Every year we wait with baited breath for The Oscars to grace our screens. Anticipation starts with the Golden Globes in January and by February’s BAFTAS things are beginning to look serious. Money exchanges hands, votes are cast, bets are placed, campaigns get bitter and the inter-web explodes when a deserving nominee gets ‘snubbed’. It’s hardly surprising that Joaquin Phoenix (star of this year’s Her) called the whole thing “total, utter bullshit.”
But there’s no denying that it’s great fun. A rip-roaringly farcical show of ruthless celebrities, who want nothing more than to wrap their grubby hands around that golden statue, being forced to sit cordially and smile agreeably as the prospect of inheriting the title ‘Academy Award Winner’ vanishes before their eyes. Their all there to win, or to lose while being photographed dressed in something expensive.
With viewers, voters and celebrities alike all taking the game far too seriously, it is easy to forget why we would watch The Oscars in the first place – namely, that it’s very entertaining. Last Sunday’s ceremony was exactly this. After Seth ‘We Saw Your Boobs’ MacFarlane struggled as presenter last year, Ellen Degeneres was suitably sarcastic and cynical without descending to ‘Ricky Gervais’ levels of offensive awkwardness, opening the show with the corker “Possibility number 1: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility number 2: You’re all racist. Here’s our first white presenter Anne Hathaway.”
Pizza. Pharrell. Wizzard of Oz costume changes. What more could you possibly want?
The secret to engineering a show as compelling as The Oscars is the probability that it won’t run smoothly. Indeed, it can’t, otherwise who would watch it? Everybody wants to see Jennifer Lawrence face-plant, or Melissa Leo casually drop the F-bomb. Hence, when a plastic John Travolta was rolled on to the stage, inundated with so much Botox he couldn’t even open his eyes, only to royally screw up the pronunciation of Idina Menzel’s name, everyone watching squealed with delight.
The same is true of Liza Minnelli, who was too short for “the selfie that broke Twitter,” or the tepid applause that followed Cate Blanchett’s mention of Woody Allen, or the silent but visceral groan when we realised Bette Middler was going to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Again. These are the kinds of brilliant missteps which feed the micro-blogging appetites of a buzzfeed generation.
Yet it wasn’t entirely ridiculous. For every Zac Efron, messing up the autocue (it’s a good thing these people don’t read lines for a living), or Harrison Ford sounding like he was delivering a eulogy, there were moments which were truly touching. Bill Murray smuggled in a wonderful tribute to the late Harold Ramis while presenting the Oscar for Best Cinematography, and both Lupita Nyong’o and Matthew McConnaughey gave heart-warming, even important, Oscar acceptance speeches. A personal highlight was watching Darlen Love belting out “I Sing because I’m happy” after winning Best Documentary. Even amidst this ridiculous and ruthless circus, there is enough gratitude and humbleness in the eyes of recognised talents to legitimise the whole thing.
To debate whether or not the awards were correctly awarded entirely misses the point. It’s fun to get angry when Leonardo DiCarprio doesn’t win but, at the end of the day, The Oscars are nothing more than an orgiastic, self-congratulatory pat on the back for the American film industry. What’s more, this year’s pat on the back was mind-numbingly predictable. If it was about the talent, surely Barhad Abdi would have won? Surely Academy voters would not have confessed to voting for 12 Years A Slave without having actually seen it?
As we get riled and irked, spewing our irritation onto twitter, it’s important to remember that the Academy Awards have zero purchase over what constitutes a good film for posterity. After all, this is the ceremony that awarded the Best Picture award to How Green is My Valley rather than Citizen Kane in 1942, and to Dances With Wolves rather than Goodfellas in 1990, andto Shakespeare in Love in 1998 rather than Saving Private Ryan. Doubtless, before long, we’ll be saying the same thing about The King’s Speech winning over The Social Network. While the awards have a self-evident gravitas, important for smaller projects trying to get a foothold in the industry and rising actors, in time it’s the best films, the best actors, the best scripts who will be remembered. No-one remembers Laurence Olivier because he won an Oscar, and no-one is going to forget Leonardo DiCaprio because he hasn’t.
We need to accept The Oscars for what they are. Joaquin Phoenix is absolutely right that such award ceremonies are “total, utter bullshit.” Once we can recognise this, we can recognise that it’s fantastically entertaining bullshit all the same.
