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When I went to see the Oscar-nominated Live Action shorts recently, an advisory taped to the box office window warned viewers to expect themes of murder, racial violence, and children in peril. The films featured a six-year-old abandoned on a beach; a child getting sucked under by quicksand as his friend watches in helpless horror; a reenactment of the police inquiry of two 10-year-olds convicted of kidnapping and murdering a toddler in England 25 years ago; and a young boy from a gun-loving (as well as loving) family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, maybe not entirely loving, since the father beats up a black man for interacting with his son in a friendly manner in a checkout line. In a fastidious act of retaliation, the beaten man\u2019s friends and family tattoo the racist father\u2019s entire body black before releasing him to stumble back home. Whereupon his son unknowingly shoots him to death, mistaking his dad for a black intruder. This last short, \u201cSkin,\u201d was awarded the Oscar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the films were well-acted and tightly written, with\ntop-notch production values. Still, not a good first-date movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have another short film to nominate for the\n\u201cChildren in Peril\u201d category. It\u2019s a lot less harrowing to watch than the Oscar\ncontenders, although if you think about it for more than a nanosecond, it\u2019s the\nmost disturbing. Unlike the others, the production values are terrible, as\nvideos surreptitiously shot by an amateur holding a smartphone tend to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fifteen minutes of grainy footage shot through a\nnarrow doorway are of Senator Dianne Feinstein\u2019s now-infamous meeting<\/a>\nwith a group of middle- and high-schoolers about the Green New Deal. The\nsenator loses no time in dismissing the kids as unrealistic know-nothings who aren\u2019t\nold enough to vote anyway, so why should she care? She doesn\u2019t allow them to\nread their handwritten letter to her; instead, she\u2019s fixated on distributing\ncopies of her<\/em> proposal so the kids can\nread it. One little pig-tailed girl looks like she\u2019s about to burst into tears.\nAnother, older and bolder, manages to score an internship with Feinstein, who\nseems to belatedly realize that she\u2019s committing PR suicide on a national\nstage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The kids are hurried out of the meeting by some\nmiddle-aged white guys in suits. These aides, looking like Jeff Flake trapped\nin an elevator with sexual assault victims after the Kavanaugh hearings,\nattempt awkward small talk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m a big backpacker, so I\u2019m environmentally conscious!\u201d\none offers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A boy says, \u201cMy grandparents\u2019 house burned down in the\nParadise fire due to low rain, and that could have been caused by climate\nchange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The adults in\nsuits choke out, \u201cOh, no! Really? Terrible!\u201d before fleeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Terrible indeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Feinstein may have had a point, but she looked and\nsounded like an old crank yelling, \u201cGet off of my lawn!\u201d Not a smart move to\nplant a sign reading, \u201cYou and your stupid ideas aren\u2019t welcome here\u201d for any Democrat\nhoping to attract a whole new generation of voters to the Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, DiFi\u2019s viral moment has nothing on the\nvirulence of the Republican climate deniers and obstructionists currently in\npower and rapidly catapulting us toward catastrophe. While Donald Trump and\nMitch McConnell rant about socialism and mock the Green New Deal, at least the\nDemocrats are putting forth and debating ideas necessary for addressing the\nproblem on the scale it requires. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer\u2014hardly\na radical environmentalist but recognizing the urgency of the moment\u2014said<\/a>\nrecently from the Senate floor: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMaybe Leader McConnell doesn\u2019t realize this, but because of the political stunt vote he\u2019s planning on his version of Green New Deal, for the first time in a long time, the Senate is finally debating the issue of climate change. And it\u2019s about time, if you ask me. . . . I understand my friends on the other side of the aisle don\u2019t like the Green New Deal. O.K., that\u2019s fine. What\u2019s your plan? Maybe a lot of members think they can get away without having to answer the question. They won\u2019t. . . . Democrats believe this is an issue of surpassing importance. What do our Republican colleagues believe? We hope sincerely that our Republican friends will come around and view it the same way.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Until they do\u2014until we all\ndo\u2014children will remain in peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I went to see the Oscar-nominated Live Action shorts recently, an advisory taped to the box office window warned viewers to expect themes of murder, racial violence, and children in peril. The films featured a six-year-old abandoned on a … Continue reading