Thanks, Mr. President, and I hope you go back to the ranch, too.

Has anyone else noticed that suddenly the Oscars are "out of touch" with "mainstream America"?

What could have caused this sudden media flurry of grave concern for the massive sequined circle jerk that is the Oscars?

It's not because the Academy nominated a gay cowboy movie, is it?

Because no one's that childish, right?

And seriously, people, when have the Oscars NOT been out of touch?

Okay, one year, when they rebounded from "the year of the independents" in 1996, in which Fargo, Sling Blade, Shine, and Best Picture Winner "The English Patient" all put the big budget Hollywood pictures to shame, awards-wise, to "the year of stupidity" in 1997, when that huge stinking piece of shit Titanic won the Best Picture Oscar.

I know, I know. How can I say that about Titanic? You LOVE Titanic. Well, I'm not sure how to respond to that except that maybe you need to watch it again. Because it's a piece of shit.

Seriously. It's awful, dude.

But enormously popular. Which is my point. Except for the year of Titanic, when Hollywood was so painfully in touch with the lowest common denominator in movie-going America,* Hollywood likes its BP nominees to be popular, sure, but more importantly, they want them to be arty.

Because that's why movie makers make movies. As Orson Welles once said, "It's no great trick to make a lot of money if all you want to do is make a lot of money." And making movies is one of the least efficient ways to make money, ever.

What Hollywood producers want is prestige, and power. They want to be the guy who made Taxi Driver. They want to be the guy who made American Beauty. They want to walk into (insert hot restaurant name here) and see other people tremble before them.

That's all they want. They don't want to make people gay. They really don't care if you're gay. (Well, as long as you're not their lead actor they don't care.) And they don't care if you vote Republican, or if you hate the Palestinians, or if you support racial profiling. They just want to be worshipped for the gods that they are.

And this awards season, that's not such an awful lot to ask, is it?


*I think a case could also be made here for the tremendous gooey turd that was Braveheart, but let's not get into the whole Mel Gibson thing, because he's filming a sequel to The Passion of the Christ, and I just need to stay really calm right now.