President Donald Trump was on people’s minds – if not on everyone’s lips – at the Oscars on Sunday night. He was the subject of a protest non-appearance by an Academy Award-winning director, an oblique introduction by last year’s supporting actor winner and several of host Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes. But the president’s name was kept out of most of the references. Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, winner of the Oscar for best foreign film, boycotted Sunday’s ceremony, citing Trump’s travel ban of several predominantly Muslim countries, including his own. He sent Iranian astronaut Anousheh Ansari to read a statement for him.
”Dividing the world into the `us and our enemies’ categories create fear,” Ansari said, adding it’s ”a deceitful justification for aggression and war.” All six directors nominated in the category issued a statement two days before the ceremony criticising the ”climate of fascism” in the U.S. Kimmel referred to Trump specifically in a joke that brought in the Academy Awards’ past controversy over a lack of diversity in nominees. ”Remember last year when people were saying the Oscars were racist?” he said.
He made an elaborate show of talking about the ”overrated” Meryl Streep, who was given that tag by the president in a tweet after she criticised him in a speech at the Golden Globes last month. Kimmel joked about her dress, saying ”by the way, is that an Ivanka?” And Kimmel also alluded to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s banning of some reporters from a briefing on Friday, saying that reporters from CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others needed to leave. ”We have no tolerance for fake news,” he said.
Financialexpress
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