Maureen Dowd, Oscar Pistorius

Am I alone in my view that the world is insane? I read this morning that Oscar Pistorius is being tested for steroid use.  One article suggested that his attorneys, if the tests determine that Pistorius was on steroids, will defend him against the murder charge based on his use of steroids. Medical evidence is available to show that steroids can push those who use it to commit acts of violence. Pistorius is an athlete who participates in events where steroid use is forbidden.  So, if it's found that this man has been cheating, his cheating would then be a defense against premeditated murder!  Hopefully, the prosecution will point out that Pistorius' use of steroids was in itself premeditated.

I wonder if Maureen Dowd has been reading my blog?  I've spent a fair amount of ink criticizing her recent columns as airhead pieces that say nothing, meander, are not well written, and show an inclination to lean to the right.  So I was nicely surprised yesterday.  Her column was about the three films that are in the lead to win an Oscar this year:  Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty.  She criticizes all three, as I have done, for fictionalizing the truth.  Argo, as I noted in an earlier blog, claims to be a true story (getting Americans out of Iran) but for the sake of car chases and hanging by the finger tip thrills falsifies most of the action.  The Iranians in the last clip chase down a plane in a jeep.  That bit made me laugh out loud as  it was so outrageously false. (Got some dirty looks from other members of the audience.) But what particularly irritated me was its display of American xenophobia. The Americans in the film are, as usual, the heros, while the real heroes of the story, Canadians, get very little praise and almost no credit.  In addition, it suggests falsely that other countries, who tried to help, did nothing.  I hope their ambassadors to the UN mount a protest! 

Zero Dark Thirty, the most egregious of the three films in my opinion, lets its audience think that torture helped the United States track down Bin Laden.  I won't go into this further as I've already written about it, and it still upsets me that so many critics gave this film a thumbs up.  

What I particularly value in Dowd's column is that she made me aware that Lincoln commits similar crimes against truth.  I mentioned in an earlier blog that although Lincoln also took liberties with the truth, they were minor when compared to the falsities in Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, and that Lincoln should receive the Oscar.  But as Dowd points out, Tony Kushner, the writer, took equal liberties and ones just as ugly.  For whatever reason (and none, including artistic license, make sense), the film states that Connecticut's two representatives voted "nay" to the amendment.  This is not minor stuff;  it distorts the truth in a seminal moment of U.S. history when only the truth will do. I hope the State of Connecticut and the descendants of the two representatives who voted "aye" sue Kushner, the screen writer, and Speilberg, the director, for defamation--it won't happen, of course, but it should.  

For once (and it would be for once) the Academy should give the Oscar to the worthiest contender.  None of the three discussed films deserve that title. Good job, Maureen.  Not that you care, but you're back in my good graces.