

00:07:27.000 And then it didn't stop there.

00:07:28.000 The self-aggrandizement of Hollywood is just unending.

00:07:32.000 Viola Davis won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Suicide Squad.

00:07:36.000 No, no, no, sorry.

00:07:37.000 It was, it was, no, not for Suicide Squad.

00:07:39.000 It was, it was for her role in, uh, what was the name of that movie?

00:07:41.000 Fences, Fences.

00:07:43.000 Sorry.

00:07:43.000 Sorry, I got that wrong.

00:07:45.000 Um, but Viola Davis, who was, I thought she was fantastic in Suicide Squad. 0.99

00:07:48.000 That's why I thought that she had to win.

00:07:50.000 So was that guy who, like, shot fire from his fingers and everything.

00:07:52.000 Anyway, Viola Davis, she gets up and she gives this speech.

00:07:55.000 We're the only profession, the only one, that celebrates what it means to live a life?

00:08:00.000 So I was complaining before this show started today that I'm kind of tired.

00:08:04.000 You know the reason I'm kind of tired today?

00:08:05.000 Because my wife has woken up the last several mornings at 4 o'clock in the morning to go into the hospital because she is a doctor and she's in her residency, which means she's getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to help people who in some cases are terminally ill.

00:08:17.000 Clearly the only profession that cares about living a life, that honors and celebrates living a life, is Hollywood.

00:08:22.000 And it's so just, bleh, when Viola Davis says stuff like this, the fact is, the vast majority of people in the United States work jobs where they're helping each other live better lives.

00:08:32.000 But the artists have to pat themselves on the back, and this is what I was saying at the very beginning, the artists in Hollywood have to make themselves feel important one of two ways, because otherwise they're just reading lines for a living and wearing funny costumes.

00:08:41.000 So they have to make themselves feel important in one of two ways.

00:08:43.000 One is, they make important stories.

00:08:45.000 Right?

00:08:46.000 We're going to make a story about a black gay youth living in Miami.

00:08:49.000 Right?

00:08:49.000 That's going to be the thing that makes us important.

00:08:52.000 Or, alternatively, we have to talk about how important we are to everybody else.

00:08:56.000 Now, I don't get on the air every morning and talk about how important my job is.

00:08:59.000 I don't.

00:09:00.000 Because it's either important to you or it's not important to you, but I don't have to preach how important what I do is to you, because you'll decide for yourself.

00:09:06.000 And I think that's true for the vast majority of people.

00:09:08.000 When you call a plumber, he doesn't show up to your house and go, you know what?

00:09:11.000 It's really important I fix your toilet today. 0.99

00:09:13.000 I'm the guy who stands between you and crap running over your floor. 0.96

00:09:16.000 The plumber doesn't do that. 0.99

00:09:17.000 He just goes and he fixes your stuff.

00:09:19.000 But the artist community, because they understand that people sort of see them as frivolous, they feel the necessity to go out and talk about how special they are all the time.

00:09:27.000 And this is not underestimating art.

00:09:28.000 I love art.

00:09:29.000 I love the movies.

00:09:30.000 I love books.

00:09:31.000 I love plays.

00:09:32.000 I drew.

00:09:32.000 I love the arts.

00:09:33.000 I grew up in the arts.

00:09:34.000 My dad was somebody in the arts.

00:09:35.000 My mom is somebody in the arts.

00:09:37.000 My sister is somebody in the arts.

00:09:38.000 Two of my sisters are people in the arts.

00:09:40.000 I love the arts.

00:09:41.000 They're fantastic.

00:09:42.000 You know, I write novels.

00:09:43.000 I love the arts, but

00:09:44.000 You know, art is wonderful, it's enriching, it can connect us to each other, but the utter arrogance, the true arrogance of saying the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life, I mean, that's really astounding.

00:09:53.000 You know who else celebrates?

00:09:54.000 Like, literally everyone does.

00:09:55.000 You know who else celebrates what it means to live a life?

00:09:57.000 Morticians, right?

