Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Mark and I watched a bit of the Golden Globes last night. I learned about how very many "journeys" all of these actors and directors are on. And they have travel partners who make their journeys possible. And they go all the way, on these journeys, from being an actor who hadn't yet performed that given role to being an actor who had. What a journey!
Neil Armstrong went on a journey. I am not entirely sure Django Unchained's Christopher Waltz did the same.
Anyway, the other thing actors and directors did was show bravery and courage. Mostly the evening was focused on hailing the anti-Sarah Palin movie Game Change. Yawn.
Director Jay Roach explained just how "brave" Julianne Moore was to mock Sarah Palin in her role. To which I'll offer up two tweets in response:
@MoRocca: Yes, so brave of Hollywood actress Julianne Moore to make fun of Sarah Palin.
@AndyLevy: Haven’t been able to tweet since learning how brave it was for Julianne Moore to play Sarah Palin cuz I’m afraid she’ll never work again
Making a movie, starring known stage and screen talents, based off of one of the most popular musicals of all time shows courage, said star Hugh Jackman:
“Les Miserables is a project of passion; it took a lot of courage to make it,” declared the handsome actor before thanking his cast mates and his wife Deborra-Lee Furness in a passionate and heart-felt speech.
Writing about your experiences to the acclaim of all elites shows courage:
9:30 p.m. Modern Family nominee Julie Bowen commends comedy actress winner Lena Dunham's courage and tells THR she lives HBO's Girls. "I wish I had her courage," she says. "I'm so glad that generation has someone to tell their stories."
Michael J. Fox’s son Sam Michael made his debut as Mr. Golden Globe, thereby showing ... courage:
Sam has never had any showbiz aspirations, so this was kind of out of the blue," his famous dad told Access Hollywood Sunday night. "I love that he's got the courage and the curiosity and the sense of adventure to do it."
Even the Hollywood Foreign Press Association showed courage, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:
the Hollywood Foreign Press even demonstrated a bit of courage in passing over some TV stalwarts in favor of it-woman Lena Dunham and her brilliant HBO series "Girls."
It's humbling to be around so much courage. Maybe I can take a journey like theirs someday, where I will also learn about bravery.
Image of Iwo Jima statue via Shutterstock.
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Comments:
May '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Yes it does take courage to become a vastly overpaid, glorified marionette with a small talent for pretending to be someone that you are not.
Please, let us observe a moment of silent appreciation for these courageous, unsung journeymen and women.
Oct '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
.
Mar '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
There should be a monument to these brave people, maybe on the DC Mall.
May '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
:) I wouldn't watch the Golden Globes, or the Academy Awards (I don't know the difference), or the MTV music video awards, or.... if you paid me to do so. Thank you, Mollie, for taking the bullet, and for responding with almost as much sarcasm as was merited; and in so little space!
May '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Absurd, of course.
But let's not speak as if the only courage is courage in the face of death or ruin. I'm thinking specifically of Fox's pride in his son. It is just and good to acknowledge lesser forms of courage, and every parent is eager to do so.
Aug '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Mollie do you have a script ?
It was alot more fun reading Ricochet with Downton Abbey on in the background whining about how to pay the servants .
(It was an interesting exercise to cycle through Brideshead Revisited finally at the same time the world was gushing about Downton Abbey. Very trenchant too see the degree of dumbing down that has happened in the video treatment of the Brit aristos since Brideshead debuted 30 yrs ago. Somehow Maggie Smith and Shirley McLaine fail at providing the gravitas of Olivier and Gielgud. Thanks Mr Waugh)
My wife watched the awards and kindly asked if I wanted to join her, perfunctorily I think as she knows the depth of my distaste for these shows since Prof Irwin Corey stopped appearing.
I saw this on Drudge this morning and it pretty well confirmed some of the reasons for my absence.
Edited on January 14, 2013 at 5:55pmApr '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
I am in awe of these gods clad in mortal form that walk among us glimmering like the sun off of the placid waters of our adoration. Where they boldly tread darkness flees and flowers bloom. We are unfit to even stare at the shadows of these heralds of Spring and rebirth. I now recant all my previous political statements and philosophies and with a humble heart and penitent soul beseech them for the courage to follow where they shall lead me.
