No Surprise: ‘Waiting for Superman’ Snubbed By Oscar
by John NolteIt’s never a good day when one of the most wicked organizations on the planet is pleased by anything. But how could America’s teachers unions not have been thrilled with the news that Davis Guggenheim’s damning indictment of the devastation they have brought down upon America’s public school system and millions upon millions of children was snubbed by the Academy this morning?
Objectively, from a pure documentary filmmaking point of view, “Waiting for Superman” is a superbly crafted piece of cinematic advocacy that not only displays great humanity for its subjects but also effortlessly takes the audience through a complex argument. That is what great documentaries do and as someone who has openly praised Michael Moore’s films, unlike some, I can park my politics at the door when it comes to judging the quality of the work based on objective merits. Furthermore, “Superman” is incredibly persuasive in making its case for charter schools and against the abomination of public school teacher tenure. With compassion and an intellectual scalpel, Guggenheim finally puts to rest the liberal lie that “certain” kids can’t learn and that public schools lack funding.
“Superman” is both a Road to Damscus moment for its creator, a liberal who won the Academy-Award for directing Al Gore’s Global Warming nonsense “An Inconvenient Truth,” and a stake in the heart of the borderline racist myths perpetuated by teachers unions, the Democratic politicians beholden to them, and a media unwilling to upset that cozy narrative even as millions of impoverished inner-city kids are doomed to failure year in and year out. Going in with one set of beliefs and coming out with another, Guggenheim discovered and had the moral courage to tell the world that in schools free from the appalling manipulations of astonishingly selfish teachers unions, poor, black children can learn. Someone just has to give enough of a damn to worry about the fate of innocent children more than how much they’re being overpaid to fail.
The film’s single most persuasive element, however, is Guggenheim himself, a card carrying, bona fide lefty. As I mentioned in my review, the film is a Nixon goes to China moment. A conservative making the exact same documentary would’ve been completely ignored. These truths needed to be told by a man like Guggenheim and now I fear he’s learning another truth — the price a political apostate pays in Hollywood for straying off the liberal plantation.
To their great credit, even film critics nominated and awarded ”Waiting for Superman” with the prize for this year’s best documentary.
Always on point in furthering the left-wing narrative, the Washington Post is already crowing over the film’s Academy snub, claiming “Superman” deserved to lose due to “certain inaccuracies,” the worst of which, if true, fall under the heading of dramatic license. And keep in mind, that such “inaccuracies” are only on the table at Oscar time when the Leftist narrative is at stake. Hello? An Inconvenient Truth? Michael Moore?
The big joke behind “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” a film that was nominated for Best Documentary this year, is that the whole thing might be a hoax and everybody knows it.
Anyone still want to have the “accuracy” argument? Because obviously there’s no agenda at the Washington Post. Heaven forbid.
This is a damn shame, but not at all unexpected (the film critic win was unexpected). My friend and a terrific critic in his own right, Christian Toto, took me to the VH1 Critic Awards where Guggenheim was awarded that well-deserved trophy, and out of all the famous people milling about, he was the only one I was interested in talking with, if only to shake his hand. (Well, that’s not entirely true. For different reasons I also wanted to talk with Julia Ormond, but was too frightened and so I creepily watched her from afar instead.) Unfortunately, I never caught up with Guggenheim to tell him how much I admired the film and the risks he took to tell the truth. So…
…for whatever it’s worth coming from a right-wing extremist Davis, you woz robbed. I won’t name names, this article isn’t about that, but I’ve seen some of the other documentaries nominated this year, and you woz robbed.
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54 Comments
I knew there would be documentary snubs because the category was stacked. It was a good year for docs. But I certainly didn't expect Superman to get bumped.
Subject matter aside, this doc makes you feel. It puts you right there with the lives of these children hanging in the balance. There have been many docs made about this same subject that got brushed aside. Superman is the one that shook people up.
That's got to mean something in this craft of film making.
P.S. If the Academy wants to maintain it's credibility, they need to take back Al Gore's award.
Another case of people being 'confused' by facts. Guess the truth hurts, and affects the judges' 'judgement'.
Maybe he can put a piece of tape over the title on his Oscar he shouldn't have won for "an Inconvenient Truth" and write in "Waiting for Superman"
This documentary is a message that needs to be heard. It doesn't deserve to be heard, it needs to be heard.
Remember 30 years from now when we're the little old ladies and gentlemen the generation being educated by the public school system will be the ones running the country.
Might help if they were actually educated rather than herded.
I am amazed that "Waiting for Superman" was not nominated…but…given the climate, I guess I should not be.
Shame on you Hollywood for your continuing deference to union agendas over truth!!
