Mighty Oscars offer grains of historical truth | Bangkok Post: opinion

COMMENTARY

General Pinochet falls. The French uprising falls. The Iranian mullahs fall. The Danish monarchy almost falls. Bin Laden, naturally, because this is Hollywood, falls. The Democrats, up against Lincoln savvy, fall. Constitutional slavery also falls.

While we admire low-cut dresses, tearful speeches and the blood-red carpet, come Monday morning when the envelopes are torn and the Oscars announced, some of these fallers will rise to collect the dolls. History is written by the winner. History is also written (mostly) by American movies and sometimes vindicated by 3.7-kg nude statuettes handed out to a fanfare of trumpet blasts and overly-long applause.

Not that I mind. Like everyone else, I dig a hot spy (Zero Dark Thirty, or ZDT), a conspicuously overstretched Iranian hostage crisis (Argo), a romantic revolt (Les Miserables) and the preternatural brood of Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln). But what I dig more is how politics and history - straight or twisted, sombre or triumphalist - pack the Oscar nomination list this year.