Nodding at the Oscars

Lots of people I talked to this year weren’t going to watch the Oscars. Most of them cited objections to the political leanings of the celebrities as their reasons for not tuning in. 

I admit that I’ve seen more of the Academy Awards in recent years than I’ve seen minutes of recent Super Bowls—another February event. This is not because I think them brilliant or I agree with everything that they stand for. I've seen more of the Oscars because my wife and I get invited to my sister-in-law’s Oscar party every year--always a lot of fun because of the people we meet there who are witty and engaging. We don’t have to only focus on the Oscar production itself, which, if everyone were honest, doesn’t show our celebrity/entertainment class at their best. Sure, they're well-dressed and beautiful. But then--and I don't mean for this to sound snarky--they have to talk. 

Let’s be honest

Lots of people complain about how political—left wing—these celebrities have become, but really, is that the worst that happens?

In the LA Times in the days that follow the show, there are always plenty of “post-mortums,” rundowns on what was done right and what was done wrong on the show. There is always speculation about the host and how a different one might have performed. This year, there may be more to say about how the Best Picture, the last category, was handled. But really, what do we expect from an awards show?

More to the point, what do we expect from a parade of actors talking without scripts? Sure, there are always the few planned skits—which are first takes, of course. Last night's running joke between the host and Matt Damon held up pretty well—again, as a series of first takes. But otherwise, the ceremony was the usual parade of well-dressed celebrities saying something general about life or art, or life and art, or art or life, and then announcing the finalists. And then announcing the winners. And then the winners would generate excitement and ramble until the music plays. 

No matter how well dressed these movie stars are, the Academy Awards do not show them at their best. They were at their best, we should know by now, in their twentieth take of a shot they’d rehearsed of a line someone more clever called a writer fed them.

Being Natural

This is what we should understand by now. And we should stop thinking otherwise. Complain as we might about Meryl Streep; at least she's been to so many of these productions at this point in her career that she is a professional about it. She knows better than to show up without something planned out on a small piece of paper. 

She knows that, at the Oscars, the actors are left to their own resources. Those who come with planned political statements have at least planned their comments. We might not like them. We might rightly think, “Well I don’t need the cast and crew of Zootopia to tell me how to think about the economy,” or anything else, for that matter. But at least they’ve prepared. They aren’t just rambling. They aren’t faking a meltdown to cover for the fact that, like my first-year students who think that just writing their first thoughts on paper is going to be authentic and profound, they didn’t prepare.

Nine times out of ten, that is all that is going on with the winners. The brilliance, the flash of inspiration, just doesn’t happen. We may think that looking great or at least cute is going to be enough. But talk and unplanned writing are pretty much the same.

We shouldn’t expect much of them either way.

If Hollywood really wanted to improve the show that is the annual Academy Awards, they could start here. They could do worse than require that the finalists for all of the major categories—I’m talking about actors now—hire writers to give them the brilliance they are used to having on set.

That’s just  entertainment.