“If you want to preach at us,darlings,get into politics” – Piers Morgan Dish On The 2016 Oscars

I’m exhausted; physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically drained.
Watching the Oscars last night became an assault course of the senses, a barrage on the brain, a veritable crushing of the cerebral mass.
By the time Leonardo DiCaprio walked up on stage to collect his first and long-overdue Best Actor award, I was on my knees praying for him to just smile, thank the Academy, then his mum, and tell us what this moment means to him.
Not, for the love of God, deliver yet another award-winner lecture on global affairs.
The decision by the show’s producers to ask nominees to provide names of those they wished to thank so they could be scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen rather than tediously recited on stage, fell prey to a new horror: the worthy statement to the world.
A horror in which the whole point of everyone being there or watching at home – to celebrate great acting and movies – was usurped by a burning desire to pontificate about sex abuse, racism, honour killings, corporate greed, climate change, paedophilia and gay rights.
Host Chris Rock set the tone right from his opening monologue with a relentless onslaught on both the Academy’s shocking failure to nominate a single black actor and the massively over-the-top protests by black stars that followed.
He was undeniably funny, and he could hardly ignore the issue given all the pre-show controversy.
But was it really necessary for Rock to bang on about it all night long?
Or to talk of rape, lynching and ‘grandmother swinging from a tree’, when so many kids are watching at home?
His final plaintive cry of ‘Black lives matter!’ was surely an unnecessary endorsement of a current African-American activist movement?
By then he’d more than made his point about diversity.
Wouldn’t a simple, fun, movie-related gag have been a better sign-off for a global audience?
Message creep became an epidemic.
The ‘Big Short’ director and screenwriter Adam McKay railed against corporate corruption in the political system.
‘If you don’t want big money to control government, don’t vote for candidates that take money from big banks, oil or weirdo billionaires,’ he raged.
Seriously, Mr McKay?
What and who do you think controls Hollywood, exactly?
I can’t go on the morning Starbucks run in LA without clattering into an array of bankers, oil tycoons and weirdo billionaires.
Sex abuse became almost a theme of the night.
The producers of Best Picture winner, Spotlight, a triumphant validation of the declining art of investigative journalism, did a Trump and whacked the Pope.
‘This film gave a voice to survivors,’ said Michael Sugar, ‘and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which will hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.’
Vice-President Joe Biden promoted the White House campaign It’s On Us, which aims to stop sex assaults on US university campuses, urging us to ‘take the pledge’ that we ‘will intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given.’
Lady Gaga then put the campaign to music, singing Till it Happens To You, reflecting her own well documented abuse as a victim.
To ram home the point, she brought out dozens of survivors of abuse onto the stage with the words ‘not your fault’ on their forearms.
This all seemed so heavy-handed for ‘entertainment’ at an awards show.
Even Jenny Beavan, the British costume design winner from Mad Max: Fury Road, felt the need to make a plea for us all to be kinder to each other and the planet or we’ll all end up in Apocalyptic hell like the movie.
Some of the preaching was not just jarring but ill-informed.
Sam Smith, who won Best Song for a fairly dreary, unexceptional song – ‘Writing’s on the Wall’ from the Bond movie Spectre – turned his victory speech into a poorly researched self-celebration of his own homosexuality.
‘I read an article a few months ago by Sir Ian McKellen and he said that no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar,’ he began.
Erm, no he didn’t.
McKellen actually said no openly gay man has ever won the Best Actor gong. Many openly gay men, including Sam’s mentor Elton John who was just down the road at the Vanity Fair party, have won other Oscars.
‘I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community, all around the world,’ added Sam. ‘I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day.’
Now, I’m 100% supportive of gay rights, and a big fan of Mr Smith.
But we all know he’s gay, because he came out in a very public way two years ago.
And that’s definitively not why he was standing there. He was standing there because members of the Academy liked the song he wrote and the way he sang it – the fact he is gay made no difference one way or another.
So by the time we got to Leonardo, my caring, sharing, right-on liberal heart was smashed to smithereens.
I had nothing left in the worthy issue tank.
My ‘serious cause’ locker was empty.
I just wanted someone, anyone, to stand there, clutch their award to their beating jubilant chest, and resolutely desist from the desire to lecture me about anything.
My prayers went sadly unanswered.
I bow to nobody in my admiration of Leonardo DiCaprio; he’s a magnificent actor, a great guy and a superb role model for the industry.
His speech started promisingly.
He thanked the Academy, he thanked his mum and dad, he was humble and heartfelt.
But then, just when I was punching the air with joyful relief, he inexplicably morphed before our very eyes into Al Gore and delivered a polemic on climate change.
‘We need to work together and stop procrastinating,’ he preached.
‘We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for big polluters but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged children who will be most affected by this.’
On and on he hectored.
‘Let us not take this planet for granted,’ he finally concluded, ‘I do not take tonight for granted. Thank you.’
As with all the other award-winning pontificators last night, I agree with him, and think he’s done a terrific job in raising awareness about the very real threat of global warming, notwithstanding his slightly hypocritical penchant for gas-guzzling limos, superyachts and private jets.
But I just didn’t want to hear it all again now, in his moment of movie glory.
If actors truly want to make a difference to the world’s ills, then I urge them to follow Ronald Reagan and go into politics where they can make a proper difference.
In the meantime, I urge them to all please stick a cork in it and let the Oscars become again what it should always be: a celebration of cinema, not a puritanical pulpit.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3469889/PIERS-MORGAN-don-t-watch-Oscars-harangued-racism-rape-sex-abuse-greedy-bankers-global-warming-gay-rights.html#ixzz41gObWVIU
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