I was surprised that I saw no mention of the Oscars on my timeline today, other than from Jack. I rarely go to movies and don’t even know most of the actors anymore. I recognized a lot more people in the In Memorium segment than in the awards part of the broadcast!

So why do I even turn it on? It’s because I really really enjoy seeing people in their finest hour and how they respond to achieving such a difficult milestone. The show is bound to show people who are enthusiastic, exhilarated, super excited and genuinely grateful. I’ve had some marvelous high points in my own life and watching others experience major turning points in their lives is quite wonderful.

In every Oscars broadcast, there is at least one really brilliant speech by someone, sometimes several. Jack already linked to the glorious moment with Olivia Colman this year. I’ve never heard of her, had not heard of her film, could not understand a lot of what she said (she was speaking English and I’m from the Midwest) and yet, it was really marvelous. I usually feel really good at the end of these shows. The same kind of thing can happen while watching the Olympics, but with the latter, you can also see crushing defeats.

This year, I was also struck by what a huge range of diversity was present in that auditorium. It is not easy to make a movie, especially a really good one. It takes a major cooperative effort among a lot of people with a wide range of skills and abilities. It’s inspiring to see a community that is based upon excellence in such a wide range of talent and to see such a diverse range of people working together, men and women, old and young, from all over the world, many different races, cultures, languages and so on. Just looking out into the audience when the camera went that direction, you could see such great diversity.

Of course these people are the elite of a very elite industry. And theirs is a rare example for us to see. This is NOT the way things are in our country or the world overall. There is a LOT of work to be done to achieve even a small fraction of the positive impact from diversity demonstrated by this community. But watching the Oscar broadcast last night, I realized this industry is genuine about embracing diversity, they are not phonies about this. They have learned in their own work experience that people of all kinds have special talents and are capable of doing pretty awesome things. They are setting great examples for all of us to witness and to seek to emulate.