There are also three rustic cabins, all fully insulated. You do have to walk into them – with distances varying by cabin and season. You also have to bring your own sleeping bag and mat, cooking gear and all your water. (If there w...
Commentary For about a year, I've been considering writing a follow-up to my dystopian novel, "Good Intentions, " about progressive ideas gone crazy, resulting in the ultimate nanny state. During the pandemic, I've spent many mornings swimming and plotting the new novel. I thought of many stories and characters, and a few times put pen to paper, but eventually the futility would sink in. There's no point warning people of an upcoming storm when they're already in the middle of it. People have called my novel "prescient" for all the things I described that eventually came true. But that's depressing, because my novel was supposed to be satire, taking things to a ridiculous extreme. I get depressed thinking that these utterly absurd things are now being enacted. It's like watching a horror movie, or a superhero movie, or even a slapstick comedy. These things are fun when you're sitting safely in the theater or in your living room, munching on popcorn, but if they actually happened, you'd be frightened out of your mind.
And how will the Academy confirm their quotas. Will film crews and cast be required to pass DNA tests to determine their ethnic makeup? Will crew members be required to give details about their sex lives before being hired? These things sound funny, but so did my novel several years ago. Now they sound frightening. And will audiences care? Maybe not. Superhero movies still bring in big bucks and rarely offer anything Oscar-worthy. But surprisingly, movie studios and Hollywood stars, whom we think about as money-driven, are perhaps even more ideology driven, at least after they've made their fortunes. Remember that the studios turned down "The Passion of the Christ, " which became one of the highest grossing films of all time. Yet they continue to peddle titillation disguised as art and unapologetic child soft porn like " Cuties. " Time will tell, but conservatives must fight back, not by creating conservative movies but by creating great works of art. In fact, we must commit to doing everything we do as well as possible and reward others for doing great things, regardless of their background, ethnicity, religion, skin color, or private behaviors.
In other words, to fight the progressive elites and destroy their ideologies, we must commit to the American ideals and support the American dream. Bob Zeidman has a Bachelor of Art and a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University. He is an inventor and the founder of successful high-tech Silicon Valley firms including Zeidman Consulting and Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering. He also writes novels; his latest is the political satire "Good Intentions. " Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
For example, Gary Oldman won the 2018 Best Actor Oscar for his fantastic performance as Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour, " a movie whose conservative message is that a leader can be a blunt, insulting, flawed person and still save Western civilization. The fact that the progressive elite were not happy with Oldman's win was apparent when at the award ceremony he thanked America for giving him his opportunities, the entire auditorium was deafeningly silent. New Criteria This week, in a "historic move, " the progressive elite of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to codify what they had started doing surreptitiously by creating new criteria for the Academy Award. The 2020 Best Picture is required to have on the screen and on the crew a quota of women, people of color (not necessarily minorities), LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities. I wonder now if movies will ever be the same. Will studios be more concerned about meeting their quotas, avoiding boycotts, and creating "equitable productions" rather than soaring visions, uplifting stories, important messages, and excellent productions?
They should not be a justification of unethical or immoral behavior. I found that "American Beauty" just highlighted disturbing behavior and seemed to normalize it, possibly an attempt to excuse the behavior that we now know infiltrated Hollywood from those days through today. Two years ago, following the #OscarsSoWhite protest that too many movie actors, directors, and crew members were white, Hollywood elites decided to toss a screenwriting Oscar to the movie "Get Out" about white people taking over black people's bodies. A metaphor? If so, not a very sophisticated one. But more importantly, it was a fairly simple, uninteresting, low budget movie that was not nearly funny enough to be a comedy or scary enough to be a horror flick or deep enough to be a commentary on society. It was mundane, but the progressive elite knew that they had to award a movie about blacks and by blacks, and that was the sole candidate. It was virtually assured an Oscar. The members of the Academy still generally honor quality work when they give out awards, because more than just the rich celebrities vote on these awards.
For example, "Rocky" won the Oscar in 1976, but critics condemned the award, saying it should have gone to "Taxi Driver, " a movie about a psychopathic pedophile. I saw both movies. "Rocky" was the embodiment of the American dream and gave me the encouragement that an unknown Philly boy like me could "take a shot" to become a champion. In times of despair, I would play the soundtrack at full blast and shadow box in my bedroom and later my dorm room at college. "Taxi Driver" was depressing and, try as I might, I got no message out of it, uplifting or otherwise. There were occasional signs that the progressive elite were making progress. In 1996, the Oscar went to "The English Patient, " a finely acted movie that no one I knew could stay awake throughout. What surprised and disturbed me more was the 1999 Oscar to "American Beauty, " a story about infidelity, drug use, violence, and a philandering pedophile. I don't think movies have to be uplifting, but if not, they should provide a warning or at least give insight into the human condition.