William Nicholson complains that his movie, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, didn’t get him the accolades he was aiming for, because another movie used up audiences’ racial guilt that year:

“Unfortunately it didn’t get the kind of acclaim that I wanted. It didn’t get Oscars,” Nicholson said, because 12 Years a Slave “sucked up all the guilt about black people that was available.”

“[America] were so exhausted feeling guilty about slavery that I don’t think there was much left…”

Nicholson, however, also laid blame with…the civil rights hero’s “boring” rhetoric. “I know it sounds outrageous to say a thing like that, but when he came out of prison he made a speech and, God, you fell asleep,” he said.

Let’s review.

• Nicholson doesn’t think all that highly of Mandela.
• He made the movie to get an Oscar.
• His intended tactic was to manipulate people, specifically their sense of guilt.
• The world cheated him of his Oscar, since another movie got to people’s guilt, first.

Umm, what about art?