The Michael Knowles Show - Oscar News & Some Disney Employees Hate WOKE Agenda

00:00:00.000 I'm very pleased to be joined now by my friend Megan Basham, a reporter for The Daily Wire,

00:00:11.440 a Rotten Tomatoes critic, the author of Beside Every Successful Man. Megan, thank you for being

00:00:17.860 here. Always. Thanks for having me. So you are here to educate me because I am reliably informed

00:00:24.940 that the Oscars are coming up. I have not watched the Oscars in years at this point. I'm not sure

00:00:32.160 that I've seen any of the Oscar nominated movies, nor do I really know what they are.

00:00:37.500 And so I've got two questions. One, what is going to happen at the Oscars? What should we look for?

00:00:43.660 And two, are Americans going to care or have they completely tuned out Hollywood?

00:00:48.880 Well, I think that's one of the things that you need to watch for, because I think ratings wise,

00:00:53.280 this is probably just going to be a dumpster fire. I mean, the reality is that Oscar ratings

00:00:57.540 have been trending down for years, but last year they reached an all time low, really bad. Now,

00:01:03.460 some of that you can ascribe to COVID, but the fact is they were already on a downward trend and the

00:01:09.660 Academy has been losing money and ABC has been losing money on this deal. I mean, they still make

00:01:15.500 some revenue, but to give you an idea, Oscars brought in $15 million less in advertising revenue

00:01:23.900 last year. So that's a really big deal. So what you can expect to see, you would think would be,

00:01:29.720 let's reverse course. Maybe the Americans at home do not like the political speeches. Maybe they don't

00:01:35.440 like having their values derided and insulted and mocked. Well, that's not what the Academy

00:01:42.000 ultimately decided. They looked at the declining ratings and they said, we think the problem is

00:01:47.920 that people just really don't like that sound editor. They don't like that film editing category.

00:01:52.540 They want to get rid of the poor little guys who, to be honest with you, that is my favorite moments.

00:01:57.800 Those are my favorite moments in the Oscars is when you see these guys who are not celebrities.

00:02:02.420 They're not well known. They get their big moment. They're never political. They always thank

00:02:06.920 their wives and seem really sincere. So what they've decided to do is cut those guys out of the show.

00:02:12.000 Wow. Because I agree with you. I used to watch the Oscars as a kid all the time.

00:02:17.020 And I thought those were some of the most enjoyable categories. The celebrities, they always get

00:02:22.160 the attention and the accolades. So it's fun. Or the short film category, some random person who

00:02:27.800 you've never heard of gets up and is just very sincere and thanks the Academy. We used to joke

00:02:33.420 that the way to give a proper speech is you go up and say, I just want to thank the Academy.

00:02:38.060 And now you basically don't even see that. You see someone go up and say, Donald Trump is really

00:02:42.680 bad and men are really women and abortion is really good. And okay, now maybe we'll be played 0.89

00:02:49.320 off because my personal political speech has gone on for so long that we're going to run out of air

00:02:55.980 time. So they've doubled down on this.

00:02:58.560 Well, yeah. And you have seen them showing some gratitude. In recent years, it's been

00:03:03.100 female actresses thanking their abortions for their performance. I mean, we have seen that. 0.99

00:03:10.000 Michelle Williams did that. I am grateful that I had an abortion so that I could be here tonight.

00:03:14.660 So they don't consider that maybe that is what's driving viewers away. Instead, they think, nah,

00:03:19.340 it's just these categories, some fairly important categories. Like, I don't know,

00:03:23.780 film editing seems like it's fairly important to making a film. But so they're doing away with

00:03:29.460 that. So they're part of the reason is they're saying this is going to streamline it. They think

00:03:33.900 that more time with the stars that people find off putting is what is really going to bring viewers

00:03:38.840 in. And then this is the real kicker. They went, who could we get to host this show to bring in

00:03:45.080 viewers? And what they settled on was primarily Amy Schumer, the most political off putting comedian

00:03:53.100 in the comedy landscape. Oh, I have to correct you. I have to correct you, Megan.

00:03:57.440 You called her a comedian. Right. Okay. You're right. That seems generous.

00:04:02.800 It does seem generous. And Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall. Look, I think Wanda Sykes can be funny,

00:04:08.580 but she is not a big draw for middle America. And Regina Hall, most people don't know at all.

00:04:14.260 I don't know who she is. I'm just hearing the name for the first time.

