{"id":7308,"date":"2015-01-19T17:22:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T17:22:58","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-01-19T17:22:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T17:22:58","slug":"why_the_oprah_went_to_selma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/01\/19\/why_the_oprah_went_to_selma\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The Oprah Went to Selma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Here we are at what many people think is the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday. And, no, it\u2019s got nothing to do with Martin Luther King Day. By the way, I may be engaged in one of the greatest career risks ever taken. I mean, given all this controversy out in Hollywood, showing up here on Martin Luther King Day could be seen as an act of disrespect. What I\u2019ll do is just fall back on the idea I had no idea, the staff didn\u2019t tell me again that this was a celebrated Monday holiday, and I\u2019ve got history on my side. I don\u2019t take too many Monday holidays. Besides, Dr. King wanted everybody to work. That\u2019s what separates him from the modern-day Democrat Party. <\/p>\n

And Oprah, Oprah, Oprah — and, folks, it\u2019s not Selma, you don\u2019t say Selma. You have to listen to the way Al Sharpton says Selma. Selma is said with sadness and pain in your voice, as much as you can muster. It\u2019s sort of like “Seeelma.” Yeah, Oprah Winfrey, she decided to go down and join the March in Selma. Snerdley came in today, “What in the world is Oprah Winfrey, billionaire black woman, doing replicating the march at Selma?” And of course I had an answer for him. It\u2019s about promoting her movie. <\/p>\n

Do you know the controversy over that, folks? Do you know that the head honcho of the Motion Picture Science of Academy Arts or whatever it\u2019s called, she\u2019s black, she\u2019s a female, and they\u2019ve kept that under the rug for a long time. During this whole controversy that bit of news only surfaced over the weekend or late on Friday. And they finally got to this babe and said, “Okay, so what\u2019s up? How come it\u2019s all white nominees out there?” She said (paraphrasing), “Well, it\u2019s a problem, and Hollywood must recognize diversity,” and so forth. I thought, “Wait a minute, I thought Hollywood was about merit.” <\/line><\/p>\n

The idea that that this racism. Does anybody remember In the Heat of the Night beating out The Graduate? Not In the Heat of the Night. It was Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner? It was the Sidney Poitier movie up against The Graduate in 1967 and it was about interracial dating, and it won the Best Picture. The idea that there\u2019s racism out there, I mean, there is institutionalized racism and racism in the Democrat Party. I think what happened here is really no more complicated than the fact that whoever produced this movie, I just can\u2019t remember the name of the studio, forgot to distribute the DVD screeners to members of the academy. <\/p>\n

One of the best-kept secrets in all of Hollywood is that many of the voters for the Oscars never go to the theater. The studios produce DVDs around this time every year starting in December. They\u2019re called screeners. They\u2019re watermarked like crazy. I, as a powerful, influential member of the media, have seen and have had possession of my share. I\u2019ve got one right now — got two. No, I\u2019ve got three. I\u2019ve got Gone Girl, which I haven\u2019t watched yet. I have Unbroken, which I haven\u2019t watched yet, like many of the academy voters, and I have American Sniper. That I have seen. <\/p>\n

I get these, as I say, because I\u2019m a powerful, influential member of the media. And they\u2019re watermarked like crazy, meaning every five minutes or so you get a warning that you will die if you copy this or if you give it to anybody else or if you even say to anybody that you have one. So if I\u2019m not here tomorrow now, you know why. Apparently the studio that did Selma didn\u2019t distribute a bunch of these things. They didn\u2019t get a bunch of screeners out. They had another movie that they thought had a much better chance of winning some awards and they spent some time promoting it. It may be no more complicated than the fact the guys and people that vote haven\u2019t seen it.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t even get their screeners, and yet built-in case, built-in opportunity to once again demonstrate racism or to prove it or to establish it or what have you. But it\u2019s a big stretch, I think, to try to say that Hollywood is racist. I don\u2019t mind watching it. You know, liberal on liberal crime is kind of fun to watch. Libs going after libs is a fun thing to watch. Well, they probably look back at last year. Didn\u2019t 12 Years a Slave, didn\u2019t it win big? Okay, it cleaned up, okay. So it cleaned up last year, so they might think, “Okay, been there, done that. Let\u2019s spread it around this year.” I mean, who knows. <\/line><\/p>\n

