Funding for to the Contrary provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation The Park Foundation and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation This week on To the Contrary.

Inequality and misogyny, criticism of the list of nominees chosen for possible Academy Awards.

Then, Marjorie Taylor Greene She's apparently on Donald Trump's short list to run with him as his Vice Presidential nominee.

{MUSIC } Hello I'm Bonnie Erbe' Welcome to To The Contrary, a discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, women and entertainment.

You won't see a female director win best director at the Academy Awards.

That's because when the list was released this week, no woman was nominated in the director category.

It was the same with the Golden Globes, but the Golden Globes included more black performers than the Oscars will.

Till, the story of Emmett Till' murder and his mother's fight for justice did not receive any Oscar nominations.

The female director, Chinonye Chukwo, criticized the awards as, quote, unabashed misogyny towards black women, end quote.

Five actors were nominated for best actress.

There were one Asian and one Hispanic nominee in the group.

Viola Davis was not on the list, even though her role in the woman king did receive nominations at the Golden Globes and at the Screen Actors Guild.

Joining me today are Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from D.C..

Columnist for the Washington Examiner, Tiana Lowe the co-founder of Reproaction, Erin Matson and political strategist Rina Shah.

So let's start with you, Congresswoman.

There were, as I mentioned earlier, there were an Asian-American and Hispanic on the list for best female actor.

What does the black community have a right to complain, even though there have been significant wins in the past about the lack of black people in that category.

Oh blacks have every right to complain.

No nominee for black actress.

No nominee for black director.

Clean slate.

Blacks wiped out.

So yeah, there's plenty to complain about.

But there were five slots.

Okay.

Two did go to female actors of color.

What happens if we start, you know, generally speaking, having one minority not feel as though people of color are being given their fair due when other minorities are given recognition?

What kind of, Rina does that get us into, if a difficult area?

I think we get into dicey territory when we talk about how many should there be for example, with the Academy Awards, you know, we saw the highest number of Asian-American actors be nominated.

But again, that number was only four.

So how many is enough?

And at some point, we have to look at the root of the problem, too, is how are we seeing these people get to where they're getting?

Is it taking a long time?

We've seen that with the Asian actors.

So they've been put in certain roles.

They've been typified a certain way.

We're seeing all that sort of breakthrough now, and only in recent years has a really been a real consciousness.

And I know that everybody hates that word Wokeism Right.

But is it the worst thing when we're talking about, again, how we just don't see certain groups represented in a way they ought to be?

Is it reflective of America?

No.

But what can change and I think we get to the root of the problem and see how these people are being brought up through the ranks as actors and actresses.

And are they being given the opportunities to direct and be in certain roles the way their counterparts who are are of not minority status would be?

So I think that representation is not the only things that matters.

And what I mean by this is let's look at that best actress race.

One of Harvey Weinstein's very unfortunate legacies on Hollywood was how he turned the Oscar nomination and game specifically into a money war, into a publicity war.

Which is why it's very difficult for smaller budget films to get their incredible actors and actresses, often those that are very diverse stories represented one of the people who did get represented, or one of the people who did earn a nomination was Ana de Armas for the movie Blond, which I don't know if anyone's seen it, but to me that was an incredibly sexist choice.

That was a very reductive, sexist portrayal of Marilyn Monroe that completely erased her historical legacy, her comedy and her ethos and her strength as an actress, as as a comedian.

Right.

It was played for tragedy.

And I think that a lot of people in my generation, in this post-MeToo world in Hollywood, we're very uncomfortable with things like overly sexualizing actresses and gratuitous nudity.

It feels a little bit like a pay for play, right?

Like if you are a woman who wants to be recognized, the Oscars, you must strip this many times on camera.

All right.

Let's get because I do want to get to the larger question.

What happens to you as an Asian-American?

What happens if if there are plenty of African-Americans, for example, nominated or a large number, let's say four out of five nominees in in the best actress category were African-American.

Do you feel do you give credit that just people of color, lots of them are in a category as opposed to looking for specific kinds of people?

I mean, if they deserve it, then they should earn it, right?

It doesn't matter what specific minorities you're cherry picking.

Right.

You want to make sure that the nominees look somewhat like America, but from year to year, they're going to be more successful film starring white actresses or black actresses Asian actresses.

And I think the merit element of it really matters.

And a lot of the whole OscarsSoWhite campaign from a few years back has to do with the fact that merit wasn't being recognized.

Right.

Black actresses were being overlooked.

This year The Woman King and Till had two fantastic lead African-American actresses.

Why were they ignored?

