Several favorites to win Oscars at Sunday’s Academy Awards are under attack for promoting socialism and overlooking horrific abuses under communist regimes in a willful effort to whitewash the history.
In a preemptive strike on the awards gala, a group devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million victims of communism and those still living under totalitarian regimes has singled out the movie “Trumbo,” and red carpet regulars Oliver Stone and Michael Moore for overlooking human rights abuses in their works.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation offered the three awards named for Walter Duranty, the discredited former New York Times Moscow bureau chief who won the Pulitzer Prize for stories that glossed over Stalin’s atrocities in the former Soviet Union.
“‘Trumbo’ Sweeps Major Categories, Michael Moore To Get Lifetime Achievement Award For Historical Fiction,” said the group’s award release provided to Secrets.
Among the awards offered Friday:
— Film of the Year: Trumbo The story of self-avowed communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the film conveniently ignores Stalin’s murderous, totalitarian regime and the Soviet Union’s efforts to bring America into the Communist fold.
— Actor of the Year: Bryan Cranston, Trumbo. Cranston’s depiction of Trumbo, his comments that “aspects of socialism are a good thing”
— Director of the Year: Oliver Stone, Mi Amigo Hugo. Stone’s documentary on Hugo Chavez aired on Venezuelan state television on the anniversary of his death, portrays the authoritarian ruler as a charismatic “man of the people,” ignoring how the nation’s economy was brought to bankruptcy, free speech rights were curbed, and private property was confiscated under his socialist rule.
— Lifetime Achievement in Historical Fiction: Michael Moore, the socialist director of “Sicko,” which woefully mischaracterized Cuba’s health care system and “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which embraced socialist rhetoric and arguments against the free enterprise system, along with other unfortunate bouts of historical amnesia.
Marion Smith, executive director of the foundation, said, “With each passing year, Hollywood’s historical amnesia about communism and the Cold War grows more disturbing. Trumbo portrayed Hollywood’s most influential communist as an American martyr for free speech, ignoring the fact that Communist regimes were — and from China to Cuba, still are — the most serial abusers of human rights and freedom of conscience. Oliver Stone and Michael Moore continue to produce propaganda celebrating communism and socialism with Stone’s documentary paean to Hugo Chavez Mi Amigo Hugo and Moore’s numerous lifetime contributions to the genre from Sicko to Capitalism: A Love Story.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