May '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Ok, NOW I'm ready to secede...
Sep '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Thanks for making fun.
Aug '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
I switched over to the awards after watching Downton Abbey. The better use of my time would have been to go to bed. The awards (like most of them) are an excuse to pat themselves on their backs and talk about how tough it is to "pretend" for a living, wear their designer dresses, and generally thumb their noses at the masses who are outside of "their" mainstream lives. Unlucky for them that their shelf life is so short that they will soon find themselves looking for work on the next celebrity reality show.
Dec '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Wow! Their courage is inspirational but I doubt I can ever match it. btw, the temperature was just above freezing today at my camp in Afghanistan. Alas, I failed to run into any of these courageous Hollywood types as I journeyed halfway across the world to get here or as I went about my duties once settled in. Sigh.
Edited on January 14, 2013 at 6:00pmJun '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
G. K. Chesterton:
Oh, the courage of the Hollywood class:
Were the crowds outside really so dangerous?
Driving on California freeways?
The dangerous act of taking a large check to a Hollywood bank (they have direct deposit, don't they)?
Nothing says courage like hitting people in the face with the ugly realities of the long-forgotten and utterly juvenile Paris Revolution of 1832? [Americans can't even seem to remember our own revolution].
And those Disney folks: I hear they're courageously preparing to release Toy Story 4.
--
The mind reels--I can only sink to the ground and thank Divine Providence for these heroic men and women. [Muffled sob; fade to black to the final strains of Barber's Adagio for Strings].
Edited on January 14, 2013 at 6:03pmMar '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Mrs. Hemingway: I think you are vastly more courageous than all those guys. I mean from your post it appears that you actually saw the whole thing! I would not have lasted a minute. I watched some highlights this morning in the gym (no sound, thank goodness). I just catch the bit when Mr Clinton showed up (I guess he was also being really brave to be in front of that hostile crowd) and almost had to pay a visit to the bathroom.
May '12
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
And gosh! If there were only some way to find out more about them, up-close-and-personal-like, but they're so darn secretive and withdrawn!
What are their politics and their views on the pressing matters of the day? What drugs are they in rehab for and with whom are they committing adultery this week?
Their reticence is doing a great disservice to the rest of us who need brave and valiant role models to help form our world view.
Sep '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
I blame Bush. Or Rather. Rather, I blame Bush.
No, wait. Rather.
Okay. Fixed now.
Oct '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
The sad part, they really believe that tripe is courageous. It is a total disconnect from reality. Jennifer Lawrence however has demonstrated she is well grounded and fully understands she gets paid for pretending to be someone else and acting is trivial compared to real heroes. I salute her.
Jun '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
All we needed was for Dan Rather to close the show with "Courage" and the Circle of Life would have been closed.
Or the Seventh Seal opened...
Jan '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Well, we're being too harsh. Yes, it does take courage to take a risk.
Of course, the Hollywood system long ago figured out how to take risks. You risk other people's money, for which you can always take a write-off and recover it through collateral sales and deals.
And really, the fact that most Americans have to risk their own money, and therefore their real future, while overburdened by regulations imposed by consequence-free bureaucrats who are only trying, after all, to bring about the kind of business utopia they learned in college (you know, where every tree and snail darter is protected, and every job is paid equal, and no one knows who's male or female, but everyone knows who owns a gun) ... well, Hollywood has a different kind of courage:
Quentin Hapsburg: Do you gamble?
Frank Drebin: Every time I order out.
Jun '11
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
They say great minds think alike. What's our excuse?
Pseudodionysius: I blame Bush. Or Rather. Rather, I blame Bush.
No, wait. Rather.
Okay. Fixed now.
4 minutes ago
Aug '10
Re: Last Night, I Learned About Real Courage
Hollywood Babylon and the Day of the Locust should be required reading before anyone watches one of these onanistic galas.
I was fortunate to read them when much younger and they instructed me to take a very skeptical look at that industry . Don't think much has changed.