White liberal guilt at its finest.

Via LAist:

If you were watching the Oscars on Sunday night, you no doubt saw Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years A Slavetake the Best Picture prize. But two Academy members revealed to the L.A. Times that they didn’t even see it, claiming that it would be an uncomfortable film for them to watch.

Instead, they voted for it because of the relevance and importance the film, which is a real-life, harrowing account of Solomon Northup’s years as a free man captured and sold into slavery in the South.

It’s ironic, considering that the job of an Academy voter is, you know, to actually watch these films before making a decision on what’s the best of the best. But it’s not entirely shocking.

Ellen DeGeneres quipped during her opening monologue that if 12 Years a Slave didn’t win Best Picture, the Academy would be racist. It was framed as a joke, but DeGeneres (probably purposefully) hit a troubling nerve: that the Academy’s voting is purely political, and the members didn’t want to cause an uproar over passing on 12 Years A Slave.

HT: Rush