I’m really bummed that I won’t be able to watch the Oscars tonight. As a fan of both football and movies, the Oscars is great because it’s like I have two Super Bowls every year. Alas, I will be at work and unable to get drunk and Facebook pithy comments for the amusement of … well, basically just my own amusement. I don’t have any friends.
This year’s Academy Awards ceremony obviously has quite a bit of controversy swirling around it, as many will be boycotting the event because the Academy, as liberal as it purports to be, just can’t bring itself to hand out nominations to non-white people. We can only hope that one day it will see the error of its ways and start practicing all the diversity it preaches. What makes it even better is that this year’s host, Chris Rock, a non-white comedian and one of the sharpest social commentators in stand-up, is certainly not going to shy away from the topic. It really bums me out that I’m going to miss all the uncomfortable laughs and audible seat-shifting during Rock’s opening monologue. One of my major character flaws is that I love watching people stuck in awkward situations, so long as I am a safe distance away from said awkward situation. I’m sure it’s one of the things that keep me from being a good person, but at least I can own up to that.
One thing that’s gotten glossed over with all this Oscars controversy and boycotting is the fact that the awards ceremony will be unveiling a new piece of technology this year: the “thank-you crawl.” This could revolutionize the event.
Acceptance speeches are seen as the bane of any awards show. Even though many of the honors doled out during the Oscars glorify individual achievements, it really does take a village to nurture an actor’s career from regional dinner theater to the Academy Awards. There are agents, lawyers, managers, parents, teachers, flavor-of-the-month significant others who all need to be thanked. It’s probably required under SAG guidelines. And while it must feel awesome when a tear-filled Jennifer Lawrence mentions your name during her acceptance speech, it’s certainly not exciting television for the lay-viewer, who just wants to see cleavage or make catty comments about whoever’s dress.
The thank-you crawl aims to alleviate that problem. Now, those nobodies who are accepting the award for Best Animated Short won’t take up too much of your precious time thanking their grandparents and aunties. Names will just scroll across the bottom of the screen, I guess, CNN style. while the winners ramble on about social injustices and/or the amazing spiritual journey that brought them to this point.
I feel like the Academy has been locked in this constant battle against acceptance speeches for decades. They limit speech time, have the band play off winners a la Keyboard Cat (wherever you are, this one’s for you) or even a backstage “thank-you cam” that allowed winners ample time to thank everyone and anyone offstage for broadcast on the Internet. None of these things really worked. The ceremony is still forever hours long.
I can’t really blame people for hamming it up at the podium. They’re in the entertainment business, and that’s kind of par for the course. If they weren’t good at hamming things up, they’d probably make pretty shitty movies. People devoid of emotion are pretty fucking boring. Plants are devoid of emotion, but that’s OK, because they have leaves and flowers on them. Humans aren’t so lucky to display foliage, hence emotions are paramount. I’m probably in the minority on this, but I don’t see the long speeches as a problem. I kind of like them. I love watching someone hastily chirp out gratitude to a laundry list of people I couldn’t give a fuck about. If I was in their position, I’d probably do the same thing.
Maybe that’s why the Academy has been unable to acknowledge the work of non-white actors and filmmakers, because they’re so preoccupied with truncating everyone’s acceptance speeches. But what’s the point of that? Are we so deadset on instant gratification that we can’t even slow down for just one evening and allow ourselves to suffer through an opulent industry’s own glad-handing? The Oscars are on a Sunday night … in February. If you had the free time to sit down to watch the stupid thing in the first place, clearly you had nothing better to do or anywhere else to be, so why does it matter how long it is? Fuck it, let the damn thing run all day. This bottle of whisky isn’t going to drink itself.
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