RIGHT OF CENTER: OSCARS GLORIFY VANITY, VICE, VACUITY

As millions of television viewers looked on, our nation's modern heroes -- oozing with opulent pretension -- momentarily abandoned the assuaging of their collective guilt and embraced The Cause.

I'm referring, of course, to the Oscars, that hideously self-serving, and self-important awards show to glorify the gods of vanity, vice and spiritual vacuity. I quit watching the Oscars years ago, soon after the ascent of the awareness ribbon. Soon everyone, from Hollywood actors to producers and directors to, I suppose, award-winning grips and technical assistants, were sporting the little lapel ribbons. The idea was to "increase awareness of AIDS."

This I'm unable to comprehend. Even if there was a single viewer that wasn't aware of AIDS, which I doubt, what purpose does the ribbon serve? Is the ribbon a symbol of some moral imperative such as, "Sex outside of marriage is wrong, and it can kill?" I doubt it. Do contributions for AIDS research increase when hundreds and thousands of Hollywood glitterati sport ribbons at their annual love fest? Probably not.

I suspect the Hollywood crowd's motives are less than sincere.

With a lack of practical skills save as waiters and taxicab drivers, the types of jobs most of them take while seeking their big break, these men and women are blessed only with the ability to pretend. And yet they enjoy unimaginable wealth and prestige. I wonder how many of these people could truly function in a society where people didn't worship at the altar of fantasy and escapism. How many actors, producers and directors could be as successful with a real job in the real world?

It's no wonder they suffer guilt.

Thus the awareness ribbon, which allows them to identify with an oppressed and afflicted group and assuage that guilt.

But that was then. Now the awareness ribbon apparently is passe. In its place at this year's Oscars was The Cause: speech after tactless speech admonishing the American people to preserve taxpayer funding for the arts.

Since when did success in play-acting qualify someone as an authority on politics and culture? Does the fact that millions of people go to a movie mean that those same millions will vote however the movie's stars tell them to?

I won't use this space to delve into some of the obscene ways federal grants for the National Endowment for the Art have been used to finance so-called art. Suffice it to say, the American people -- the same people whose movie going feeds Hollywood's opulence -- have seen enough of some of these artists and their antics to be outraged. What too often is lost in the debate, though, is that taxpayers ought not to have to pay for even good art.

Why not make artists compete in the same marketplace where taxpayers toil against excessive regulations and government burdens only to have their hard-earned money siphoned off and doled out to reprobates and malcontents who ridicule capitalism and America?

It's time to pull the funding plug on obscene malfeasance called performance art, photographs of sado-masochistic sodomy, and art a 5-year-old's skills could elevate although his mind could never be so depraved as to conjure it up. But there also is no good reason for making steel workers in Pennsylvania, ranchers in Wyoming and plumbers in Chicago pay for even good art. There are those willing to pay it in the supply and demand of our market economy. We should let them.

The so-called artists and performers faced with the loss of taxpayer handouts should take heart, though. They need only to look to Hollywood to see what mediocre men and women can accomplish materially in a capitalistic society that seems to thrive on smut and blasphemy. Then again, if the misguided moralists at the Oscars aren't careful, the American people are liable to get fed up and decide they no longer need to bankroll the pampered and scornful Hollywood elite by flocking to see their silly movies.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.