For Till, All I'm going to say is that budget thing that that that campaigning.

That is a lot of what I'm referring to, a movie that doesn't have large coffers, you know, to take out members of the academy.

It is very corrupt how these things are chosen.

So a lot of it is a money game.

Okay.

So, Erin, should we be attacking it from the perspective of not enough money thrown into public relations?

And it is all a PR game?

Should we be talking about making sure all films, no matter who they are produced by, have equal finances to try to influence the judges?

Because that's what the game is about?

Well, Bonnie, I want to take a step back for a second and just talk about what the overall game is here.

This is a white man's game.

Hollywood has always been a white man's game and it's extremely white male dominated.

And I stand in solidarity, in particular with black women who are very frustrated.

What has happened with this latest crop of nominees?

I want to push it a little farther and just put it out there for folks to start talking about.

And I'm sure that it'll get some folks go, whoa.

But the fact of the matter, these are nominations.

These are not awards.

Is it time to start looking at some kind of affirmative action policy?

And what might that look like within the Oscars?

Because when I look at I watch the Academy Awards or excuse me, not the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes and the Golden Globes didn't have the same problem.

It seems that there is a specific problem.

It didn't.

It did in terms of like I watched the Golden Globes and there was white Steven Spielberg accepting the award for the Fablemen's with like three or four of his closest aides, all older white men.

So I just it still looked to me like the occasional, you know, gay person, Ryan Murphy and the occasional person of color.

Billy Porter was up on the stage, but and the audience was pretty diverse.

But the people on stage were not.

So Rina, what do we do about that?

Well, there is a number of things I think we can do.

And I think, again, I'm a root of the problem type of gal.

I just think these these industries need diversifying in so many ways.

Opportunities wise, scholarship wise, why aren't a lot of people of color studying certain types of arts?

Right.

Because there is a sense that art will not pay.

And of course, I'm sharing an immigrant trope from, I would assume, a lot of Asian-Americans and of course a lot of African families who immigrate from Africa as well.

There's a sense that your child has to go into something that will give you a stability, a job.

But there are these younger generations, kids of immigrants who want to pursue something in the performing arts, but they don't have the opportunity, the privilege, that certain network.

And so we have to think about more private public partnerships.

I think in this space as well.

I'm just not a Quotas person, and I really, really do caution against certain kind of, you know, affirmative action policies just because I think they can do more harm than good in some ways.

I have great faith in this fact.

As as Erin said, traditional Hollywood is a is a white man's game.

I talked to an agent a year or so ago.

This was after the MeToo movement had sort of faded.

Now it's almost out of view.

But I asked him what impact it had had on Hollywood, you know, the casting couch and all of that.

And he said none that everything was back to the way it was.

Now, I'm not a part of that network.

I don't know.

But I do see lots of women, and particularly women of color starting up their own production companies and completely bypassing Hollywood on the way to the streaming networks, which are more and more considered the same as Hollywood when it comes to awards, just as quality production.

So isn't the the the solution to all this, Eleanor, to just bypass the old boys game?

Yeah, Bonnie, That's the way to get into the game yourself with with black actresses and directors depending on Hollywood.

We see what the answer is.

The same things and the same people.

So this new outgrowth of of outlets and people fending for themselves is the way to get noticed and the way to get Hollywood back into the game.

And as you say, with streaming and as so many other outlets, Hulu who I mean, Hollywood is not all there is.

So let's take advantage.

It really cannot be overstated how much the Internet has democratized content creation.

Right.

Like the biggest deals right now that some talent agencies are brokering are not actors and actresses who are on the traditional golden screen.

Right.

It's people on Tik-tok, which is a Chinese Communist Party ran app.

I will just add that.

But the point is they're making independent content.

They don't have producers.

And even a lot of the people who are going to Netflix are going to HBO Max, are private independent studios.

It then broker deals with them to the point about being respected, especially as a woman of color in a traditionally white rich man industry.

Shonda Rhimes.

The reason why she left ABC Disney.

Here is why after she created Gray's Anatomy, Scandal, some of the best shows on television in the last 15 years, she went to Disney to ask for, I think three extra like Disneyland passes because she had family visiting her and they said no.

Within like a few months, she inked a deal with Netflix Worth.

It was one of the most expensive deals Netflix has ever made.

And she's there now.

And she gave them Bridgerton and she gave them the Emmy nominated mini series (inaudible)..

So the point being, because it is no longer, you know, your grandmother's Hollywood industry where there's, you know, MGM and a few other producers.

You have so many options these these days.

And that's why we're going to see better, more democratized content.

