Art Imitates Life & Well Done is Better than Well Said!

This week:

Did you watch the Oscars last weekend?
For many a 3 hour + show is pushing it, so here are my favorite highlights with the “why” behind my choices from a soul-filled perspective- all in under 15 minutes.

As Jason Carbone, reality show innovator and UCSD Alum shared recently at a UC San Diego Triton Leadership Conference keynote, it is an existential imperative that we save the art and craft of storytelling as it is essential aspect that defines our humanity.

Today’s consumers of media find themselves in a pitch battle between story and spectacle!
The constant accelerating quest to create the next “watercooler moment” keeps raising the stakes and leaving us wondering which ‘reality’ will prevail- authentic human story or the over-the-top spectacle that titillates but lacks substance, meaning and value.

1. In the midst of Hollywood’s biggest night Lady Gaga and Bradley Coopers duet of Shallow, subordinated all the glam and sparkle and distractions in the background as the two artists disappeared into each other with a command performance that is definitely worth (re) watching! Experience the art, the artists and the creative process merge into a moving meditation of mastery…  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVx-zvCjUZU
2. Olivia Colman’s Acceptance Speech for Best Actress in a Leading Role is as genuine and moving as it can get! You couldn’t script this, and if you did it certainly wouldn’t land like this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy8z_Tq_VHo
3. Rami Malek’s Acceptance Speech for Best Actor speaks to every artists struggle with their identity as they try to figure out who they are. Making this even more poignant as Rami himself is an immigrant and first gen American who plays Freddie Mercury- a gay man and an immigrant who lives his life unapologetically…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy4GL6RtVOk
4. Spike Lee’s Oscar Acceptance Speech for BLACKkKLANSMAN while politically charged and not necessarily well delivered, provides rich context for this nation’s struggle against racism that is his lived experience, with a great grandmother who was a slave and a grandma that was a college graduate and saved social security checks to pay for Spikey Poo’s college education. It made me go back and watch, Do The Right Thing this week and it blew my mind! Make the moral choice between Love v. Hate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTo3XYm33WU

Nike- Dream Crazier: While this was actually an Ad that ran during the Oscars it speaks compellingly to gender inequality. “So if they want to call you crazy, fine, show them what crazy can do!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whpJ19RJ4JY

Well done is better than well said!

Gratitude to artists of life who speak truth to power and elevate humanity in the process!
Here’s to the artist in you. Now go out and live your masterpiece…

Pay it forward, there is no going back.
Love,
Neville

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In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then… they came for me. ..And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
–Rev Martin Niemoller, January 1946