This place is consumed with political correctness and liberalism, and they can\u2019t have African-Americans winning everything every year. But the PC crowd said this year is more important than 12 Years a Slave, MLK and Selma. It\u2019s LBJ, it\u2019s the anniversary of all that, and how can it get shut out? And it got shut out, I\u2019m pretty confident, because the voters haven\u2019t even seen the thing. Most of them don\u2019t go to the theater. They\u2019ll never admit that, folks. They\u2019ll never admit that, but that\u2019s why they send out all these screeners. That\u2019s why they produce them and why they distribute them to the voters. That\u2019s how they watch them, on a TV set at home. <\/p>\n

Now, some of them may have home theaters, but none of them have home theaters like a real theater you would go. Even if you have a 14-foot screen, that\u2019s not like going to the theater and watching it on that size screen with an audience in the room and a crowd and all that. <\/p>\n

Now, Snerdley came in, “What in the world is Oprah doing at Selma?” Well, she\u2019s got a movie to promote. This movie, Snerdley, is not doing well, and the movie is taking it on the chin, a lot of criticism from the left over the way LBJ has been portrayed in this movie. An African-American director, and they had high hopes that this woman would be the first African-American woman to get nominated. She didn\u2019t, because it is said she got LBJ all wrong in this thing. <\/p>\n

But I want to go back to something I said last week. Why is Oprah at Selma? Selma wasn\u2019t about Oprah. Why is she there? She\u2019s there to promote a movie. But folks, it\u2019s more than that. I\u2019m gonna repeat this to you because I think it\u2019s fundamentally important for people to understand. By the way, if the movie Selma didn\u2019t get nominated because of the screener problem, there\u2019s another reason for it. I guarantee you the fact that this movie is an attack on LBJ is enough to tick off some of the time-honored civil rights leftists that are in the academy. That would freeze it out anyway. That really ticked \u2019em off, the way LBJ was portrayed in this thing. <\/p>\n

But Oprah, you know, last week when the nominations were announced, there were apparently two shocking surprises. One is that the Roger Ebert documentary got shut out, didn\u2019t win anything. Everybody was stunned. Everybody was shocked. Roger Ebert, my God, what a great guy. He died of cancer, married a black woman, loved Hollywood, how in the world does he not get an Oscar? I explained it, and the same thing about Oprah. We\u2019ve had The Color Purple. We\u2019ve had any number of efforts Oprah has made. She never won, shut out, and now Selma with another fat zero in term of nominations. People don\u2019t understand it and I said last week — and this is what it is — it\u2019s Upstairs Downstairs, folks. <\/p>\n

The public perception of celebrity and fame and stardom — do not doubt me on this — is so different than what it really is. The entertainment media\u2019s presentation of celebrity and fame and stardom, among many other things, creates the impression that all the stars and all the celebrities love each other and it\u2019s one giant good time. It is a very select and unique club where everybody respects everybody, and everybody loves everybody. Why, they marry each other. They party together. They hang out with each other. It looks like something you would desperately want to be a member of if you could. So you get a Facebook account and try to make yourself famous by vomiting everything about yourself you can. And then you start doing that on Twitter because that\u2019s what you think they do. <\/p>\n

<\/a>But the truth of the matter is it\u2019s like everything else. It\u2019s not the way it is portrayed, and Hollywood, particularly on the stardom side, is one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, and getting into it is increasingly hard. And I\u2019m just here to tell you, and I don\u2019t mean this as a slight, but Roger Ebert is never gonna get an Oscar<\/a>. He\u2019s a critic. He\u2019s the media. He\u2019s always gonna be perceived as on the outside, wanting in.<\/p>\n

