(Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking high-tech "algorithms," which I never believed in. As I learned in 2000, during my travails with the Amazon Politburo, the apparatchiki simply punch in each name in turn, and sabotage or completely block his inputs, upvotes, etc. There is no algorithm, except for censored words. “Algorithms” was just a cover story invented, I believe by Google, to make its censorship seem impersonal.)
As a result, numerous people posted politically unacceptable comments, while other commenters denounced them as racist.
David • 16 hours ago
Someone like Octavia Spencer has more nominations than Gary Oldman. Good Lord.
HoneyPot to David • 15 hours ago
3 Negative comments all about people of color. Got it.
Marci Kelemen to David • 14 hours ago
“Shut the hell up. Octavia Spencer is perfectly deserving of all of her nominations & awards. :)”
N.S. to Marci Kelemen
No, you shut the hell up. [Postscript, 4:29 a.m.: Did I miss sarcasm in her comment?]
N.S. to HoneyPot
“3 Negative comments all about people of color. Got it.”
I think it is so righteous of you to show zero tolerance towards a colorless person for speaking less than slavishly about any person of color. You’re my role model!
Some of the greatest performers in movie history never got so much as a nomination, while other greats were nominated but never won.
Joseph Cotton: (Citizen Kane, Shadow of a Doubt, Portrait of Jennie and The Third Man): No nominations.
Ward Bond: (Gentleman Jim, Three Godfathers, The Searchers, etc.): No nominations.
Richard Basehart: (Fourteen Hours, La Strada, Moby Dick): No nominations.
Eli Wallach: (The Magnificent Seven, The Godfather Part III): No nominations.
Joel McCrea: (Ride the High Country, Sullivan’s Travels, The More the Merrier, etc.): No nominations.
Fred MacMurray: (Double Indemnity, The Caine Mutiny, The Apartment): No nominations.
Dana Andrews: (Laura, The Best Years of Our Lives): No nominations.
Myrna Loy: (The Thin Man, The Best Years of Our Lives, etc.): No nominations. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Maureen O'Hara: (How Green was My Valley, Miracle on 34th Street, The Quiet Man): No nominations. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Edward G. Robinson: (Little Caesar, Key Largo, Double Indemnity, etc.):
No nominations. (Had to settle for a posthumous, honorary Oscar.)
Mickey Rooney: Two Best Actor nominations, and two Best Supporting Actor nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Irene Dunne: Five Best Actress nominations; no Oscars. (No even an honorary Oscar! But she was a Republican.)
Montgomery Clift: Three Best Actor nominations, and one Best Supporting Actor nomination; no Oscars.
Barbara Stanwyck: Four Best Actress nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Cary Grant: (Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday):
Two Best Actor nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Jean Arthur: (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Shane, etc.): One Best Actress nomination; no Oscars. (No honorary Oscar, either!)
Judy Garland: (The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St. Louis, etc.): One Best Actress and one Best Supporting Actress nomination; no Oscars. (The Academy gave her a special “Juvenile Award” for The Wizard of Oz.)
Marlene Dietrich: (Destry Rides Again, Witness for the Prosecution, Judgment at Nuremberg): One Best Actress nomination; no Oscars.
Peter O’Toole: (The Last Emperor): Eight Best Actor nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Max von Sydow: (The Seventh Seal, Hour of the Wolf, Hannah and Her Sisters, etc.): One Best Actor nomination; no Oscars.
Rosalind Russell: (Gypsy, etc.): Four Best Actress nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Gunnar Björnstrand: (Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, etc.): No nominations.
Nick Nolte: (Who’ll Stop the Rain, Weeds, etc.): One Best Actor nominations, and two Best Supporting Actor nominations; no Oscars.
Robert Shaw: (From Russia with Love, The Sting, Jaws, etc.): One Best Supporting Actor nomination; no Oscars.
Richard Burton: Six Best Actor nominations, and one Best Supporting Actor nomination; no Oscars.
Deborah Kerr: Six Best Actress nominations; no Oscars. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Doris Day: (Teacher’s Pet, and many other classic romantic comedies): One Best Actress nomination; no Oscars. (She’s still alive, but will be turning 96 on April 3. Why hasn’t the Academy given her an honorary Oscar?! Rhetorical question—she’s hideously white, and Republican! Besides, feminists have waged war on her for years, even though the sort of roles she played 50-60 years ago—career women, even when they had a husband and kids—should have made her a feminist heroine.)
Roger Livesey: (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Entertainer): No nominations.
Peter Lorre: (M, The Man Who Knew too Much, The Maltese Falcon): No nominations.
Leslie Banks: (The Man Who Knew too Much, The Most Dangerous Game): No nominations.
Van Johnson: (Battleground, The Caine Mutiny): No nominations. (No honorary Oscar, either.)
Gene Kelly: (On the Town, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain): No nominations. (Had to settle for an honorary Oscar.)
Bruno Kirby (When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers): No nominations.
Orson Welles (The Third Man, The Stranger, and Touch of Evil): one nomination for Best Actor; no acting Oscars. (Welles won an undeserved Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Citizen Kane, to which he contributed nix. Herman Mankiewicz wrote the script without any help from Welles.)
The inescapable conclusion is that Octavia Spencer is a greater performer than all of the people I cited above. We may presently live in a Golden Age to put the ancient Greeks to shame. After all, there are over 320 million residents in America. The numbers can’t possibly lie. Viva diversity! Viva people of black!
Award-winning, New York-based freelancer Nicholas Stix founded A Different Drummer magazine (1989-93). Stix has written for Die Suedwest Presse, New York Daily News, New York Post, Newsday, Middle American News, Toogood Reports, Insight, Chronicles, the American Enterprise, Campus Reports, VDARE, the Weekly Standard, Front Page Magazine, Ideas on Liberty, National Review Online and the Illinois Leader. His column also appears at Men's News Daily, MichNews, Intellectual Conservative, Enter Stage Right and OpinioNet. Stix has studied at colleges and universities on two continents, and earned a couple of sheepskins, but he asks that the reader not hold that against him. His day jobs have included washing pots, building Daimler-Benzes on the assembly-line, tackling shoplifters and teaching college, but his favorite job was changing his son's diapers.
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