00:09:59.000 I mean, they actually put together the funeral arrangements where we remember people.

00:10:03.000 There's also something that's really, it's really high-handed about saying that only the lives we choose to honor in Hollywood are the important ones, right?

00:10:10.000 She said in this speech,

00:10:11.000 She said, there's one place all the people with the greatest potential are gathered, the graveyard.

00:10:15.000 People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?

00:10:18.000 And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories, the stories of the people who dream big and never saw those dreams to fruition.

00:10:24.000 And this kind of stuff goes over big in Hollywood.

00:10:26.000 Ooh, the dreams.

00:10:27.000 Ooh, the dreams.

00:10:29.000 But the reality is, the vast majority of people in the graveyard, their stories will never be told.

00:10:33.000 But they are still remembered by their family.

00:10:35.000 Their impact is still felt.

00:10:37.000 Your life doesn't end when your life ends unless Viola Davis exhumes you and makes a story about you, you know, that's not even real, right?

00:10:44.000 Unless a fictional story about a person who never existed.

00:10:47.000 No, what actually makes your life important is the friends and family around you and the way you impact the world in a better way and the way that you do honorable things for friends and neighbors and make the world a better place.

00:10:55.000 That's how you make the world a better place.

00:10:57.000 There are a lot of people who are remembered who are really evil.

00:10:59.000 That doesn't make them more important.

00:11:00.000 It doesn't make them more special.

00:11:02.000 Being remembered by people who actually matter is, I think, more important than Viola Davis remembering you.

00:11:07.000 And the idea that Hollywood is what confers value on people is really kind of gross.

00:11:11.000 I mean, another element of this, and some people liked it, some people hated it, I didn't like it, was Jimmy Kimmel did this routine where he ushered in a bunch of people off the Hollywood tour bus directly into the Oscars, and here's what it looked like.

00:11:21.000 See, the whole point of this little shtick here is to demonstrate just how special Hollywood is.

00:11:25.000 It's so special that you can bring people in off the street, and then you can show them just how magical Hollywood is.

00:11:29.000 I mean, look at all these important people.

00:11:31.000 And look at all these ne'er-do-well rubes, you know, just walking out. 1.00

00:11:34.000 What an honor for them!

00:11:35.000 What an honor for them!

00:11:36.000 We brought in the peasantry off the street, and now the peasants get to hobnob with the hoi polloi. 0.99

00:11:41.000 They get to be among the stars.

00:11:43.000 See, what would have been great, honestly, and what would have been funnier, is if Kimmel had, before this, taken a bunch of the stars to visit people on their actual jobs.

00:11:50.000 They make movies about these actual jobs.

00:11:54.000 It would be really funny to take Chris Pine, for example, in Hell or High Water, and take him to an oil derrick, and show him the people working in oil derrick, right?

00:12:02.000 Or it would be really funny to take Nicole Kidman and take her down to the local plumber's union and have her see what people are actually doing over there. 0.99

00:12:08.000 Because that would have said, okay, look, we're Hollywood and we know what we do is kind of frivolous and it brings meaning to some people, but

00:12:14.000 We're good to go.

00:12:34.000 Attitude toward the people who live in the middle of the country that are a bunch of rednecks and rubes. 1.00

00:12:38.000 It also manifests itself in terms of politics, and we're going to talk more about that in just a second.

00:12:42.000 But for that, you have to go over to dailywire.com right now and subscribe.

00:12:45.000 You go over to dailywire.com, eight bucks a month will make you a subscriber to dailywire.com.

00:12:49.000 You can see the rest of the show live and check it out over there.

00:12:52.000 You can also get an annual subscription right now at dailywire.com.

00:12:55.000 You get a free copy of a piece of entertainment that's actually conservative, The Arroyo.

00:12:59.000 If you watched it on Friday, we live streamed the film so you could actually see it.

00:13:02.000 The Arroyo is a fictional film set

00:13:04.000 Thank you.

The Ben Shapiro Show - March 07, 2017

Ep. 260 - Oscar Night’s Big Winner: Trump!

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