This was my biggest complaint about the oscar nominations.
One reason the oscars are irrelevant. Just another liberal wank fest.
Superman had no political partisanship. It pulled no punches.
I loved Inside Job and I think it perfectly explains the crisis in a very rational and easily understandable way. And although they showed that all these same gangsters have been brought on board the Obama administration . . . they still pulled punches and let certain people off easy.
Inside Job also failed to mention or credit the far right wing Austrian Economists like Ron Paul and Peter Schiff who saw all this coming a mile away.
The Academy should do that for him. They should insist upon it.
Oh, I think the Academy relinquished its credibility quite some time ago, don't you?
Union bashing to a leftist is the same as flag burning to a Conservative.This movie documentary excludes Teachers Unions from the necessary corrective process.
The Academy is stacked with old, pony-tailed, 60-'s hippies, who really never grew up.
Oh, they love Unions. Still think Unions are for the little guy and against "the MAN".. How sad.
< Ann has no love for the man, but despises Unions for what they have wrought in the past 100 years >
Somehow, the possibility that the unions have BECOME The Man escapes them.
In light of the nominations for Waste Land and GasLand, it seems that Guggenheim's biggest mistake was not putting the word "land" in the title.
In the eyes of Liberals "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Fahrenheit 911" are paeans to time-honored mainstream American values, and "Waiting for Superman" is a corrupt extremist diatribe fashioned by a contemptible turncoat. For whatever reason the mainstream media appears to have resisted layering ad hominem attacks on Mr. Guggenheim, but I suspect he must receive absolution before his future films are green-lighted.
Taking the Post's argument at face value, has any Oscar-winning documentary been free of inaccuracies?
If it was dubbed in French, narrated by Alec Baldwin and endorsed by Obama, it would 've been nominated
Yes, it's frightening to think about those kids taking care of us.
Glenn Beck's radio program has as 4th hour online and his sidekicks hold a Moron Test on Fridays.
Some sophomore in COLLEGE was asked what socialism meant and although he had just taken a class regarding the subject matter, he couldn't answer the question because he hardly went to class.
When asked what "vitriolic rhetoric" meant, he was unable to give the correct definition of even "vitriolic", saying that it meant that one liked victory.
I know that these kind of "Man on the Street" things skew toward the moronic for our entertainment. But that ANYONE of that age would not know how to answer those 2 questions is simply horrifying.
I blame 100 yeard of Progressivism in education – dumbing our kids down. Because people who are not enlightened, empowered and educated cannot rule themselves and that benefits the Progressives.
It was endorsed by Obama. He called it "heartbreaking" and "powerful" and invited the five kids that were featured in it to the White House.
I haven't seen this one yet… oh wait.. my daughter's go to public schools… YES I HAVE.
The solution? Oh wait… conservatives have been saying this since before Inconvenient Truth… but NOoOoOOoOooOooo!!!
I still plan on watching with my daughters when it comes out on DVD
Then maybe Obama will take on the union.
Jake
"The Man" is a not so veiled reference to Republicans, who are 'thought' to be against Unions and thuggery.
<Ann>
Obama killed choice in DC, dooming those kids to failure, but he does favor Charter Schools and did endorse the film.
Personally I blame on young people just being dumb. It takes some time to smarten up. I have a daughter, nieces, cousins.
A couple of years ago my daughter took her digital camera and decided it was a good idea to see if it was waterproof by dunking it in the pool. It wasn't.
In my opinion the question is does society force teenagers to mature into adults, or does government simply give them handouts to keep them immature.
Snapshot on results of home schooling:
"Even the Unites States Department of Education agrees on home schooling results. In one study which they sponsored themselves home schooled students produced exceptionally high test scores. The median scores in every grade were far higher than those of public schools and even higher than those of private school students. The average home schooled student in grades one through four was a grade level above that of public school peers and, by the time home schooled students reached the equivalent of the 8th grade, they were as much as four years ahead of students attending public school.
As if this were not enough, costs were also lower. On average, government schools spent $6,500 per student each year and private schools spent $3,500. By contrast, parents undertaking home schooling spent about $550 per student each year. This figure for home schooling does not of course take into account the time spent by parents on home schooling for which a public school teacher would be paid."
.
Okay, on that point I stand corrected. But, it's Still missing two out of three components that would have made it nomination worthy in the eyes of the Academy.
I am currently on my sixth year of being subjected to college stupidity–first as an undergrad, now as a TA where I have to grade history exams by kids who ought to be bounced back to fifth grade. You might or might not believe some of the asinine answers I see. Let me think…one eager mind wrote that the American Revolution began when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses, while another turned an essay question on the Napoleonic Era into a commentary on Star Wars. Amusing, but mind-bogglingly misinformed. I believe the recent study that said half of college students don't learn anything during their four years there. If anything, the number is probably higher. Thanks a ton, John Dewey!
