This is my annual VIP column where I complain about the Oscars and about how Hollywood has turned into complete crap. But it’s not just turned into complete crap this year – or, rather, continued to be complete crap. It seems to have misplaced its calendar. This is 2025, and we’re done with this woke nonsense. They seem to think it’s still 2020, and that wokeness is fresh and interesting. Well, it’s not. It’s stupid and it’s boring, and Hollywood seems intent on committing seppuku. Oh well.
You might think that after most of the people voting for the Academy Awards have had their houses burned down because of Democrat incompetence, they might rethink some of their premises. Nope. They have not learned anything. They have not changed. They can’t. They’re too emotionally invested in the leftism that’s destroying their industry as well as their mansions.
They are driving away their audience and are powerless to stop themselves. We used to be emotionally invested in the Oscars. When we were kids, everybody gathered around on Oscar night and watched the whole thing. It featured movies we knew about, that we had seen, and that were popular with people because they addressed subjects that normal people were interested in. And what subjects are they addressing this year?
Trans, trans, and more trans. An insanely stupid musical about a male drug dealer pretending to be a woman got 13 nominations. That’s the same number as “Gone with the Wind,” but the only thing “Emilia Pérez” has in common with “Wind” is that it blows. Did I mention that it’s a musical? Here’s a representative scene. Yes, that opus got 13 Oscars nominations.
Take that, normal people!
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Oh, and even better, the dude pretending to be a woman in “Emilia Pérez” got a nomination in the Best Actress category. That’s right, a man took a Best Actress slot from a woman, meaning 20% of the Best Actress slots for 2024 went to a guy. And the cringiest part is that all the other women who are going to lose to this guy – because you know the Hollywood types are going to want to show us normals what’s what by choosing a man to be Best Actress – will smile with their teeth clenched tight as they pretend to cheer on this utter indignity.
But they brought it on themselves. They and the rest of Hollywood have decided to go down this path of bizarre perversions and niche characters, with the niche filled by weirdos, losers, and mutations. Oh, and this isn’t the only gender-weird Best Picture nominee. There’s also “Conclave,” about – Spoiler Alert! – a pope with a vagina or something. I don’t know for sure. I don’t want to know. I guess I just don’t appreciate art films.
One of the three movies anybody’s actually heard of the ten best picture nominees is “Dune 2.” It’s about a giant worm, and I’m not sure I want to get into the psychology of why Hollywood liked that. There’s the Bob Dylan movie “A Complete Unknown,” which I have heard is actually good. There’s also “Wicked,” which is a musical but not about castration. I suspect it’s just about wokeness. I don’t know. I didn’t see it. I’m a man.
As for the other movies? Who knows? Who cares? No one’s ever heard of them. I didn’t know about “Emilia Pérez” until a bunch of credulous goofs were on X getting giddy about the dude pretending to be a woman getting nominated. I didn’t even have any idea the Oscar nominations were dropping. No one cares, and that’s a real problem for Hollywood. Nobody’s going to the movies anymore, and do you know why? Because most movies not featuring grown men wearing tights are movies like these. They suck. Even 20 years ago, we would go to the movies and have like four choices of films you might conceivably want to see, and none of them featured showstoppers about carving off genitals to conform to the delusions of lunatics and deviants.
Understand that when conservatives lament the state of Hollywood, it’s not something we’re happy about. We don’t love Hollywood or the people in it – though there are a lot more conservative people in Tinseltown than folks generally understand. We loved going to the movies. It was great. There were incredible movies opening all the time. Now, I have to sit back and think about the last time I went to the theater, and I’m not happy about that. But I’m not going to spend my money on some overpriced perveropalooza.
And, it appears, neither is anybody else.
It’s not just the theatrical movies that suck. If you look at the streaming services, there’s almost nothing good on. You can flip through multiple streaming channels for half an hour and not find something that doesn’t seem woke, stupid, or insulting to your intelligence. Even the mindless stuff that you should be able to watch is always the same. How come every single show seems to be about somebody who used to be a special forces operator who is suddenly brought back into action and blah blah blah blah blah, and they always have a sassy gay friend? Or a sassy transsexual friend who everyone pretends actually is the sex the character is pretending to be? There’s a woke checklist, and you must hit all the boxes, even when it’s stupid.
Well, we’re tired of it, but maybe we can do better. We could make our own stuff the way that Andrew Breitbart taught us. What we’re missing isn’t talent. There’s a lot of conservative talent out there. We’re not missing intellectual property – I know some really good IP that somebody should pick up. What we’re missing are visionaries who can back up their vision with money and distribution.
In the past, I’ve talked to a lot of movie folks about my novels. They told me they’re conservative. They told me they’re excited about conservative content. But I worked as a lawyer adjacent to Hollywood long enough to know nothing matters until you put money in your pocket, and none of them have written me a check.
I’m not saying that somebody should go and buy my stuff, but they should buy someone’s conservative fiction and turn it into a movie or a show. There’s Matt Betley, Larry Correia, James Rosone, and Jon “@ExJon” Gabriel, to name a few. As writers, these guys have an audience. We conservatives are a huge potential audience for movies and shows, and we’re dying for material that doesn’t hate us. We’re even willing to look past the occasional lefty sucker punch to get it. Have you seen “Landman?” The same guy who did “Yellowstone” did it. It’s got the world’s most mortifying female characters – I think they’re actually meant to be funny because they’re so over the top – and it’s got a few hicklib moments, but there’s some red meat for conservatives every once in a while when Billy Bob Thornton lays down the fossil fuel facts on some pinko twit. People are eating it up. Now, just imagine some well-produced entertainment that doesn’t hedge its bets on its inherent conservatism.
Yeah, that would be awesome, and if there’s any time for that backlash to happen, it’s now. Remember in the ‘80s when Reagan came in and replaced a one-term Democrat dumbass? We got a decade of ultra-patriotic action flicks. Well, Donald Trump just replaced another one-term Democrat dumbass, and America is ready to enjoy going to the movies again. It’s ready for America to win. And it’s ready for some heroes who know which bathroom to use.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the newest volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel about terrorism in America, The Attack!
My super-secret email address is kurtschlichter@townhall.com.
