In the alternative lifestyle fable delicately composed at last Sunday’s 78th annual Academy Awards, host Jon Stewart played a most interesting role: the ugly-but-honest black sheep uncle.
“You can watch all your favorite stars without having to donate to the Democratic party,” Stewart joked of the Oscars, while the ballroom of freshly coiffed self-sellers chuckled or sat silently for awkward spells. “I bet it’s the first time all of you voted for a winner.”
Where a standardly self-obsessed star would meekly harp to break the ice, helming the audience through a few harmless chuckles, Stewart’s distantly paternal hosting dared to venture a hilariously honest portrait, despite the occasion. Only one brusque New Yorker could (however sarcastically) declare the cream of Hollywood out of touch, to its face, on its biggest night.
But then the next three hours drove home Stewart’s jab: Hollywood proselytized its tolerance-is-king values system as noble — even revolutionary — while whining face-to-face with consumers who don’t go to theaters like the Academy wants them to. As shameless ads competed awkwardly for precious time with Hollywood-fights-the-good-fight acceptance speeches and satirical political ads, it seemed the Academy’s lens focused an unrecognizably rosy self-portrait.
This year more than any recent other, the Academy aired a convincing claim for the social and political relevance of film with its choice of nominees. That the mostly blood-red leaders of the country still work against the moral of the year’s most important story only added to its urgency, though all the top films struck none-too-vague overtones for today’s world: “Munich” portrayed Middle Eastern terrorism; “Good Night, and Good Luck” indicted the contemporary news media; “Crash” reasserted racism’s horrors; and “Capote” explored homosexuality, senseless violence and literary celebrity.
The five practically add up to a political platform, but that apparently wasn’t a big enough blockbuster. The relevance of the subject at hand intoxicated the Academy into producing a fantasy flick about the sage-like wisdom of not only its politics, but its lifestyle — and that’s what we got to watch.
It didn’t start off so bad. Following Stewart’s unloved heroics, George Clooney got up there and aw-shucked that he was “proud to be out of touch” — as liberals everywhere (myself included) popped their collars in agreement.
Maybe this would change something, we (I) thought. Maybe the Southern California elite would step off their pedestal and somehow positively make a change in the world. Maybe they would exercise enough humility to allow their work to matter.
(Clearly, I’m a fucking idiot.)
Unintentionally adding to the “our system is better than your system” mind-fuck were the satirical political ads spritzed throughout the awards. Pasting a “Daily Show” staple into the Oscars, the spots showed leading candidates in a category tearing each other down like the “paid for by” barbs and heart-plucking testimonials we’re used to before election day.
While the Academy apparently thought it’d be good to get us high on John Stewart-sauce, they didn’t realize how bastardly arrogant the ads could make the show look, especially this year. If there wasn’t enough lifestyle competition in the ceremony already, the take-us-seriously-while-laughing-at-serious-ugliness departures upped it in the worst way: Yes, Academy, the political system doesn’t work as well as we’d like it to.
But yours doesn’t either. If Hollywood reigns so tolerant and wise, why did it cut off clever speeches to skip to the endless self-love montages?
Because — shock — they wanted to sell us something: the experience of going to movies in theaters, for which consumers are markedly declaring their indifference. Both bigman J. Gyll and Academy president Frank Pierson made a plea (under a not-so-subtle theater marquis set) to us living room shills to please put our princely sums back in their wallets where they belong.
The Academy apparently didn’t think through the rising popularity of advertisement-free personal digital media. So maybe Reese Witherspoon doesn’t look as good on a portable — in their allegedly altruistic utopia, can’t a noble movie star just buy another Maybach and get over it?
But Hollywood makes its fortune off of never getting over anything, especially itself. And that’s where we cut from the awards-ceremony-as-glossy message flick to the orchestrated conceit-fest fully revealed by — ready your slurs — the upset crowning of flimsy L.A.-fable “Crash” over its truly serious older brother, “Brokeback Mountain.”
Nevermind that “Brokeback” struck a perfectly-timed social justice chord, that it inarguably caused the biggest stir of the year, or that its mild ambitions were focused enough to leave us with a message that actually works outside of the theater — the Academy is apparently not as free-thinking as you’d guess.
“’’Brokeback’ took on a fairly sacred Hollywood icon, the cowboy, and I don’t think the older members of the Academy wanted to see the image of the American cowboy tarnished,” explained one Hollywood insider in a New York Times analysis of the upset that painted the awards, and their city, as a den of focused vanity.
John Wayne is dead, guys. And rather than providing more sticks and stones for conservative critics, naming “Brokeback” the year’s top picture would have sent a powerful message to the legions of smug homophobes across the nation: You think we’re out of touch? It’s actually just that you’re far behind.
Even without the award, “Brokeback” made a visible sociopolitical impact, while “Crash” will sputter out into the vacuum of convenient pseudo-commentary, earning millions and changing nothing.
For this year’s inevitable post-Oscar alienation period, the glitz children have no easy excuse. Academy, you ruined it with the self-obsession — and uncle John even warned you.