"the Washington Post is already crowing over the film’s Academy snub, claiming “Superman” deserved to lose due to “certain inaccuracies,”… such “inaccuracies” are only on the table at Oscar time when the Leftist narrative is at stake. Hello? An Inconvenient Truth? Michael Moore?"
But they nominated the farrago-of-lies "Gasland." Figures.
"In my opinion the question is does society force teenagers to mature into adults, or does government simply give them handouts to keep them immature."
I think the problem is that society/the gov't has confused teenagers regarding what it means to be an adult.
Right now, teens think to be an adult is to smoke, drink and have sex and do whatever the hell they want without consequences or personal responsibility.
Kind of like my daughters. At the age of 8 and 6, they think that to be a "grown up" means doing whatever you want, no responsibility and owning an Iphone, Ipod and Ipad. Teens are just older versions of that.
And so on the one hand, they are babied, but on the other they are considered to be old enough to deal with issues like sex and the consequences thereof.
I think there is a balance. I think one thing that would help (and I know it sounds weird coming from a conservatarian) is to have an educational system like they had in England when my mom grew up. By 13, you were being tested on whether or not you were going to university. If not, you took classes that would ready you to get a job at the age of 16 or go to a vocational school like my mom did. Otherwise you were prepped for university. And you didn't need 4 years of it to go to Law School either, thereby wasting 7 years of your life (and hundreds of thousands of dollars) like I did.
Teaching kids more personal responsibility and readying them to be removed from us around the age of 18 is the best way to do that. Mileage may vary of course. Some kids mature faster and better than others.
But it's a start.
John Dewey – ooohhhh, don't make me mad!
Yes, it's not hard to believe that most college students graduate without reading comprehension, without the ability to write a coherent sentence and without the ability to think critically,.
Frankly, I think it is a conspiracy by the Progressives – because Man can only rule himself if he is educated, enlightened and empowered. Progressives have been and continue to take that away from our children and then use that "crisis" to push for more gov't control because people are just too dumb to do anything on their own.
Yeah, and here I thought "learning by doing" was going to work out so well…
I still remember a few years ago when a classmate of mine, in a political philosophy class, with several piercings and a generally unkempt, skateboarder look, said, "Yeah, I think it would just be better if we went to a more, like, communitarian lifestyle, ya know." I think that was the only thing he said all semester. I still wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had replied with a few lines from Thomas Sowell, or maybe Adam Smith. I'm imagining a dumb, drooling stare…
Incidentally, I agree with you about the need to have an educational system more like that of England. Half the problem with college is we now encourage every single high schooler to go on to higher learning, when the fact is many of them just aren't up to it. If we would just say, "No, your little baby might be better off going right into the work force rather than trying to reinforce his self-esteem with four more years of school," we might all be in a better position.
It would have been something to behold.
LOL!
A parallel to the Chinese reaction when Liu Xiaobo won the NPP.
Nice work comrades!
Well, high schools would be more productive – they would be college prep with vocational schools for other folks, or they could combine the two. Actually my Catholic high school was like that – there were the college prep classe and the more vocational classes. Either way you were getting educated to be a productive member of society.
To go back to tinfoil hat mode – Progressives push college so they can continue to indoctrinate our kids. That's why they leave not learning any critical thinking skills, etc.
Again, they keep us dumb so they can rule us all.
I've long thought that the practice of telling kids all through their school years that if they didn't go to college, they will starve under a bridge somewhere is a huge disservice. I know lots of people (one of them is me) that went to a couple of years of college and quit. Now they're paying off loans that either didn't get them degrees or got them degrees that they're not using (I'm looking at you theater and philosophy majors). If i'd have just gone to work, then to school when I figured out what I was gonna do, I'd have saved myself (and my parents) a LOT of money.
I'll go even further, pushing for a Comprehensive Final Exam before you get to graduate High School. It could cover the basics of everything you've learned and general competency. If you don't make the required grade, you don't graduate.
Job interviews don't care about your self-esteem.
I completely agree with you. I know plenty of people that have not gone to college, or at least didn't go for four years and are doing better than I am and I went for 4 years and then got a Law Degree, which is almost useless unless you are in the top 10% of your class at a Top Ten school.
I've been struggling since law school to find a decent attorney position. Hundreds of resumes sent out and right now I'm doing independent contractor work (which really hurts at tax time) and which is very precarious. For the last month and a half I've hardly made any money. It's supposed to pick up this month (crosses fingers), but we shall see.