00:04:16.840 Right. I mean, she has she's been in some small movies. She she had a recurring role on the TV show

00:04:23.420 Blackish. And I think to a lot of people, it seems like after the Me Too movement, after Black Lives

00:04:29.620 Matter, they went, we will have a black lesbian comedian. We will have a black comedian. We will 1.00

00:04:36.720 have a white comedian. But they'll all three be females. No men on that stage hosting. And I look at it

00:04:43.160 and I go, I don't see how this is in any way going to draw anybody into watching this show.

00:04:48.980 So I think those are the two main things to look for. As far as the movies, you know, there were

00:04:54.480 some that I liked, but I'm going to tell you, these are very other than Dune. These are not films that

00:04:59.960 most people have seen. You there's movies like Power of the Dog, which is another gay cowboy movie. 0.99

00:05:05.860 Coda was a good movie, but, you know, it's about a child of deaf parents. It was actually a sweet

00:05:11.200 movie, but it's not very well known. So you just have a lot of films that people haven't heard of.

00:05:15.940 They haven't watched and they're not going to care. How many gay cowboys are there? They've been 1.00

00:05:20.500 making these movies for decades now. I mean, more than 20 years at this point. I guess you saw this

00:05:27.160 really begin 30, 40 years ago, this split between movies people see and movies that nobody sees.

00:05:36.340 Maybe you and I see I used to occasionally go see some kind of indie movies. The gay cowboy thing 1.00

00:05:42.220 never did much for me, but some, you know, you and now even even for me, it's too much. And I like

00:05:46.940 the artsy kinds of movies. So you've got this split now. Is it is there ever any turn back that we can

00:05:54.800 hope for that you're going to see a popular movie be nominated again? Well, you know, and actually it's

00:06:00.680 sort of affected the entire film landscape in a way that's really negative because they used to try to

00:06:05.540 make really good popular movies, movies that were popular, that could also qualify as a best

00:06:11.440 picture. And now you've seen such a split that the art house movies are getting more and more,

00:06:16.480 more esoteric, less appealing to the general audience. Whereas the popular films, they're all

00:06:22.120 superhero movies, which, you know, I like a superhero movie, but I would also like some other popular

00:06:26.700 movies as well. So I think that that is part of the divide that's going forward. And I don't know,

00:06:31.880 I think probably not because of the streaming revolution. Our content has become all the more

00:06:36.780 fractured. So quite honestly, I see no sign that they're going to pull back from irrelevance here.

00:06:43.180 I guess it's a step in the right direction for the Academy that they were able to get a host this

00:06:48.940 year because after the Kevin Hart debacle, no one wanted to host anymore. It was the, it's sort of like

00:06:54.620 the giving the Republican response to the state of the union. It's the worst job. It's the end of your

00:06:59.480 career and nobody wants it. They would have a hostless Oscars.

00:07:03.680 It's not entirely true. Ricky Gervais said, I'll do it. And I don't know why they said,

00:07:08.380 no, thank you to him, which that would have really brought some viewers. It was really too bad. If

00:07:12.820 they really wanted people to watch the Oscars this year, they, they would have taken Ricky

00:07:16.900 Gervais up on his offer. It does make me wonder, I'm looking now at what, what the Democrats are doing,

00:07:22.600 but forget Hollywood for a second. What the Democrats are doing politically is in an election year,

00:07:27.680 in a midterm election year, they are doubling down on letting men go into the girls' locker room and

00:07:32.840 take girls' trophies, doubling down on abortion as a, some kind of sacred right up until the moment 0.97

00:07:38.960 of birth. They're doubling down on mass migration. They're doubling down on all the same sorts of 0.86

00:07:44.960 radical policies that the vast majority of Americans do not like. And you've seen them be

00:07:50.420 rebuked for it at that Virginia governor's race. You've seen, they're getting absolutely crushed

00:07:55.880 in the polls right now. And yet it seems that the worse their numbers are, the more they double

00:08:01.200 down. And that's kind of what you're seeing in Hollywood. I mean, the, the people who run

00:08:04.960 Hollywood, they don't have a low IQ. All right. We're not talking about really stupid people.

