Politics and showbiz in America—from Trump to Ronnie del Carmen
Way before the Republican debates, it was comedian Jay Leno who famously said, “Politics is show business for ugly people.”
It certainly was true on Thursday night when the latest installment of “U.S. Democracy Live!” AKA the GOP debates, drew an audience of 16.9 million on Fox.
The number keeps growing with every debate, and there’s been ELEVEN of them.
So it’s easy to see that the TV execs realize they’ve got a real boondoggle going. Ratings gold for news channels that would otherwise draw a handful of people to watch some rehashed cable news thing?
They surely can’t be doing it to further democracy.
Not unless you really think people should be debating the size of Donald Trump’s hands.
By the way, if you in the Philippines are paying attention to more than the anatomy of candidates, then you’ll be pleased to know that 1) Donald Trump has reversed himself on torture and targeting families of terrorists. Someone told him about the Geneva Convention and he’s decided it’s a decent document; 2) While defending his “Build-a-Wall” idea to satisfy xenophobic tendencies of some Americans, and riffing about China’s “Great Wall,” he did say he’d do something about China reclaiming land and build-up in the South China Sea. So he’s aware of the issue enough to mention it at a rally this week.
But that doesn’t get as much play as his ongoing exchange about his hands with the man he calls “little” Marco Rubio.
Of course, the real reason to have more and more debates should be obvious.
We should have them, and lots of them, if the debates and their side-by-side comparisons could help control the high costs of political campaigns and their biggest expenditure: political advertising.
But giving up the right to produce your own targeted hit piece without being beholden to a sense of truth, ethics or fair play?
Of course, the politicians want to keep all that. And so do the TV folks, because who else runs the advertising?
Bottom line? Everyone wants everything. Greed wins at every turn.
And we’re not even to the conventions yet. And then there’s the campaign for the fall, and the last-minute November blitz.
Elections this year in the U.S. are ratings gold. And the profit margins? No one’s paying a big star, or two or three, with writers and production costs for a prime-time TV series.
Just a couple of podiums in an auditorium, and Donald Trump telling penis jokes.
Politics as show business for ugly people, indeed.
But there was enough politics in real show business last week.
Just ask Ronnie Del Carmen, who returned this week to the San Francisco Bay Area after going to the Oscars as a nominee for Best Original Screenplay for providing the story for “Inside Out.”
He was in Hollywood to be among the really beautiful people. This year that meant “white,” especially if you were a nominee.
The Oscar show was must-see TV because of the shutout of people of color in the top Oscar categories.
The night’s emcee, comedian Chris Rock, was funny in his monologue, even with jokes about grandma hanging from a tree. But he should have stopped there.
And then the Oscars could have set things straight if the very first award—the one for Best Original Screenplay went to Del Carmen, the only Asian American nominated in one of top categories.
It could have made a statement about diversity in Hollywood. But it wasn’t to be.
Still Del Carmen was pretty excited to be there.
“The only other time I was there I was not a nominee. So I was at the back,” Del Carmen told me. “But this time I was sitting right next to the ‘Spotlight’ team. Watching the show is such a rare treat and so different from what we’d see on TV. We see these stars and directors walk through and talk to each other during the commercial break like this pantheon of gods chatting by the water cooler. I had to stay in the moment, this was a great honor to be here finally. As a nominee! I heard my name read on the very first category being awarded. Blows the mind. We made it!
“We won for Best Animated Feature and not for Best Original Screenplay. We had quite the evening. After the Governors Ball my wife and I skipped the Vanity Fair party and went back to the hotel, where Pixar was celebrating, to see my two kids. We sat down to toast our victories and be grateful for this honor. I was so happy they could join me on my special day.”
Typical for a humble guy who shared his tale of EDSA with me last week.
Del Carmen said the Asian joke that has caused such a hubbub, the sight gag with the Chinese kids brought out as the Oscar accountants, didn’t get much of an audience reaction where he was.
“The room was low key,” he said.
But by then, he was rooting for his friends. And not just the “Inside Out” folks.
Funny how Del Carmen lost out to “Spotlight,” a movie about abusive Catholic priests in Boston.
It featured the work of director Tom Mc Carthy and composer Michael Giacchino, both of whom worked with Del Carmen on the Pixar animated feature, “Up.”
And both of whom were nominated for Oscars.
I loved Del Carmen’s “Inside Out.”
But as a Catholic, how could I not love “Spotlight,” the movie that exposes the Church’s hypocrisy.
The U.S. Catholic Bishop’s most recent report in 2015 (covering the year 2014) from the U.S. Catholic Bishops showed $150,747,387 in costs related to child protection efforts and to allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors.
The majority of that $150 million paid out by the church went to victims and lawyers.
They should just make more movies like “Spotlight” while they’re at it.
That film cost just $20 million to make and has made $39 million in the U.S., plus another $24 million in foreign sales.
That’s $63 million total to date.
Reports have the film opening in the Philippines in February to just under $10,000.
Too bad. Filipinos need to see that film. The Philippines was not spared from the abuse scandal. The film shows just how difficult it was to uncover.
It just took a free press, and journalists empowered to seek out the truth.
It was no fluke the film won the Oscar for Best Picture.
It showed how showbiz can connect us to real life in an important way.
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist and commentator based in Northern California. Contact: https://www.twitter.com/emilamok www.fb.com/emilguillermomedia
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