George Clooney jokes on Tiger Woods scandal; Up In The AIr gets Oscar buzz

George Clooney, who's new movie Up In the Air is enjoying its first awards success of the Awards Season scoring four prizes at the National Board of Review Awards Thursday, cracked a joke about the Tiger Woods scandal at the Los Angeles premier of the flick Monday night. According to Fox News.com, Clooney said:

“I never get mad. But I do I get mad at Stan (Rosenfield, his long-time publicist) sometimes but what I do is hit him. I hit him with a golf club the other day…you heard about that?”

As Clooney was cracking on Woods, Up In The Air was moving, well, up in the level of Oscar buzz surrounding it. New York Magazine has the film as the Oscar Best Picture front runner as of this writing, and picks it ahead of Bright Star, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Invictus, Nine, Precious, A Serious Man, A Single Man, and Up.

But that's New York, which seems to have it in for Precious.

George Clooney in Up In The Air

What makes Up In The Air so appealing is its somewhat contemporary story. But why does Clooney's character have to be captured in promotional trailers sharing a racial stereotype? What's the point?  In a trailer, there's a segment where Clooney's character says that he gets behind Asians in the security line because they're efficient. Or...

Bingo. Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and have a thing for slip on shoes, god love ‘em.”


“That’s racist!”


“I’m like my mother. I stereotype – it’s faster.”

Here's the trailer:



Here I agree with Carmen Van Kerckhove from New Demographics and Racialicious blog, who wrote:

Cue eye roll at blatant “he’s so cool and un-PC” ploy.


Bonus points for making a “post racial” joke when there are no other people of color in the trailer. Not even as background extras.

I think the movie would have been just as effective without such crappy lines. I don't care if its the character, in 2009 we do have a choice not to present such attitudes, why not avoid doing so? I just don't get it and I'm sure I don't want to. I'm not alone in saying that America craves a truly contemporary movie; this isn't quite it.

But that written, Up In The Air's assent will be interesting to watch.

Stay tuned.