He was not in the business. He was in a satellite business. He got to rub elbows now and then, but he never, ever was going to cross that moat and get in on the celebrity stardom side of it. And, shockingly, to many of you, neither will Oprah. Oprah is maybe — and this is my personal opinion, and I welcome anybody that wants to blow it to smithereens, but Oprah is perhaps the best illustration of the phony and plastic banana publicity and image making of celebrity and stardom that there is. <\/p>\n

The popular conception is, okay, here\u2019s Oprah, got a TV show. On that TV show, will show up Tom Cruz. He can make an absolute fool of himself bouncing up and down on the couch announcing he\u2019s fallen in love again. And every other actress and every other actor will appear on that program, and the impression left is that they\u2019re all buddies, and when the show\u2019s over they all go out to dinner. They all go to Oprah\u2019s house. They all get on Oprah\u2019s plane. They all go to the same red carpet parties, and it\u2019s not the way it is. When the show\u2019s over, they go their own separate ways. Oprah is the media. She\u2019s not an actress. <\/p>\n

Do you remember — maybe not — the Country Music Awards one year. Gwyneth Paltrow sang a song. She starred in a country movie called Country Strong, and she showed up at one of the CMA awards in Nashville to sing the title song of her movie, and they hated her. They didn\u2019t want any part of her. You could see it, Miranda Lambert, I mean, they\u2019re shooting daggers at her while she\u2019s up there on stage performing during this show. “She\u2019s an actress. She\u2019s not one of us. What is she doing jamming our business? Does she think it\u2019s so easy that somebody that\u2019s never done it can come in here and do it?” I understand this totally. (interruption) I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t care if she sang good or not. She\u2019s an actress. She\u2019s not a country singer. She\u2019s an interloper. She came in and she injected herself. She inserted herself. They\u2019ve paid their dues. They have ridden the buses and her first appearance as a country star is on stage in a movie, screw that. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m telling you. It\u2019s one of the reasons I was aced out on ESPN, folks, they were waiting for me. No matter what, that wasn\u2019t gonna be permitted. Me in sports? No way. It\u2019s enough I became successful in my own show on the radio, but they were just laying in wait for the first opportunity to make sure everybody knew that we don\u2019t like Rush being here. It\u2019s human nature. It\u2019s a protective thing. The thing that\u2019s gonna surprise most people is that this would impact Oprah, but I\u2019m telling you, it does. So Oprah\u2019s in Selma because Oprah has not yet overcome. Oprah\u2019s still trying to get in that club, folks, and I know, if you run around and posit my theory, not a single person\u2019s gonna tell you I\u2019m right. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re all gonna tell you I\u2019m nuts and Looney Tunes and crazy and so forth, but that\u2019s your best evidence that I\u2019ve nailed it. It\u2019s not a big deal, but if you\u2019re wondering why Oprah\u2019s in Selma? She wants in that club. Oprah doesn\u2019t want to have to be the one hosting a TV show to have these people come see her. She wants to be invited because she\u2019s Oprah, not because she\u2019s got a TV show, not because she\u2019s got a vehicle they can promote their own stuff on. She wants to be with \u2019em just because they want her with them, not because she\u2019s got a TV show. And she\u2019s tried, The Color Purple, now Selma, and whatever else. Shut out, zero nominations. Why do you think that is? Do not doubt me on this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here we are at what many people think is the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday. And, no, it\u2019s got nothing to do with Martin Luther King Day. By the way, I may be engaged in one of the greatest career risks ever taken. I mean, given all this controversy out in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy The Oprah Went to Selma - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/01\/19\/why_the_oprah_went_to_selma\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Why The Oprah Went to Selma - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Here we are at what many people think is the most depressing day of the year, Blue Monday. 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