How White Elitism Trash-Talks Hollywood Diversity
(ENGL 1310, Fall 2022)
Once upon a time, I lived on the cusp of the film industry. My family resided a mere forty-five minutes outside of Hollywood. Weekend trips to Universal Studios weren’t unusual. My dad shared stories of a family friend’s exploits as lead cameraman for a famous director. When I left the state of California and moved to North Idaho, I learned that my childhood wasn’t a “normal” American experience. Like any discourse community—a term defined by Kevin Davis in his “Does Coming to College Mean Becoming Someone New?” essay as “groups of people who share patterns and strategies of communication” (Davis)—Hollywood movie-making culture carries its own definition of reality that’s not easily accessible to people living outside that space. But in spite of the exclusivity of my background, there is one element of the movies that most people are familiar with: The Academy Awards, or the “Oscars.”
The general public may not know that the Oscars have been around for almost one- hundred years, but they probably know the gossip coming out of that drama-filled event— like Will Smith smacking Chris Rock on stage in 2022 (Entertainment Weekly). The Oscars are part of popular culture, even if their original intent of celebrating film as an art form has been forgotten. Ross Douthat grieves this shift in the Oscars’ social status in his The New York Times article, “We Aren’t Just Watching the Decline of the Oscars. We’re Watching the End of the Movies” (Douthat).
According to Douthat, the decline in social respect for the Oscars signals the endangerment of a certain type of film altogether. Ross Douthat attempts to convince the reader of his inherent ethos and authority, but his exclusive and divisive language, lack of clearly-defined terms, static love of “the glory days,” and ignorance of current preservation techniques only widen the gap between his concern and the younger generation who is needed to “fix” the issue.
Douthat utilizes a number of rhetorical tools defined in Kacey Ross’ Mountain Lion Writer. His ethical appeals hold a measure of authority (Ross 102) through his status as a film critic at the National Review and as a regular contributor to The New York Times, but while he puts forth some techniques to connect to his audience it’s never clear who his audience is. He tries to connect with his audience through good will (Ross 98)—proving he cares about the audience—and common ground (Ross 102)—proving he relates to the audience—by making the broad assumption that “everyone has a theory about the decline of the Academy Awards” (Douthat).
Yet, his choice of words (Ross 116) adds conflicting exclusivity to who his intended audience may be. Who is everyone? Does he believe everyone within the Hollywood-centric filmmaking community has an opinion? Or everyone walking down every sidewalk in America? Is he writing to fellow film critics? The everyday man? If a reader starts the article and has no opinion on the Oscars, then are they welcomed into this space? Hyperbole is common to use in broader topics—one could even call it “puffing” the topic, a term used by William Lutz in his “With These Words I Can Sell You Anything” article to define the descriptions used to exaggerate a product in a recognizably absurd, yet still effective, way (Lutz).
But the exclusivity of Douthat’s opening assumption comes off as a door slam to those not already initiated into his topic. At this point, it would be easy to assume his audience is fellow high-caliber film critics. However, his lack of knowledge for film history begs the question of if he’d be welcomed in that crowd either. Each paragraph feels like a wild card for who he might be talking to—a question that is never really clarified or answered.
He manages to makes his opinion even more exclusive as the article goes on by turning preservation of film into some American-nationalistic imperative. Douthat complains that “Globalization…pushed the [movie-making] business toward a simpler style of storytelling that translated more easily across languages and cultures, with less complexity and idiosyncrasy and fewer cultural specifics” (Douthat). Later on, he voices the hope that “a modest renaissance for movies that trade some potential global reach for a more specifically American appeal” (Douthat).
