Barbara announces historic moment?

The Academy Awards are over and most have forgotten much of the hoopla.
However, each year I find it curious, or surprising, when a presenter or recipient claims that their award represents “an historic accomplishment” against some type of discrimination. This is followed by praise for those “who have come before”, or “on whose shoulders I stand” or some other such drivel. The latest slop was delivered and appropriately announced by Barbara “my career is over” Streisand, claiming that the glass ceiling was broken when Kathryn Bigelow received the award for Best Director. Cue music for an inspirational song about women.

The first woman to receive Best Director may be historic in Hollywood, but women all over the country have accomplished much and already broken the ceiling. What is amazing, however, is the realization that Hollywood, and the Academy in particular, must openly discriminate against women, gays, blacks, Native Americans and nearly every disadvantaged group you perceive.
If this were not the case, how is it possible to witness the “historic achievements?” The Academy selects the nominees and the winners in all categories. Because so few of these groups are ever selected, they must be purposely blocking recognition based on some type of discrimination. Perhaps if the public voted, we could gauge whether our country has failed to move past the old practice of exclusion based on a characteristic of a specific group.

When Oscar recipients claim their award is recognition and validation of positive attributes of the discriminated group, they are slamming their own colleagues. Or perhaps, they want “to stick it to the Man”. You know who He is- “The Man” who put up the money, took the risk so they could be hired and have the opportunity to “act” in a movie. Perhaps all this is just for show to generate more interest and money for the movie. Any publicity is good publicity. Yet, there is no denying that the Oscars are the most narcissistic of annual events.

To Ms. Bigelow’s credit, she completely dodged the “breaking the ceiling” issue, and instead focused on the troops in the war zone. While the movie was gritty, intense and intriguing, I wondered why the soldiers were not more aggressive in handling the on-lookers or those videoing their actions. In the case of the man with a bomb vest who changed his mind, I could not figure out why they didn’t leave him to explode. It seemed obvious he was trying to take as many soldiers as possible with him on his way to meet the virgins. (Good luck with that journey oh, but wait a second; I’ll map-quest it for you.) While I have heard from some who served in Iraq that the actual situations would never happen as shown, I believe the characters' jobs (disarming bombs) and attitudes were realistic. Forget what is happening around you or how you got there, here is an explosive device ready to detonate; how and what are going to do to resolve the situation? That action takes more mental strength and courage than breaking glass.