The Oscars are a huge part of our entertainment landscape by now. Every artist dreams of their Oscar moment, though relatively few will ever come close to one. In a way, they are the epitome of the American Dream – a symbol of success wrapped in glitz and glamour, all a shiny  exterior on deeper story of ugliness, disappointment and hard work that most people will never see.

Many conservatives love to ridicule the event, and it’s no wonder why. Hollywood has a perverse fetish for insulting half of its audience, taking the most ridiculous political stances and inserting them into its storytelling. It is an industry full of hypocrites who demonize flyover America and church-going families, while lionizing womanizers and liars. The same people who call Mike Pence a perverted predator for his rule of never meeting alone with a woman who is not his wife are the very same people who willfully and repeatedly covered for Harvey Weinstein’s reign of terror for decades. They are the same people who routinely look the other way while child actors are abused and molested or female actresses are raped or isolated and coerced into sexual favors in order to maintain their careers. They provide cover for proven pedophiles, even still.

We all remember Ricky Gervais’ scathing Golden Globes monologue. Sadly, it was a one-off. Gervais knew he’d only ever get one shot at such honesty, so he made it a bullseye.

Certainly there is a lot to ridicule about Hollywood awards season. I agree that it consists of a lot of out-of-touch bubble-dwellers gifting themselves awards based on nothing but their own twisted fantasies about who they are compared to the rest of us. Hypocrites, deviants and a few good apples…all of them seeking a fleeting validation from those who snub their noses at the notion of the “average American.”

I say all this to establish that yes, I too am annoyed by the self-congratulatory circle jerk (I apologize for the image, but it’s appropriate here, I believe) by what we know as Awards Season. However, this is year 95 of the tradition. It isn’t a surprise by now. What I find more annoying than the condescending, politicized acceptance speeches is this need that many conservatives seem to have to publicly declare they are NOT WATCHING THE OSCARS THIS YEAR.

Come Oscar night (or another awards night) social media is jammed with haughty posts from people who want us all to know they stopped watching awards shows decades ago, or they don’t care about celebrities congratulating each other, or they would rather watch paint dry than watch the ceremonies.

Implicit in such posts is the suggestion that people who enjoy such things are somehow intellectual morons who have been hypnotized by celebrity culture; that if you are watching the Oscars, you are part of the problem. Their exit from such base cultural frivolity gives them the moral high road. If you’re still bothering to watch and comment and complain, you get what you deserve for perpetuating Hollywood influence.

I don’t mind the sentiment, but the manic frequency with which such things are posted around this time of year disappoints me. Those who vehemently declare Hollywood and the Oscars ‘irrelevant’ especially disappoint me. It makes me think they are the problem, not those who love watching some pretty gowns on a red carpet a few times a year.

For better or worse, Hollywood is most certainly relevant. The very fact that anyone would take the time every year to declare it irrelevant and craft several social media posts blasting anyone who sees it as relevant is proof that Hollywood is indeed relevant. It’s annoying that it’s relevant. It’s a real bummer that it’s relevant. It’s a cultural pain in our cultural asses that it is relevant…but it’s still relevant. It is ignorant to say otherwise.

We are in the mess we are in culturally speaking because too many conservatives have prematurely declared what happens in Hollywood irrelevant, and have abandoned the cultural space as a result. It didn’t make us “better” than the progressives who run “the biz,” it has actually subjected us to them. Our entire entertainment space is now dominated by terrible ideas, bigoted creators and weak intellects. We left a vacuum and space abhors a vacuum.

I don’t expect conservatives to watch things they don’t enjoy just to say they watched. I actually hate awards shows, and will not be watching on Sunday night. Instead, I’ll be enjoying the red carpet outfits and I’ll catch the hot clips later on. Why? I just don’t like awards shows.

That is fine. If you’re not into it, don’t bother. Why waste precious time?

I do think it’s unnecessary and even embarrassing for conservatives to brag about pretending things like the Oscars and Hollywood glitz don’t matter if we don’t let them. They matter much more than they should, but I believe that is because we have so willingly abandoned the space. Now we don’t get to be a part of crafting the messages. Now we are simply victims of the messages.

And how can we ridicule our celebrity class for being so “out of touch” with the average American when we simultaneously brag about how out of touch we are with entertainment? Especially considering entertainment is enormously influential in too many ways.

Watch the Oscars or don’t. Give your money to independent entertainment or don’t. Read books instead, or don’t. We’re conservatives, so we believe everyone should be making their own choices and that’s that. I’m not shaming you for any choice you make that differs from mine when it comes to entertainment.

I’m only saying, maybe we don’t need to brag about our cultural ignorance. Maybe we at least need to recognize that it matters, a lot, and we’ve encouraged the abandonment of the entertainment space to our detriment, and the detriment of our nation.

And that’s not something to be proud of.