Many people tolerate it, most people avoid it, but the annual Hollywood panegyric affair that is The Academy Awards is something of a touchstone on the annual calendar. Even with diminishing ratings over the years, the Oscars still shows up as one of the few programs to break through the NFL’s ratings blockade on broadcast TV, so it still holds some shelf space in the national culture.
Yes, the program delivered much in the way of expected proselytizing and political lectures – amid pro-Palestine protests in the limousine lanes. This year’s fashionable virtue-signaling adornment was the smattering of red pins seen disrupting the flow of the designer ensembles. These are the symbols from the activist organization Artists 4 Ceasefire, the neutered effort to lend their name to a long list of celebrities wanting to halt the Israel-Hamas war. (I looked, but saw no notable names…