Yet, for being so concerned about the preservation of “American appeal” in movie-making, he never defines what American culture is. America is a historic collaboration of older cultures from all over the world. But given that Douthat doesn’t feel the need to define what “American” means as a descriptor, the reader can infer that he defines American by the dominant culture—European, white culture. One thing he does attempt to define is the type of film he deems to be endangered. The Movies-with-an-intentional-uppercase-M as he calls them look like:
…[A] high-middlebrow movie, aspiring to real artistry and sometimes achieving it, that’s made to be watched on the big screen, with famous stars, vivid cinematography and a memorable score. It’s neither a difficult film for the art-house crowd nor a comic-book blockbuster but a film for the largest possible audience of serious adults[.](Douthat)
This sounds great for about three seconds until the reader realizes the complete lack of concrete clarity in his definition. He uses weasel words—words that claim to say big things, but are, in fact, useless or altogether untrue (Lutz)—like confetti. Vivid! Memorable! Real!
Serious! They’re pretty, but really just make a useless mess. What is “real artistry”? If a reader of his article is a painter or writer or musician and doesn’t care for drama film (which most Oscar nominees are), then are they falling short of this nebulous “real artistry”? Who are “serious adults”? If a millennial who pays their bills, goes to school full-time while working a night job and loves Marvel films, are they not “serious adults”? Douthat’s word choice comes across as the pretentious equivalent to “well, you’re not a real fan unless…” For a threat that Douthat claims is incredibly urgent he can’t even use non-relative terms to define what needs protected.
By this point, Douthat has made it fairly clear who his audience is not—the casual movie-viewer. Assuming his audience is, in fact, his fellow film critics, then the reader asks what his knowledge of his subject might be. If Douthat is going to speak on the decline of a ceremony that’s almost one-hundred years old on a platform as wide-reaching and respected as The New York Times, then it stands to reason he’d have an understanding of film history back him up.
But he only acknowledges one film older than the 1980s—The Godfather (1972). It is always possible for something so long-running to end, but he never gives a reason for why it’s at risk now. He declares 1999 to be the best year for the Movies, but what evidence does he have for that other than personal nostalgia? Film history teaches that movies reflect the culture and time-period they are crafted within.
1915’s The Birth of a Nation leaned into the civil unrest surrounding integration of Black Americans into mainstream society (“Ku Klux Klan”). The propaganda films of the 1940s highlighted (and bolstered) the fiercely patriotic, scrappy, rough-and-tumble American spirit pushing the country through WWII (Sennett). The restrictive censorship of the “Hays Code” ended in 1968, giving rise to an anarchic period of film in the 1970s which reflected the chaos thrashing about in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement.
Yet, out of so much history, he relies almost exclusively on the films surrounding his college years in the 1990s—Fight Club (1999), Titanic (1998), Saving Private Ryan (1998). He attempts to use a number of logical appeals to prop up his credibility, but these appeals all rely on his own perceived inherent ethos—a trust he hasn’t earned. His presuppositions rely on a strong understanding of his audience (who is that again?) (Ross 135). His personal experience (Ross 136) reflects on his golden college days when he was “still encountering American culture’s dominant popular art form” (Douthat) (Movies are still dominant! Just not his movies.).
He talks about how films like Blade Runner (1982) and When We Were Kings (1996) were used to supplement a college course and how “today a student having the same experience would be encountering an art form whose dominance belongs somewhat to the past” (Douthat). He is aware a sequel to Blade Runner released just a few years ago, right? His relatability is already sketchy, and such broad statements offer no backbone to the alleged exigence behind his concern for film preservation.
Douthat’s ethos requires squinting through dirty glasses to define. His logical appeals do little but build a coffin for his credibility. His pathetic appeals fall flat before the variety of audiences he could be talking to. In addition to his blind spots in film history, he seems unaware of how many resources already exist to preserve classic and contemporary film.
The renown Criterion Collection company licenses, preserves, and redistributes classic and current films. Within a year of Bong Joon-Ha’s Parasite (2019) release they had a preserved and restored edition already on the market (“Parasite”)! Turner Classic Movies has been educating viewers on film history since the mid-90s (Fink). Globalization has led to influencers on social media building full-blown brands around their favorite eras of film.
