At the beginning of this month, Sasha Stone watched Oscars in her house in the city in front of Los Angeles. For someone who spent more than two decades as one of the premiere chronicles of the season, it was a remarkably unwavering way to take the ceremony. But she was excited that “Anora”, a frantic story of a stripper in New York with a young Russian man, gained the highest honor within the part Historic haul.
Stone believed that the film had a virtue, that it would not push the guerrilla agenda that became one of the best criteria in assessing the film. When she became a name as a blogger of the Oscars, Stone believes that she fell neatly into the Hollywood status quo and the brand of liberalism she represented – often on the screen. Now he says he sees the mistake of his old ways, although he still understands old ways better than conservatives who have never been part of this world.
“Here’s a place where I bump the rights of law,” Stone told the day after the ceremony. “They’ll never give any credit to the Oscars or Hollywood. I knew the script would be:” Oscars suck, “and I had to happen from it.”
Stone’s advice to the right: Win. And after some Monday morning care it did together. The ceremony attracted the praise of the Conservatives for his predominantly apolitical content (only one short commentary on President Trump by host, Conan O’Brin) and for Kieran Culkin’s reception speech, in which he publicly asked his wife for more children-“relative with any middle American”. said Daily Caller writer.
Stone, 60, is still a well -known character in a conservative life: Apostata from the mainstream, in recovery from her earlier liberalism. During 2010, as the popular culture seemed to move left, it was outside the front and celebrated Pathbreaking Oscar winner as “Moonlight” and “Parasite.” Also publicly supported democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
For Stone and many of its current cohorts, 2020 was a key year. She underwent a transformation and since then she leaned into pundity from America Great Again Variety. In November she voted for President Trump and on the social media and on her personal sustack can be showcase, even incendiary. “Ukraine and the crossing of children. They are all democrats so far,” the recent, unrepresentative post Na X.
Such provocations cost her money. Especially one caused a lot of damage. After Kamala Harris became a democratic presidential candidate last summer and drew support from White guys for harris And similar groups of white women, Stone quoted a contribution to the social media that ridiculed these affinity groups with the phrase “white power!” She said it was a joke; Many film studies either disagreed or did not see humor. Most who advertised on her website pulled their ads.
Stone interpreted the wound as an exaggerated reaction from Hollywood, the same people they say they are responsible for reducing films by forcing them to serve liberal policy. In her narration, it was films that moved so far left, which made her move right. Or how can Stone, which with an arm on her prose with analogies with her beloved American cinema of the 1970s, could give it: like Han SoloThe industry fired first.
“Sometimes I forgot what the left is,” she wrote on her personal restaurant last summer, “and I assume that we are still living in a country with culture that supports free expression. But we do not live in such a country, not left -wing dominant culture.
Clarence Moy, a former writer for Stone Oscars, said he felt that the answers that Stone’s new opinions had evoked – including not only Nixed advertising, but also a Hollywood reporter article The turn – contributed to her shift. “The harder she was pushing her, the harder she was pushing back and getting away – she was going,” he said.
Stone’s lower line could hit but became part of another branch of the media where she wrote an op-Ed for the New York Post and appeared on Megyn Kelly’s Siriusxm show. Since the abolition of summer ads for prices daily, Stone has replaced part of the lost income by revenue from its political restaurant, to which it can be subscribed.
“Nothing exciting in Hollywood. It’s boring,” Stone said in an interview in February. “Movies are boring. Everything is boring.”
“Politics is not boring because politics is a real life,” she added. “See what Trump is doing with his administration: she throws it like a television show and doesn’t pay attention to the rules. He’s a person who likes to enjoy, and so they enjoy people. They can’t keep looking.”
Stone’s love for films was created during her childhood. She and her sister, in the middle of the riots in their personal life, found escapism and stability by watching the same film over and over again. Summer was 1975; The film was “jaws”.
Twenty years later, the USenet forum tried to convince people that James Cameron’s epic blockbuster “Titanic” would win the best image of Oscar over the courageous neo-noir “La Confidential”. Her opinion – believe it or not – then put it in a minority. Of course she was right.
And she was addicted. Oscar Watch founded its website in 1999 (changed the name of its blog after suing the Academy of Film Arts and Science). In his book 2023 “Oscar Wars”, Michael Schulman identifies Stone as one of the founders of blogs at prices. In 2014 New York Magazine magazine marked Tom O’Neil from the Gold Derby and Stone “The Adam and Eva of Oscar blogging”.
Dave Karger, a host of classic films Turner, who previously wrote the Oscars column for Entertainment Weekly, appreciated Stone’s coverage since they were on the same rhythm “Sasha is one of the most element and passionate writers of the Oscars if so,” he said.
Her pages began at an optimal moment, directly with the flowering of the blogosphere and how the Oscar -winning campaigns became full -fledged glasses. There was an Oscars-Industrial Complex complex and included talent, studios, academies and outlets and journalists who cover it all.
“It was never about the Oscars themselves,” Stone said. “It was about leadership, and it was about, why would some movies win from this-time?” The answer that captivated Stone was that the award was often for reasons beyond its internal merit. It was a tradition that extended to the victory “How Green was my valley” on the 1942 ceremony over the scandalous fictitious biopic of the famous media Baron called “Citizen Kane”.
Moye remembered Stone’s persistent defense of years before #oscarssowhite became a cry. For example, in the period before the ceremony 2012, Stone was opened to support Viola Davis (“The Help”) to win the best actress over Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady”. (Streep won for the third time.)
“I was what you could call the first” woke “blogger,” Stone said. But after the first victory of Trump in 2016, she sensed that something had changed. The whole industry, as they claim, was captured by an ideology that favored the perceived policy of the film. As she wrote recently article The tablet was racist “La La Land”, so “monthly light” had to win.
A small but growing number of films with explicitly conservative news began to flourish. The 2023 Surprise “The sound of freedom,” last year’s Daily Wire-produced “I’m a racist?” And the recent biopic “Reagan” was all the stories of the success of this new ecosystem. But Stone believes that the mainstream film industry remains where the action is. “There is no step from Hollywood to ease from their unilateral perspective,” Stone wrote in an e-mail recently, “and the conservatives have not yet created a prosperous cinema that would have to mount a real challenge.”
Friends detect a congenital counterpart in the stone. “She has always admired Hollywood for films 60. And 70 years. Years that broke the form that pushed back against authority and men,” said Moy, her ex -colleague.
“The way Hollywood seems to be more in the device.” must have A certain amount of representation within the projects, ”he added,“ This is Anathema for her because she doesn’t think the art comes from here. ”
And some feel that Hollywood vibration is on the feet. Disney is move From cultural problems from hot push. The Oscars recently announced that Conan O’Brien would return next year, a sign that the industry has largely approved Apolitical hosting.
Occasionally, Stone may seem to be offended less on the country than the name of the cinema. “What the bizarre era 2016-2020 did for me,” she said, “it was an Oscars much less interesting.” During this year’s lead, Stone thought it would be the last year that was fully covered by prices. But she also said she didn’t have to be done with them.
“There are a lot of terrible people waiting for my site to end,” she said in -mail, “and I don’t want to give them this victory.”
In addition, she added that it was her work for 25 years. And in any case, it is clear that he cannot completely give up films.
“Victory for” Anora “,” Stone wrote before the ceremony, “he is a hint of a shuttle swing.”
In what could double as a personal manifesto, she added: “No one is looking at the movie. It’s just a good movie.”
