If you haven't seen it by now, then I'm happy to present to you actor Mads Mikkelsen laughing at a reporter who was trying to ask how he and director Nikolaj Arcel square the "diversity problem" in the upcoming film "The Promised Land" which takes places in Denmark...in 1755. 

You can already see the stupidity developing here. 

The reporter was bringing up the new diversity rules required by the Academy that all film productions must follow in order to win an Oscar of any kind. Before the reporter can even finish the question, Mikkelsen laughs derisively and makes the comment "from the get-go," signaling that he knew this dumb question was going to come up and he's clearly sick of this nonsense. 

Mikkelsen is clearly hostile to the reporter while still maintaining a slight sense of politeness, and eventually, Arcel jumps in to explain that there is a plotline about a girl of color within the film, but that this is a film about Nordic people from a long time ago. 

At #VeniceFilmFestival, Mads Mikkelsen and 'The Promised Land' director Nikolaj Arcel are asked about diversity requirements in Hollywood and how they relate to their new Nordic tale pic.twitter.com/HDI0uAqqqE

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 1, 2023

What the reporter was trying to get out of the actor and director was whether or not they were worried about the film's lack of diversity preventing them from winning an Oscar. Clearly, neither man was, despite Arcel's reassurance that at least one character was a different shade than white. 

It brings up the question, though. Why are the powers that be in Hollywood so obsessed with entertaining race baiters? Who are these films for? 

My friend Ian K (aka Comix Division) released a video analyzing this clip and he said something that I think really gets down to the truth of the matter. 

"It's the question that always comes up; 'Who is this made for?'" he begins. 

"Not the audience," he says. "It's being made for the critics or the peers of Hollywood because they want to virtue signal to one another. The audience is just an inconvenient speed bump in the way...along with making money." 

He adds that this is why awards like the Oscars have lost their relevancy. It's no longer about creating art; it's about creating propaganda that will win you handshakes and back pats at Hollywood parties and good press from access media writers. 

What you like or are entertained by is hardly a factor. Your job, according to these people, is to be preached at, and if you don't like being preached at, then your job is to be used as an example to prove that the world needs to be preached at more. 

It would appear that there are people in Hollywood with more sense than the Academy and its supporters. 

Adrian Paul, who played Duncan Macleod in The Highlander TV series, had this to say about this obsession with diversity in Hollywood. 

“It’s always going to be like whenever you have a movement that comes out and is very current…everybody wants to step on the bandwagon,” he said.

“Characters in films have to be written for the characters that they are or the people that they are. A diverse type of movie should be written for that,” he continued.“It can’t be, you know, it’s a Caucasian white guy of 45, and then suddenly you get an Asian of 62 being put into that role because it fits the diversity category.”

The obsession to make things diverse ruins the story because it takes you out of the story when there's someone there who clearly shouldn't be. For instance, you probably won't find an African in Denmark in the 1700s, and if you do, then you just stumbled onto a unicorn. 

To illustrate the bizarre requirements of Hollywood better, let's stop talking about people and start talking about architecture. 

Let's say you're watching a film that takes place in feudal Japan alongside the producers and directors. The buildings you see are all clearly Japanese...but every now and again, architecture from other lands suddenly pops into the frame. Egyptian pyramids can be seen in the background, and German homes from the 1940s. In one shot, you can see the Empire State Building. Right in the midst of a street shot, a New York hot dog cart shows up. 

You'd naturally have questions about how they got there. You might lean over and ask what kind of movie you're watching, but upon doing so, the producers and directors look at you like you just loudly passed gas. 

"It's a movie about samurai," they say with a hint of disgust. 

Upon pointing out that the Empire State Building didn't exist in feudal Japan and that the Egyptian pyramids are in Egypt, they call you an architectural purist. They complain to reporters about the backlash of architectural puritanism in today's society, and the next thing you know there are articles painting people who point out obvious architectural inconsistencies in movies as evil. 

It sounds like a Mony Python skit, but that's how ridiculous the diversity rules for Hollywood are.