And I think that will bode very well for diversity.

In the end, capitalism always wins.

Well, I would like to believe that in the end that people will win.

And capitalism is a tool for serving people.

Correct.

But I would like to just close up with saying, you know, what matters about this is Hollywood is incredibly important and powerful.

And the stories that we see not only send a message to young people about what they can do and be and achieve, but it also they're important for people of all ages and building empathy and understanding other people.

So it is really important that we have more diversity in Hollywood.

All right.

From movie drama to political drama, Georgia Republican and U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly wants to be Donald Trump's next running mate.

Steve Bannon, a former aide for Trump, says she sees herself as the next VP, although she is coy and denying that she's running.

The second term congresswoman has recently undergone an attempted rebranding.

She made her name as a far right agitator, but now she wants voters to see her as a uniter between the GOP's two wings.

She recently campaigned to elect Kevin McCarthy of California as House speaker when many of her allies were set against him.

But for his part, Trump is not shown any indication he's decided on a running mate.

Rina, you are a Republican analyst and have spent a lot of time in the party, although you're not a Trump supporter, obviously.

Would she be a bit a good pick for him?

Well, I've spent a lot of time with Republican women over the past two decades, and I can tell you she's unlike the vast majority I've met.

She's somebody that doesn't care about public service.

She's deeply unserious.

She also has no desire to learn how to govern, to pull the levers.

I don't think she's in.

That sound just like Donald Trump.

Exactly.

So there's a fit right there.

This is about personality.

This is about the value beyond just serving people and a constituency.

This is about enriching oneself.

And she saw that and she's taken the opportunity.

She really gave herself away during the contentious many days of multiple ballots.

And Kevin McCarthy's election to the speakership, it was about getting what she wanted.

In the end, she wanted committees.

She knew McCarthy would give them back.

She knew how valuable her one vote was.

So she didn't go with her friends, which I call the crazy clown car caucus of people like Representative Matt Gaetz and and Lauren Boebert.

These people, again, I call them that because they prove it that they want to not just shake things up, they want to blow things up.

They want to act like the clowns in the room because they want to draw attention to themselves.

So Marjorie Taylor Greene saying that she wants to be Trump's running mate, going down to Mar a Lago, much like Carrie Lake of Arizona.

These people want to hitch their train and hitch their bank account to what they see is deeply lucrative.

And that is still Trump world in the MAGA universe.

I mean, he.

Has lost so much credibility and so much.

And the reason that there are a lot more moderate Republicans out there and people elected to office becoming more moderate.

I think of DeSantis in Florida, who signed a 15 week abortion bill, pro-abortion, you know, abortion rights bill, that you can have an abortion up to 15 weeks, wanting to position himself in his run for president as not anti-choice in the way that the Supreme Court and this and the extreme right wing of the party, which is positioning itself.

My point is, is she more of a turnoff to voters than a turn on?

She's a certainly a turnoff to many voters.

You know, here's a woman who's only in her second term in Congress, and you got to give her credit for gumption because now she wants to be vice president.

Interesting to note that Trump hasn't said anything.

This is a woman who was taken off of her committees.

And he, in turn, has just taken two Democrats off their committees.

That's right.

She was taken off of her committees.

Now she's on.

By the way, one of my committees, Oversight, but she's now been put on Homeland Security.

And McCarthy has also put her on a a committee which is investigating COVID 19.

But it's interesting to note, here's a woman I never heard of, a member of Congress saying, I want to be Vice-President.

I am.

The silence from Trump is deafening.

But what about Barack Obama?

I mean, he ran for president after two years in the Senate.

It's not the number of years alone.

It's and remember, he was in the Senate, which is the next place up to be president.

This is a now two year member of the House of Representatives promoting herself.

Nobody is promoting her to be vice president of the United States.

You got to give her credit.

But I think there's one really large point that is missing from the national conversation here, how dangerous it is to have somebody who doesn't seem of sane and rational mind on these committees within our U.S. House of Representatives, members of Congress, as Eleanor well knows from her years of service, you're routinely exposed to classified information, things that would be considered national secrets.

I mean, the problem is these people aren't just they don't care about intellectual discourse.

That's fine.

That's already a problem for our representative democracy that they don't care about vigorous intellectual debate.

But the very fact that she's not she has exhibited a sense that she's not sane.

I can imagine her going out on a campaign trail and certain just blurt things out.

That is dangerous for America.

And I think that's missing from the larger conversation.

We need to talk about how we have these people in Congress who cannot be trusted.

That's something I don't think we've seen in the modern era.

