Smacking of frustration
Well, on the positive side at least people are finally talking about the Oscars telecast again.
To think that I very nearly skipped the live telecast and opted for the abridged international version on the following night, as I did last year. Obsessive readers will recall that last year I skipped the all-night marathon (a fact of living in the Greenwich Mean Time zone) in favor of being awake and present for my first Covid jab. That worked so well, I nearly did that again—and I would have missed experiencing the slap heard around the world at the same time as people in the U.S.
I hadn’t been primed for drama. A couple days before the ceremony, there was an article in the paper where one of the hosts, Wanda Sykes, said things like they weren’t “going to trash anyone” and that the hosts wanted “everyone to have a good time.” She added, “None of us is mean-spirited.” Okay. Well, that sounded like it was going to be boring and so left us totally unprepared for the drama that erupted.
In fairness, earlier in the evening Sykes had subtly prepared us by offering a helpful lesson on toxic masculinity, which for her is defined as an 80-year-old senator from Kentucky. The hosts also trashed the entire states of Florida and Texas, but don’t worry, it wasn’t mean-spirited. Actually, reflecting back on the pre-show comments, I think Wanda meant they specifically weren’t going to trash important, famous people. But that didn’t exactly happen either, did it?
When did the Oscars turn into a university student union meeting? (Sorry. That’s not really fair to university student unions.) An occasion to take a break from entertaining the public and spend an evening entertaining themselves? But are they really entertained? People have noted that, at first, Will Smith laughed uproariously upon hearing Chris Rock’s frankly lame joke about Jada’s head but then something changed. Part of the fun is supposed to be laughing at jokes at one’s own expense because it’s happening on an international television broadcast and it emphasizes how famous, hip and cool you are. But something obviously set him off. Perhaps he just snapped, or maybe it was a look or a word from the person next to him. Why couldn’t he just keep laughing uproariously, like he did earlier in the evening when Amy Schumer quipped, “After years of Hollywood ignoring women’s stories, this year, we finally got a movie about the incredible Williams sisters’… dad.” Now that was actually funny (because it was true).
Another good quip was from a snarky viewer who said, please, can we go back to having no hosts? Or can they at least get gag writer Bruce Vilanch back? He was head writer for every Oscars show between 2000 and 2014, and on his watch the shows were funny. No, not every joke landed, and there were always groaners, but there were always more than enough gems and guffaws. And the banter didn’t consistently make the home audience feel out of the loop.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Vilanch and got his thoughts on the Rock/Smith imbroglio. The show’s producers had confirmed the infamous joke was ad-libbed, and presumably Rock was ignorant of why Pinkett Smith’s head was bare. (Sorry, actors, but not everyone follows every detail of your personal life all the time.) “That’s what comics do,” said Vilanch. “I think that if anybody had seen it ahead of time, they would’ve pointed out to him that probably it was not the best idea.”
He continued, that “does not excuse somebody getting up and assaulting somebody else. I mean, that’s crazy. Not since [a drunken] James Mason slapped Judy Garland [accidentally, at a fictional Oscars ceremony] in A Star Is Born has the Oscars seen this kind of activity.” You can always count on Bruce for a spot-on reference.
While Smith has gotten the brunt of negative reaction, he does have his defenders. Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams said the slap wasn’t an act of violence but a justifiable act of humiliation, adding that most women probably found it kind of hot. Some Irish commentators, no strangers to the sometimes tragic consequences of pub brawls, pointed out that a single punch can sometimes result in life-changing injury or death.
So, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the Oscars ceremony otherwise?
You only have to glance at the travesty that is my Oscar prediction chart to see that I wasn’t completely thrilled with all of the winners, but hey, they’re awards handed out by one’s peers, not by snarky bloggers. Still, I was pleased for the awards handed to Troy Kotsur, Jane Campion, Kenneth Branagh, Siân Heder and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car. And I have to congratulate Jessica Chastain because I always root for members of the Dark Shadows family. What? You didn’t know Jessica was on Dark Shadows? Well, she was. Kinda. She was in the 2004 revival pilot that never got picked up by the WB.
I always watch for the heartstring-tugging moment involving some old-timer who gets trotted out for sentimental reasons. This year it was Lady Gaga wheeling out Liza Minnelli. It was poignant, and almost cringingly so. Still, it was an honest, real-life, human moment, nearly shocking in the midst of all the artifice. Maybe it makes up for the time eight years ago when Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres highlighted a befuddled and ailing Minnelli in the audience by calling out, “Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I’ve ever seen! Good job, sir!”
Now, that was a mean crack that might have been worthy of a good slap.
-S.L., 29 March 2022
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