00:08:10.700 So they must know that the majority of Americans don't like this stuff anymore. And what's their 1.00

00:08:15.760 answer? Amy Schumer, one of the least funny, most nauseating, shrill, politically annoying, 1.00

00:08:23.560 she's the niece of Chuck Schumer, for goodness sakes. You know, that's the answer that they've 0.78

00:08:28.280 got to their problem. Well, and I think part of it is, you know, they're just listening too much

00:08:33.040 to the Hollywood press and the activist employees in their own houses. You've seen parents who are

00:08:38.020 sort of driven by their obnoxious children in a really true way. That is what we're seeing at

00:08:43.840 studios. You look at the Disney debacle this last week and you go, you have actually some

00:08:49.500 conservative leadership there who had a correct instinct when they said, we're not actually

00:08:54.960 going to talk about the Florida bill. We're just going to focus on doing good work, putting out

00:08:59.400 movies that people like, and their employees went insane. The Hollywood press then of course,

00:09:05.720 amplified all of that insanity. And you're talking about a very small sliver of people who were able

00:09:11.240 to drive Disney's agenda in a way that is against its better business instincts. So, and they know it,

00:09:18.860 that's, that's, what's weird is I talked to some very high level executives this week at Disney who

00:09:23.680 told me, we know, we know about the daily wire polling. We know that parents don't like it,

00:09:29.540 but at this point, there's such fear of the negative press. There's such fear of getting

00:09:34.260 blasted on MSNBC that they are reacting. They're not thinking this through.

00:09:39.100 This reminds me of a line in politics. They say personnel is policy. What they mean by that is

00:09:45.060 the people that you put in charge are much more than any little document or memo or frankly,

00:09:51.460 constitution, even the people you put in charge of running your company, your organization,

00:09:56.260 your government, they are going to set the policy. It's them. You look, if you've got a lot of crazy

00:10:02.940 hair and weird tattoos and crazy left-wing t-shirts, that, that is going to be the policy

00:10:08.820 that you're going to get. I noticed this even with, with Republicans, even Republicans in left-wing

00:10:14.400 institutions, left-wing universities, left-wing corporations, they will get much squishier because

00:10:22.240 their view of the country is so distorted. They're, they're only around liberals. They're,

00:10:27.560 they read the New York times. They think that this represents the majority of Americans when it

00:10:31.640 represents a very small portion of them. Uh, Antonin Scalia gave an interview with New York magazine

00:10:36.960 years ago now. And the, the interviewer was mocking him for believing in the devil, for believing in God,

00:10:44.940 for believing. And he, he took a pause and he looked at her. He said, she was laughing at him.

00:10:49.820 And he said, do you realize how out of touch you are with the majority of them? The majority of people

00:10:56.440 throughout history have believed in God, have believed in the devil. Do you realize what a crazy 0.96

00:11:01.240 bubble you're living in that you think that this is not just wrong, but uncommon?

00:11:06.580 Right. And that was the strangest thing to me, I, you know, to talk to some of these guys and hear that

00:11:11.720 they know, and yet they're under the perception that they are going to be more damaged by this

00:11:18.440 negative press than they are by, let's say stories that reflect what Ron DeSantis has done and said,

00:11:23.780 we're going to stand strong or I don't know, fire some of these cry babies and these cry bullies I've 0.99

00:11:29.480 heard it called. And that really is what they are, cry bullies within these organizations who are, you 0.98

00:11:34.280 know, they're, they're in the mail room trying to tell the board what to do and the board is letting

00:11:38.460 them. So the insanity of the, the lack of leadership is, it just kind of blows your mind. Though it did

00:11:45.020 blow my mind to hear that some of these guys high up in Disney listen to Daily Wire and watch Daily Wire

00:11:50.240 products.

00:11:51.340 Well, I do love that. I hope they check out my docuseries, Fauci Unmasked. Maybe then we'll get some good,

00:11:55.880 good policy coming out of the administrative state because you know, what you're describing is the

00:12:01.660 inmates running the asylum and, and, but it actually is just striking me now when we say these Hollywood

00:12:08.500 execs, they're not dummies. Okay. They're, they're well-educated. They've got high IQs. Maybe they just

00:12:14.160 feel that the political power in this country, the power that can really threaten them. It's not the

00:12:19.620 people. It's not even really the customer base. It's the liberal press. It's the woke employees.

00:12:26.780 It's the blob. It's just that kind of big liberal blob. There actually might be something to it.

00:12:32.000 Megan, in just the few seconds we have left, where can people find you?

00:12:36.660 Oh, well, you can find me at the Daily Wire, of course. And you can find me once a month now on

00:12:41.540 Andrew Klavan's show, which is probably the favorite, my favorite part of my month. We, uh,

00:12:45.540 week get to chat about culture and entertainment and all of these, you know, great things that make

00:12:50.220 life more entertaining and more worth living. And, uh, and you can always find me fighting with people

00:12:54.800 on Twitter at Meg Basham. That's great. You know, I, that is enough to get me to tune into Drew's show,

00:13:01.080 to tune into the Andrew Klavan show once a month.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 27, 2022

Oscar News & Some Disney Employees Hate WOKE Agenda

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