Everyone is asking me “what did you think of the Oscars!?” I can’t tell them because I didn’t watch a single frame of it. Why the hell would I? Why would anyone? Why does anyone? Why does everyone? Why do we care what movies a panel of industry insiders think are “the best”? We don’t have enough film critics from which to make an average of? We know the voting members of the Academy by name and are anxious to see how they voted and ponder upon why? Nay. It’s just an event that gets a lot of media buzz and we are tricked into thinking its important and don’t want to be left out of the herd.
Well screw that. I’d rather do anything than watch the freakin Oscars. Every year, the monologue’s are mediocre with some cute/clever moments, the speeches are not newsworthy and the whole thing doesn’t end until around 8AM Monday morning. Remember? Do you have Alzheimers? are you just a glutton for punishment? or do you just tune in every year thinking that finally THIS will be the year that your 9 hours of viewing time will be well spent?
Is there any other industry that gives themselves as many awards as Hollywood does? Teachers maybe? but there are more terrible teachers than there are terrible movies, so that example helps the case for the Oscars. What I’d like to tune into instead of the Oscars, is an award ceremony for doctors, lawyers, police officers & firemen – ANY profession really. Slap together some featurette explaining who these people are and why they’re outstanding in their field and hand out the trophies. While I think that format would work just fine in anything from “tech support call center employee” to “ear, nose & throat doctor” – the REAL unfortunate priority imbalance is that military awards aren’t given a glamorous media treatment. I want to see a red carpet event once a year for all the medal of honors and purple hearts. where the eff are those?
And I’m not just saying that as a brag about how deep and soulful I am amongst a consumerist and superficial society to give myself points about how much better I am than everyone else, cuz I already know that without any comparison to my reaction of overrated actor-award ceremonies. It’s just genuinely not a worthy event to be so hyped and glorified – which is a big “whatever” on its own, but not when you think about the wasted potential that the genre could be giving us to both entertain the viewer and do a little good in the world and doesn’t.
So, what did I/do I think of the Oscars? (get ready… that callback to the “once upon a time” framing device of storytelling I started this post was a wind-up for this big finish here)…
The Oscars suck.
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