The Oscars: Pinnacle of the western artistic tradition, or just another opportunity for rich whiteys to give out awards and congratulate each other on a job well done? Letıs take a closer look. Basically, "The English Patient," a movie which I feel confident in classifying as stupid without even having seen it, won all of the awards. Everyone thought it was jolly good and smashing, proving once again that nothing pleases white people more than a good British accent. Even Andrew Lloyd Weber, that saucy Brit, won an Oscar for turning the real life story of a brutal totalitarian dictatorship into a sanitized rock opera. Bravo whitey! Let me tell you, rich whiteys were everywhereit almost seemed like a conspiracy. Rich whiteys in diamonds and high heels, rich whiteys in tuxedos, all expressing their superbly cultivated creativity by introducing awards from a prepared script on a TelePrompTer. Boundaries were being broken I tell you.
But wait a minute you say, the Oscars aren't only for rich whiteys. Didn't the first award given at the ceremonies, the award for best supporting actor, go to Cuba Gooding Jr, a rich black man? Well yes, I guess it's nice that Cuba won, but it sure doesn't absolve the Academy for failing to nominate any other black men, and only one black woman, for any other major awards. And it definitely doesn't absolve Hollywood of guilt for the exclusion of black filmakers, actors and actresses over the past however many years Hollywood has existed. Not to be paranoid, but maybe putting the one non-whitey to win an Oscar in the beginning of the show was intentional so that everyone could say "Phew!" and breathe a big sigh of relief that the revolution was averted by inches yet again.
And then of course we come to the Jews, because whenever you talk about movies and Hollywood, Jews usually come into the picture somehow. We Jews stacked up a bunch of Oscars, and even more nominations. And yes, I admit it, I'm always inclined to root for the Jewish nominees. When the Coen brothers won for best screenplay for Fargo I was right there cheering, "Go Jews!!" I rooted for anyone with "stein" "berg" or "witz" on their last name, and I didn't try to stop myself because I couldn't help it. I'm sure if some pure-bred German Christian Fundamentalist, who by some accident of birth was named Ira Schwartz, made a movie called "Celebrating The Inquisition," I would have probably felt some subconscious compulsion to root for him. I cheered for anyone with dark curly hair, I cheered for anyone who lives in New York, and if I thought they might not be Jewish, I projected Jewish heritage onto them: "Jodie Foster is Jewish isn't she, I think her real name is Yehudit Feinstein." "Diane Keaton was in a Woody Allen movie, right, that makes her Jewish." "Susan Sarandon has good politics, I bet she's a Heeeb."
And then came the big blow to my sense of Jewish identity. It turns out that the guy who produced "The English Patient," that stuffy movie about angst-ridden Brits, is an old man with a Brooklyn accent named Sol Zaentz. Now Iım not 100 percent positive, but I'm pretty sure this guy is Jewish. I donıt know of many old Christian men with a Brooklyn accent who work in Hollywood and have names like Sol Zaentz. I could be wrong though, the Catholic priest at the local church is named Shlomo Miskovitz. But let's just hypothetically say that Sol Zaentz is Jewish. What does that say about the status of Jews as whiteys in America?
"Hold one minute!" you say. "Jews aren't just ordinary whiteys, what about Sammy Davis Jewnior and Rod Carew, what about the Ethiopians!!" And yes, I give it to you, not all Jews are white. But for just this one moment let's talk about white Jews. You might know some of themJews with pinkish skin, often referred to as white skin. Are these white Jews whiteys? "What kind of a question is that?" you say, "What's the difference between being white and being a whitey?" Well let me explain.
In America white people have a lot of what is called Privilege. Marc Ribot, a white Jewish musician on the Lower East Side of New York explains such privilege like this, "If I go out on Second Avenue and grab a black guy by the throat and start pounding his head into the pavement, the cops are going to come and I'm going to be white and they're going to arrest him. That's the way it is. That's the only question. When the cops come, Iım white." There are other benefits of privilege, things like summer camp, college and good jobs. So still, what's the difference between a whitey and a plain old white person? A whitey is someone who has these privileges and thinks he did something to deserve them. A whitey lives out her whole life taking expensive vacations, buying fancy clothes, and going to tanning salons to at least look like less of a whitey. A plain old white person is someone who has these privileges by fact of birth but still fights against privilege. And fighting against privilege doesn't mean voting for Democrats. According to Websterıs Dictionary, fighting against privilege means that if you were ever in the same room as Bill Clinton, you would give him a big fat wedgie.
So what can you do if you were born into the world of white privilege but don't want to become a whitey? First and foremost, never ever make a movie like the "The English Patient." Secondly, forget about making money. If you want to make money in America, you can only do it as a whitey, because it's whitey who pays your salary. Don't be scared to bite the hand that feeds you. Chew the fingers clean of that dirty whitey meat until blood is trickling from your face and you have reached the marrow of the bone. Yech. Third, Stop Thinking and Talking and Just Do It. *Good politics donıt mean anything if you're not willing to get arrested for them, which reminds me I have to stop writing this article and go out and break a window at the local sheriff's office.
But before I go, take a moment to ask yourself: How much do you like white privilege? Enough that you would sell out your values for it? Did you enjoy The English Patient? What time is it? How does my hair look? Do you like my new shirt? Which side are you on? Are you white, or are you a whitey?
Aram Rubenstein Gillis, a senior at Vassar College, is known around campus as Pinky.