And do you think what do you think we'll see next in the coming summer when the debt ceiling is reached?

And do you think we'll see whether she's serious about blowing things up, which is how she got into office, including the entire U.S. economy and trying to blow that up with a fight over the debt ceiling?

Will we see whether she chooses to try to be Trump's running mate and moderates herself, rebrands herself, or will we see her doing what she did as she came in, which is be a part of a government that she wants to destroy?

I don't think that she's going to be a part of those discussions.

Those are going to be high level discussions among the Republicans because they're going to have to decide what very specific concessions they want to derive.

Right.

But consider her now pretty high up in the party and in terms of her influence with the extreme right.

Being close to Kevin McCarthy and sort of being a liaison between Kevin McCarthy and that further fringe end of the House Freedom Caucus, that is not the same thing as what another person who I think is a far more viable running mate to Trump is.

Like Elise Stefanik, hear me out.

The whole purpose of what what Trump needs out of a running mate, he needs two things.

One, someone who can be a good liaison to Congress and someone who is a serious policy mind.

And he also wants someone who represents a little more diversity than Mike Pence and someone who has absolute loyalty to him.

Elise Stefanik fits all four things.

And if she in House leadership can help see this thing through.

Right, that bodes very well for Trump.

And the thing is, Elise Stefanik is perfectly positioned to not blow up the blow up America's credit rating because Trump specifically said he doesn't want to touch entitlements, which means, in effect, that Trump just wants to keep on spending like everybody else does.

Right?

The only way we really curtail our federal spending is entitlement reform.

What about military spending?

Military spending is half that of of non-discretionary entitlements spending.

Still a very large chunk of the budget.

Sure, sure, sure.

If you want to tackle something that's half the size of non-discretionary entitlement spending, that is it slated to grow year over year.

Right?

Absolute military spending, adjusted for inflation, has not increased at all.

Absolute entitlement.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid spending adjusted for inflation has been exploding, will continue to explode.

Let me let Eleanor jump in here.

Military spending not increasing with all the.

I don't know where you get that from.

Yeah, well, military spending has been increasing under both Republican and Democrats.

Now, even Republicans now are talking about whether we want to increase anything, including military spending.

So everything has now gotten on the table.

And if if the usual Republican notion of just keep doing military spending is even on the table.

All right.

But also, I want one thing I want to get to that you, Tiana, you didn't mention you talk about Elise Stefanik as a great V.P.

choice for Trump or potential.

Then the Democrats have one thing on their ticket that the Republicans don't, and that's a person of color.

And in the last elections, the Republicans have made gains, not so much with African-Americans, but certainly with Hispanic Americans.

And I wonder if and of course, you know, Kamala Harris is is from two backgrounds of color.

So I'm wondering if it would be wise for Trump to choose a white woman.

- Would that.

- Ba Bonnie?

I'm talking about what I think what I think Trump would do.

And what if I were being paid to advise him what I would recommend that he does do?

Right?

There are certain candidates he just couldn't live with because he he he he requires absolute loyalty.

Right.

Which really limits how many people you can have because a good politician, would want, you know, actual advice for what to do.

He just wants a yes man.

Right.

Eise Stefanick can be both a yes man and a serious policy mind, even though I think that she's made some questionable decisions as of late.

But I don't think but I don't think Donald Trump is going to be the nominee.

I think it will be Ron DeSantis.

wager on a running mate, I think the obvious one would be Tim Scott and the dark horse would be someone lower level from Florida, maybe like a Francis Suarez or someone.

But but really, I think it's going to be Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott who wind up at the top of that ticket.

All right.

Your thoughts, Erin?

Does it matter if Republicans have an all white presidential and vice presidential ticket?

Bonnie, I've been sitting here so amused by this idea that Donald Trump cares a hoot about diversity and optics and diversity.

He clearly showed us during four years of an administration where he tried to overthrow our status as a democracy, that he is more than happy to surround himself with white men.

I do not think he cares about that at all.

One whit.

I think he thinks it's funny and it's it's unimportant to him.

I do think, you know, to the Marjorie Taylor Greene piece, I want to highlight that she really does seem like the perfect buddy for him in so many ways, between not just what Rina laid out, but the conspiracy mongering, the open attacks that she has on people of color and the way that she invokes violence.

And Bonnie, we just need to be very clear about what is at stake in this next election.

We are fighting against authoritarianism in America, period.

All right.

That's it for this edition.

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And whether you agree or think to the contrary.

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{MUSIC } Funding for To the Contrary is provided by E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation The Park Foundation Charles A.Frueauff Foundation