Staff Reports
The 98th Academy Awards rolled through Hollywood like a ceremony in suspended animation, full of inside jokes and the same sanctimonious air that has chased ordinary Americans away from the broadcast. Conan O’Brien returned to the dais and delivered quips about everything from AI to the industry’s favored narratives, a performance that tried to paper over a deeper problem: the show is now a platform for a cultural clique, not a celebration of movies that speak to the country.
On the winners’ side, Michael B. Jordan took home Best Actor for Sinners, a film critics and insiders fawned over while ordinary folks shrugged — a supernatural drama drenched in symbolism that many conservatives see as another Hollywood lecture dressed up as art. The industry will trumpet the milestone, but when awards are handed out more for messaging and identity-box checking than for broad cultural resonance, the Oscars lose their claim to be America’s awards.
This was the first Oscars season in which the Academy’s Representation and Inclusion Standards were enforced as an eligibility gate for Best Picture, and make no mistake: those standards reach deep into casting, creative leadership, crew composition, and even marketing teams. What began as a well-intentioned push for workplace fairness has calcified into hard rules that effectively turn artistic judgment into a compliance exercise, rewarding films for meeting checklists instead of telling stories that unite Americans.
The ceremony also underscored how the Academy is remaking itself into an industry regulator with new categories and priorities — even debuting awards and recognizing casting in ways the public may not have asked for. For decades the Oscars rewarded craft and storytelling; now the show doubles as a bureaucracy handing out stamps of cultural approval that align with elite tastes and agendas.
Meanwhile, the rest of the country is voting with its eyeballs. When Turning Point USA offered an All-American alternative to the Super Bowl halftime spectacle, millions opted for a different kind of entertainment and community than the one Hollywood keeps selling. That shift isn’t a fluke — it’s proof that patriotic, family-friendly alternatives can and do attract real audiences when the mainstream refuses to.
Hardworking Americans are tired of being lectured by a small coastal class that mistakes moralizing for moral authority. We should celebrate art that uplifts, entertains, and respects the nation’s values instead of bowing to a production manual of identity quotas and sermonizing acceptance speeches. If Hollywood wants relevance again, it will have to stop treating awards night like a political conference and start making films that speak to the hearts of ordinary people.
