Oscars, Thy Name Be Vanity

I have a love/hate relationship with the Oscars. I love movies and am, in fact fanatical about them. I see several movies a month at the theaters, rent movies weekly from Netflix and have an extensive DVD library consisting of hundreds of my favorite films. It’s my love of movies that prompts me to pay any attention whatsoever to the Academy Awards.

Unfortunately, I also honestly believe the Oscars to be an extreme exercise in overt narcissism that continues to feed the vain notion in Hollywood that what they do is really of great importance. Again, I love movies, but it’s just entertainment. Yes, it’s also art, and as such it’s somewhat contributive as a part of culture. But a lot of times I can’t help but view our beloved actors and actresses as nothing more than glorified circus clowns. Are they really changing the world as they seem to believe? It’s not like they’re curing cancer or anything, though I’m sure that some of them might be wealthy enough to fund cancer research for fifty years or so (that’s just a guess, and I’m not going to do the math).

I’ve met some of them, these “celebrities”. Many of them are very nice and gracious people, it’s true. But I just find something perverse about an annual awards celebration that stops the world for almost four hours so Hollywood can pat itself on the back. Sure, we could refuse to watch. Unfortunately, we’re drawn to it like moths to a light bulb, compelled to watch despite the numerous complaints that crop up every year.

All this is not to say that I am opposed to the concept of an awards ceremony. I’m not even entirely opposed to broadcasting them. Doing so is mostly an expression borne from the fiscal logic of giving the sheep-like masses what they want. I just wish for once somebody up there would stand up and tell it like it really is. I want Clooney to get up on that stage and declare that they’re all really just a lot of jugglers and fire-breathers, that the real people worthy of praise are those who are earnestly trying to make the world a better place and not getting rich doing it.

But. We do see some of that from time to time, which brings me to yesterday’s broadcast of the 82nd Academy Awards. Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to ever win an Oscar for direction, took the time, not once but twice, to thank our service men and women as well as anyone who wears a uniform. “…but even not just the military,” she said in her speech (the one for Best Picture), “HazMat, emergency, firemen. They’re there for us, and we’re there for them.” Though Bigelow has been around Hollywood for years, maybe she gets it a little more than some of her contemporaries.

But when was the last time one of these clowns, trapeze artists, lion tamers or celluloid ringmasters took the time to thank the fans. Really, without the millions and millions of theater goers who shell out millions and millions of dollars (and in a bad economy to boot) to actually see their movies, they would be nothing at all. You would think that at least one of them would have the graciousness to say, “Hey, movie fans, thanks so much for giving us your money and for liking our work. We’re just tickled to be able to make you laugh or smile or whatever for a couple of hours. That’s the honor, really, the privilege of doing cartwheels for a living so we don’t have to dig ditches or fix highways and bridges.” But that will never happen. Why? Because Hollywood is largely incapable, being terminally vain, of seeing that we are the most important part of the equation that equals their success. Well… maybe they do, but you would think they’d be a bit more willing to show their gratitude.

Narcissism aside, if Hollywood must glorify itself with such fanfare, you would think they would at least be conscientious enough to actually get it right. I highly suspect that the majority of Academy members don’t see all of the nominated films and therefore are not able to make a fully informed decision about what films or performances are actually “best”. Often their choices seem to be made from some kind of unfathomable logic. Is it really the Academy’s assertion that Sandra Bullock gave a better performance in The Blind Side than Meryl Streep did in Julie & Julia or Helen Mirren did in The Last Station? Granted, Julie & Julia was not a great movie, but Streep’s performance was phenomenal. There’s really no contest, or at least there should have been none.

My point is that, time and time again, the Academy gets it wrong. In twenty years, The Hurt Locker, though a decent film, isn’t going to be on anyone’s list of all time favorite movies, but Avatar will be. Inglorious Basterds will be. The Hurt Locker was a good movie. It wasn’t great. Yes, that’s just my opinion, but it’s totally right. I promise you; The Hurt Locker will fade into the ether right along with your Annie Hall, your How Green is My Valley and your Chariots of Fire. But Star Wars, Citizen Kane and Raiders of the Lost Ark will live on in our hearts and in our DVD collections.

Finally, I want to end with this. Does the Academy Awards broadcast really need to be four hours long? I’m confident that I could whittle it down to two hours tops. If producers cringe over the running times of epic films like Return of the King, why do they think people want to sit through hours-long broadcasts of the ego-stroking glory-fest that is the Oscars. We don’t. We really, really don’t. But unfortunately Hollywood will always collectively echo the errant belief of Ron Burgundy: “I’m kind of a big deal.” But it isn’t. It really, really isn’t.

by Stuart Benedict