And I've got school loans that are difficult to pay.
I should have just become a paralegal and then decided later about law school when perhaps I could have paid for it without loans.
Ah, the decisions I would have made if I had only known better and not felt pushed into doing it the "traditional way".
100% agree.
I would like to see something like that. Where I grew up, our high school had the basics, with some college prep classes for those who wanted to go on; there was a vocational school some miles away where non-college kids from ours and other high schools went part of the time. It would be more effective if the two were combined, and while I'm ambivalent about the track system, I think it might help for everyone to take both vocational and college prep classes, at first, so they could get a basic grounding in the manual and the academic, so to speak, and then go on to whichever branch they felt "called" to.
Hey, if it helps, the humanities prospects are even worse. I remember the bumper sticker that reads, "I majored in liberal arts. Would you like fries with that?"
To illustrate within my own department, the history profession is currently glutted with job applicants; a position at our university for teaching German history is being sought by 80-90 Ph.D.'s. It's become so bad that a lot of starting professors are going to branch schools to teach, and in some cases even community colleges. Personally, I'm not too frightened; I would rather teach there than in a big research university. But it's incredibly overloaded, and with the rate of growth among graduate students, it's only going to get worse. By the time I get my degree, I may be looking for a private high school to settle down at.
Freshman year of high school we were all required to take a typewriting class (yeah, TYPEWRITER, not computer – we had a computer class but back in 1985 it was pointless. Yes, I'm THAT old. LOL!).
I also remember that our Natural Science teacher, who was a Ph.D., told us that we should not balk at taking that class or any class where writing is taught. She said that she knew plenty of Ph.D. people who could not type and could not write a sentence.
I appreciate the fact that I took that typewriting class. I can type 78 words a minute!
Also, in high school, instead of working retail (which is fine), I worked at the office my mom worked at, kind of a Gal Friday. I learned how to work in an office and all that entails. It helps me now because I'm underemployed as an attorney, but I can find work doing temp jobs because I have those skills I learned many years ago.
We should get together and change the world!
"I remember the bumper sticker that reads, "I majored in liberal arts. Would you like fries with that?""
I think it was T shirt as well. I remember that. Liberal arts drove my dad nuts. He kept complaining that I should major in accounting (I majored in Poly Sci because there are no "pre law majors", which of course begs the question WHY DO I EVEN NEED 4 YEARS OF COLLEGE BEFORE LAW SCHOOL?).
I laughed at him and reminded him that I suck at math! LOL!
I wish you all the luck in the world. We're all going to need it!
Funny, I almost majored in accounting for a while, because I liked it and could do the math, but got sucked into humanities instead. Oh well. Same to you!
Also snubbed was the charter schools vs. teachers unions documentary "The Lottery", which I actually liked better than "Waiting for Superman". This was expected as well.
''Waiting for Superman'' demands our attention.
Thank you, Mr Nolte you nailed it your words said it all for me ''straying off the plantation'' .
I am afraid that Hoolywood is going to snub anything that is not deemed in their favor. Michael Moore got his 2 cents into the awards dealing in Hollywood now days!
However you must take into account that private schools still receive funding such as transportation. It may just be a stereotype but homeschooled kids seem to come out a tad awkward, though that defiantly depends on the quality of parents and at the end of the day a child's future is in the parent's hands regardless. No doubt though, education is broken. just hearing people in college right now is crazy. Spending thousands and not even having a damned plan.
Other types of movies that would get snubbed:
War films that depict the US or the British as the good guys.
Films that depict Communists as evil…
Films about good values…
Documentaries about the Ukraine famine
Films about Jesus.
Films they would slobber all over:
Serial killers who always win
Communists as the good guys
Islamic degenerates who would be depicted as victims
Films celebrating left-wing icons
Perverts (see Polansk, Roman)
Fog of War?
Hard to see why anyone is surprised. Would the old USSR have given "Atlas Shrugged" a best new novel award?\
"Waiting for Superman" doesn't go with the program of Leftist propaganda spat out by Hollywood these days.
"P.S. If the Academy wants to maintain it's credibility, they need to take back Al Gore's award. "
They can't — they're snowed in by Global Warming.
Everyone read: http://www.rahoorkhuit.net/devi/hs/against_school...
Then look up Dr. Benjamin Rush and his ideas about education.
I think most already know about John Dewey and his 'progressive' education.
Waiting for superman is great Kindle Touch Review
Absolutely loved the documentary. School choice (or any kind of differentiation from the status quo) has never been popular, but mainly due to the teachers unions Breville Smart Grinder
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