The Cinema Cartography celebrates film from around the world (TheCinemaCartography). The AmandatheJedi YouTube channel reviews teen melodrama, trashy romance, and Oscar-worthy indie film (AmandatheJedi). Ryan Hollinger’s YouTube channel discusses the cultural significance of horror film largely from the 2000s (RyanHollinger). There are surely influencers promoting 1990s Oscar bait as well.
Douthat’s claims seem more about freezing time in his favorite movie period than for any grounded intention of preserving history. American culture is a collection of other cultures all seeking to rest in freedom and opportunity. Film is continuing to do what it always has—evolve. Maybe the American films of today largely share the same formula, but, as Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) star Simu Liu stated just last week,
No movie studio is or ever will be perfect. But I’m proud to work with one that has made sustained efforts to improve diversity onscreen by creating heroes that empower and inspire people of all communities everywhere. I loved the “Golden Age” too.. but it was white as hell. (@SimuLiu)
Each generation has different emotional and spiritual needs (good or bad)—and mainstream film shifts and changes to reflect those needs. Today’s need is increased representation and some sense of community-building after so many national and international crises. Douthat’s
tone-deaf unawareness of diversity, history, and cultural need makes him come off as unlikable, logically impaired, and with the empathy of a sea cucumber. As much as he wants to “inculcate adult tastes over and above adolescent ones” (Douthat), how he defines adult is insultingly narrow to the sheer diversity of the culture he claims to protect.
Works Cited
AmandatheJedi. YouTube. AmandatheJedi.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiHwDqiw6-2dpSJEXkaCi9Q
TheCinemaCartography. YouTube. The Cinema Cartography.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5kBJmBUVFLYBDiSiK1VDw
Davis, Kevin. “Does Coming to College Mean Becoming Someone New?” The Subject is
Writing. Edited by Wendy Bishop. Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc., 1993. pp. 235-241.
Canvas.
https://canvas.uccs.edu/courses/134602/assignments/564092?module_item_id=183670
Douthat, Ross. “We Aren’t Just Watching the Decline of the Oscars. We’re Watching the End
of the Movies.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Mar. 2022,
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/oscars-movies-end.html.
Entertainment Weekly. Will Smith Slaps Chris Rock at Oscars 2022. YouTube, 28 Mar. 2022,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t1CC7-UFE. Accessed 28 Nov. 2022.
Fink, Richard. “TCM Schedule Change: Why Turner Classic Movies Is Important and How
It’s Changing.” MovieWeb, 10 Sept. 2022, https://movieweb.com/tcm-schedule-turner-
classic-movies/.
“Ku Klux Klan.” Edited by History.com, History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct.
2009, https://www.history.com/topics/reconstruction/ku-klux-klan#revival-of-the-ku-
klux-klan.
Lutz, William. “Virgin Vinyl, Real Counterfeit Diamonds, and Genuine Imitation Leather:
With These Words I Can Sell You Anything.” Doublespeak: From ‘Revenue
Enhanced’ to ‘Terminal Living’ | How Government, Business, Advertisers, and
Others Use Language to Deceive You, Harper Perennial, 1989, pp 68-103.
“Parasite.” The Criterion Collection, 30 Oct. 2020, https://www.criterion.com/films/30619-
parasite.
Ross, Kacey G. Mountain Lion Writer. Macmillan Learning Curriculum Solutions, 2021.
RyanHollinger. YouTube. RyanHollinger.
https://www.youtube.com/@RyanHollingerWright 8
Sennett, Alan. “Play It Again, Uncle Sam.” Journal of Popular Film and Television, vol. 37,
- 1, 7 Aug. 2010, pp. 2–8., https://doi.org/10.3200/jpft.37.1.2-8.
@SimuLiu (Simu Liu). “No movie studio is or ever will be perfect. But I’m proud to work
with one that has made sustained efforts to improve diversity onscreen by creating
heroes that empower and inspire people of all communities everywhere. I loved the
“Golden Age” too.. but it was white as hell.” Twitter, 22 November 2022, 11:40 AM,
https://twitter.com/SimuLiu/status/1595125075040403456.
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