The Academy Awards are never about the best movies, or even the movies people go to see, or even good movies. Instead, they are about rewarding the ‘right kind’ of production. “Out Of Africa” got 11 Oscar nominations while “Ran” was not nominated for even one. American directors have made their whole careers lifting the work of Akira Kurosawa but he only got an honorary award when people felt liberal guilt about shafting him for decades.
Well, liberal guilt only goes so far. The Oscar-winning producer of “Schindler’s List” – definitely the right kind of movie – has been shut out for his latest documentary, despite it being the only nominee anyone would have heard of. But that documentary was “2016” and was a negative take on President Barack Obama. The people behind it claim they were shut off for having inconvenient ideology.
“I want to thank the Academy for not nominating our film,” co-writer and director Dinesh D’Souza joked. “By ignoring 2016, the top-performing box-office hit of 2012, and pretending that films like Searching for Sugar Man and This Is Not a Film are more deserving of an Oscar, our friends in Hollywood have removed any doubt average Americans may have had that liberal political ideology, not excellence, is the true standard of what receives awards.”
‘2016’ Oscar Snub Has Filmmakers Claiming Political Bias by Paul Bond, The Hollywood Reporter