hollywood's problem child

He is a child of privilege, born and raised with a sense of entitlement.

He is Hollywood’s Golden Child.  Literally. 

He is Oscar.

There are other, lesser awards that aspire to be like him and that covet his immense celebrity, but they don’t share his elevated station in life.

And like many pampered, overindulged children, Oscar has been something of a disappointment.  Awards in his name have been given more often to the wrong films and people than to the right ones.   

And the annual black-tie party that celebrates his greatness, the Oscarcast, has been at once gauche, boring and embarrassing.

Oscar is like the popular kid in high school who fails to live up to his potential and is often overshadowed by wannabes and competitors.

The turnout for his party this year, for example, was the lowest in nine years.  Each year, as ratings drop a little more, he seems to become less relevant. Meanwhile, his helicopter parent – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  – continues to manipulate factors that would make its precious Oscar appear more important. Yes, manipulate.

Somehow, that strikes me as something particularly dubious.  Case in point: In 2009, after the franchise film “The Dark Knight” failed to get an expected Best Picture nomination, the Academy - a stage mother to end all stage mothers - stepped in to correct such slights in the future and to quell anticipated complaints from any other pesky malcontents. 

Heaven knows, for years, the five Best Picture slots had generally been monopolized by arty indie fare.  So the category was opened up to include as many as ten – ten! – nominees.  That way, action and comic-book movies had a chance to be included and honored.  You know, art.

But guess what: It didn’t work. Since that expansion, even more fringe titles have been nominated for Best Picture. Usually eight or nine. (For some reason, there have yet to be ten nominated films. I’ve no idea what the official cut-off point is.) Mainstream titles remain a distinct minority.

There was more tampering with the potential results this year.

When too few films and people of color were represented in the competition for the past two awards seasons, the Academy went into its Rolodex to get weed out those voters (read: old and white) holding back the hands of time.  The conceit worked. There was certainly more diversity among this year's nominees. But none of this impressed moviegoers.

What the Academy fails to acknowledge that there is a definite correlation between what films are nominated and how many viewers tune in to the Oscarcast.  It’s become apparent that the average moviegoer has written off the Oscarcast because he/she simply doesn’t care about any of the films involved.  There may be interest in "Moonlight," this year's Best Picture winner, among movie critics, festival groupies and film-industry people, but not among people who go to movies as a pastime.

The ratings were down this year because, frankly, among the nine titles being honored were the aforementioned “Moonlight” and “La La Land” (a musical, for heaven’s sake!) and “Fences” and “Lion”  and “Manchester by the Sea” and “Hell or High Water” and other movies that did not include a single tormented Superhero from the Marvel or DC Comics archives. 

The last Oscarcast whose ratings soared was in 1998 – the year of “Titanic,” a film that people other than movie critics, festival geeks and industry people adored. It was big and popular and glamorous.

The little-known (and -seen) "Moonlight" is the polar opposite, an edgy downer about race and sexuality.  It's not the kind of film that one dreams of building an Oscar party around.  Its unexpected victory has been attributed to the changes in voting, but it actually benefited from a carefully-orchestrated, shrewdly-timed 11^th hour backlash on the internet against "La La Land," which had been the front-runner all season.

In a matter of a few weeks, its fate changed. 

"Moonlight's" win made no sense until one became aware of the willfully ignorant charges made against "La La Land" on the web. Yes, unbelievably, the musical lost its Best Picture Oscar because that category was ostensibly seized and appropriated by resourceful internet writers.

As for this year’s "party," the Oscarcast itself, it was especially pathetic, what with tiny bags of candy being parachuted into the theater at intervals and “tourists” being bussed in to partake in all the forced fun and to hobnob with the rich and famous.  And the extensive padding included one particularly gratuitous bit that had current stars (like Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen) mooning over vets (Shirley MacLaine and Michael J. Fox).

It was also a show whose over-the-top political correctness even seeped into commercials that pontificated on behalf of empathy and compassion to the point that it became cringe-worthy – and I say that as a card-carrying liberal who routinely votes on behalf of empathy and compassion.  As I watched all this, I remarked to my wife that right-wing pundits would have a field day with this show, which played like a bad caricature of liberalism.

It was difficult to take and I tuned out early on when Viola Davis won her award.  OK, full disclosure: I was crazy about Viola Davis before she became a household name.  As a working critic, I took note of her early film performances in “Out of Sight,” “Antoine Fisher,” “Far from Heaven” and “Solaris.”  Her win for “Fences” was no surprise.  And it was evident that she expected it, too, because her acceptance speech was less of a speech than a monologue, a carefully prepared one-woman play, during which Davis gave a performance that rivaled her work in “Fences.”

I managed to snap back into consciousness for the controversial note on which the show ended - the wrong film being announced for the top prize.

Americans like to find blame somewhere, anywhere, and everyone in the media and on-line was quick to target poor Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway for simply reading the information that was given to them. 

Beatty was clearly confused when he opened the envelope and I believe that he handed it to Dunaway to show her that a mistake had been made.  And she assumed that he was leaving it up to her to announce the winner. 

In an earlier lifetime, I interviewed Beatty and found him to be a calm, methodical, savvy, intelligent man.  So I was surprised that he didn’t stop the show, look into the camera and tell the audience that a mistake had been made – that he and Dunaway had been given the wrong envelope – and then simply wait things out until the powers corrected the error. 

The Academy still would have had a wildly dramatic finale but it would have been a good deal less embarrassing, particularly for the team that made “La La Land” - the film that deserved to be named Best Picture.

Notes in Passing: There were two moments during the Oscarcast that left me jaw-dropped (aside from the Best Picture win).  One was when host Jimmy Kimmel referred to Trump tweeting during his "5 a.m. bowel movement."  A low point in bad taste.  The second was when presenter Vince Vaughn described Kimmel as "an unshave Sal Mineo."  Huh?  Made no sense.  If my memory serves me correctly, Kimmel had a beard growth on his face (and hardly resembles Mineo). Embarrassing.