Has the Real Time with Bill Maher writer’s room been moonlighting on Gutfeld!? Because some of the one-liners from his “New Rules†rant about the 2021 Oscars Best Picture nominees seem like they were pulled straight from the Fox News series. In the segment, Maher makes the not-exactly-fresh observation that the Academy Awards like to nominate depressing films about Very Important Topics, but he suggests that this is new rather than a decades-old trend, and that it’s the fault of Social Justice Warriors, and weren’t things better back in the good old days when movies were fun and he liked them? “You couldn’t have a worse time at the movies if there was an active shooter in the theater,†Maher says, before rattling off the list of nominees. “The 2021 Oscars, brought to you by razor blades, Kleenex, and rope. Please welcome our host, the sad emoji.â€
The most baffling part of the spiel comes when Maher says, “They used to know how to make a movie that was about something. A movie for adults that was also entertaining and not just depressing,†and the stills he includes to illustrate this point are … the famously depressing Schindler’s List and 12 Years a Slave. “Why do so many liberals have the seeming desire to want to be sad?†Maher suggests the reason is “virtue signaling.†But railing against the self-seriousness of the Oscars and suggesting it’s the fault of the current libs and kids these days and not the fault of Hollywood pompousness as old as time sure sounds like “virtue signaling†to us.