Portman references Agriprocessors raid in Oscar presentation
For those who missed last night's Academy Awards, one of the highlights of the evening came when Jewish actors Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller took the stage to present the award for cinematography. Stiller, who was lampooing Joaquin Phoenix's bewildering appearance on David Letterman last week, came out sporting a shaggy beard and a wild hairdo while acting both despondent and distracted. To this, Portman remarked, "You look like you work in a Hasidic meth lab."
Portman was likely referring to the May 2008 federal raid on the Hasidic-owned and operated Agriprocessors meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa, in which federal agents alleged to have discovered, among other infractions, a facility for producing methamphetamines. Though federal prosecutors have yet to prove this charge, it appears to have nonetheless entered into the popular imagination.
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Dan - I doubt she was referencing the Agriprocessors raid. More likely, she was just making what we in the biz refer to as “a joke.”
I’ll second SIW—the joke was aimed at Joaquin Phoenix, not Stiller, and not Agriprocessors, and references both the bushy beard JP wore on Letterman and his seemingly drug-addled demeanor.
I disagree with you all. That Hasidic meth lab story was the #1 story on Digg the day JTA reported it. And while yes, it was clearly a joke, the joke was in reference to the meth lab at Agriprocessors. I sincerely doubt any Hollywood writer merely invented such a concept from their own imagination. They were making reference to a news story that, FYI, is the top viewed content on JTA.org in its history.
Dan - No offense, but “most viewed content on JTA.org in its history” is hardly the level of notoriety that makes something an accepted pop-culture reference. Awards-show writers probably don’t assume any significant level of familiarity with what goes on the front page of the New York Times; they’re certainly not “digging” into the top stories from JTA.
I think if you’d written this post more as “oh, how cute would it be if...” then it’d seem like it was coming from the land of reality. But to assert it outright is kind of spacey.
That story didn’t just land on Digg, it landed all over the blogosphere, the Twittersphere, Facebook, etc. Your presumption that awards show writers have no significant familiarity with what’s happening online is undermined by the countless parodies of popular Internet memes that have turned up on television in the last five years. I can show you like, 25 celebrity parodies of Chris Crocker’s leave Brittany alone video, but you can’t believe that an article that was the top story on Digg one day might have actually reached a comedy writer? Who’s the one out of touch with reality?
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John Q. Public
02/24/09 02:15 PM
Don’t you think we are being a little overly sensitive about this and the comments? I would say that Ben Stiller looks like a member of the Hells Angels on a Harley or playing for ZZ Tops. That style is kind of cool for many middle aged gentlemen.