The Critics' Choice Awards last night gave Hollywood celebrities the chance to congratulate themselves, Barack Obama, and take parting shots at the Bush administration.
Surprisingly, Sean Penn had no political diatribe to speak of after winning Best Actor for his role in the highly politically charged film “Milk.” However, Sarah Silverman and "John Adams" director Tom Hooper took zingers at President Bush.
Richard Gere, after being honored with a humanitarian award for his work in Tibet, said the following:
I grew up in a time like a lot of people here. It was Vietnam, and we instinctively, innately, felt we could change the world. There was no doubt about it, and we did. We changed he world, and then something happened. It all became selfish... and rancid...and silly... and stupid, and we ended up with the last eight years that we’ve had in this country, which is almost over(applause). We have a few days left, but with this new administration, I think we can recapture that innate instinctive feeling that we really can genuinely care for and love each other...everywhere on the planet. Everywhere, and no one is outside of that embrace. Nobody. Everyone gets it. We don't hold it back from the bad guys...the guys with the wrong color. The guys that live in the wrong places. Everybody gets that.
Selfish and rancid? Apparently, Gere never kept up with the Bush administration’s AIDS effort in Africa, which was given credit by both Bill Clinton and President elect Barack Obama.
Gere may not have visited the Walter Reed wounded military who President Bush visited regulary and inconspicuously. Unfortunately, the secretness of his regular visits will mean regular hit jobs from those like Gere.
Yet again, Hollywood cannot help itself. The Obama administration has yet to begin, and the entertainment industry is already scoping out a place for Obama to sink his feet into at the Chinese Theater.
