Anyone who’s seen Joker knows Joaquin Phoenix deserved the Academy Award for best actor. His performance in the film was moving, and it brought attention to important issues in society, such as loneliness, mental health, and soulless governance.
Phoenix vaguely touched on these issues during his acceptance speech Sunday night, but spent most of his time talking about the real crises plaguing our society: injustice, human selfishness, and cow insemination.
“I think the greatest gift that [acting] has given me and many of us in this room is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless,” Phoenix said as he collected his trophy. “I’ve been thinking a lot about some of these distressing issues that we are facing collectively, and I think sometimes we feel, or are made to feel, that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality.”
“I think whether we’re talking about gender and equality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights, or animal rights, we’re talking about the fight against injustice,” Phoenix continued, “We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one people, one race, one gender, one species has the right to dominate, control, use, and exploit another with impunity.”
Then things got a little strange: Humans have become “more disconnected from the natural world,” he said, leading humanity to become “egocentric” and self-obsessed. As a result, “We go into the natural world and plunder it of its resources. We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and then steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf, and we put it in our coffee and cereal,” he said.
The crux of Phoenix’s speech that human selfishness harms ourselves and others is correct. And he was speaking to exactly the right audience. Hollywood is self-centered and often hypocritical: Many of the same people applauding Phoenix’s tribute to environmentalism and animal rights flew into Los Angeles on private jets, and although many Hollywood stars denounce animal cruelty, I’d wager few of them have given up animal products completely.
But Phoenix’s rant about cow insemination was unnecessary and even uninformed. I went to college in a small town in rural Michigan that is home to at least a handful of dairy farmers. They did not abuse their animals or mistreat them. In fact, they do all they can to sustain and care for them. Phoenix might disagree with the dairy industry, but accusing thousands of hardworking farmers of neglect and abuse is not the way to convey that disagreement.
If anything, Phoenix’s rant revealed that he, too, has fallen into the unavoidable selfishness Hollywood spreads. With that said, Phoenix does deserve credit. I wish he had focused less on dairy, but he did manage to speak about environmentalism in a respectful manner. In fact, he admitted that he has fallen dramatically short of his own expectations, too, and urged his fellow stars not to engage in “cancel culture.”
“Now, I’ve been a scoundrel in my life,” Phoenix said. “I’ve been selfish, I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and ungrateful, but so many of you have given me a second chance — and I think that’s when we’re at our best. When we support each other, not when we cancel each other out over past mistakes, but when we guide each other to grow, for redemption. That is the best of humanity.”
The content of Phoenix’s speech was questionable, but the way in which it was delivered deserves respect. It stopped just short of a virtue-signal. And in Hollywood, that’s quite a feat.
