You’re not allowed to say or even think this, but I’d like to offer a mild, no-big-deal hypothesis. If Barry Jenkins had decided for whatever perverse reason to (a) transpose Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s “In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue” from its Miami setting to the Ozark mountain region of southern Missouri, and decided to cast white rural types (yokel accent, under-educated, Trumpian beliefs) as the three manifestations of the Charon character but (b) still deliver an exquisite, humanistic film in terms of the directing, writing and performances…would Moonlight be as much of a thing?

The answer, of course, is that the Ozark version of Moonlight almost certainly wouldn’t become a Best Picture contender — face it. It might not have even played Telluride. Because there is considerable disdain among journalists, industry hipsters and Academy members for yokel culture right now, just as there is considerable support (at least in the initial film-festival stages) for almost any film focusing on African-American and/or gay characters. What am I saying? As good as Moonlight is and always will be, it solidified its award-season cred because the characters, culture and general Miami milieu were recognized as right and proper by the p.c. cool kidz.

“If you focus on Trump too much, he can literally vacuum out your brains. These are deliberate fabrications…he’s throwing dust in our eyes. He can make you crazy. When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” — Thomas L. Friedman, N.Y. Times columnist and author of “Thank You For Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations.”

What turn of events could have suddenly made it clear to Ben Affleck that he can no longer direct and star in The Batman (which has always struck me, by the way, as a comically brain-dead title)? Affleck and Warner Bros. had been contractually committed to Affleck wearing both hats for the last 18 months so what changed their thinking?

I’ll tell you what happened. Live By Night happened.

I didn’t have that many issues with Affleck’s 1930s-era gangster flick (Robert Richardson‘s fine cinematography certainly made it one of the handsomest crime dramas I’ve ever seen), but the fact that Live By Night, which Affleck directed and starred in, lost $75 million plus the general critical impression that it felt a bit staid and listless and lacked that essential snap (32% Rotten Tomatoes, 49% Metacritic) must have scared the shit out of Warner Bros. honcho Kevin Tsujihara.

Affleck is obviously a skilled, Oscar-winning director-writer but somehow or other he developed cold Batman feet and Tsujihara was nervous enough about the possibility that Affleck might deliver Batman By Night that they both figured “fuck it, let’s not risk it…not this time.”