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I've never been a fan of the Oscars, or any of the plethora of celebrity
awards ceremonies for that matter. But I was awake, The Simpsons
was over, and I didn't have anything better to do with my time.
Disclaimer: Even though someone else that I'll read tomorrow
will undoubtedly say it better, derive something more important from
the event as a whole, and all the while maintain a level of humor that I'm
morbidly incapable of, I still gotta say...
...the whole thing was just fucked up.
Feed noted
Billy Crystal's "gentle racial heckling of Best Supporting Physical
Anomaly Michael Clarke Duncan," but they didn't go as far as to mention
that every black performer singled out in the close-upped "What they're
thinking right now" segment was racially heckled, from the Oscar-thieving
of Denzel Washington, through the "I see white men" of Messr. Duncan,
straight through to the ebonically intoned thoughts of the
two guys I didn't recognize.
(And that's not even to mention the vaguely xenophobic bonmots put in
Benigni's brain)
I shook off the creeps by reminding myself that, since the Birth
of this National Industry, it has
traditionally been racist, that if there were no such thing as racial
tension, neither Washington's nor Duncan's performances would have been
marketable. I sat and watched for a few minutes before it dawned on me
that I hadn't even noticed how--misogynistic might be too strong a
word--the female performers' Crystal-balled "thoughts" had been (from
Annette Benning's fear for her baby's future to Dame Judi Dench's present
concern over the state of her thong).
Aside from Duncan's larger-than-libel laughter, the others demurely
accepted the stereotyping ribs and melons (Dame Dench covered her face
not so much in embarrassment but more hiding her absence of amusement;
Denzel didn't kick Crystal's ass) in a room-temperature display of emotion
that seemed common to the acceptors, presenters, sequin-draped audience
(actors most of them, people we pay assloads of hard-earned American cash
to show a little tear every now and again), and even the attendant
journalists. When a FOX affiliated helicopter
stumbled on the stage stairs (i.e., went down in a ball of flames),
"KTTV anchorwoman Susan Hirasuna's voice nearly broke with emotion
Sunday night as she began to report a news story after word of the crash."
If the Awards had been one of Anthony Hopkins award-winning recyclings of
the told-and-told-again story of a
repressed British National letting his
repressed British national
hair down for the first time in his
repressed British life in
an award-winning Anthony Hopkins moment of emotional display,
then the award-winning moment has to be given to Dan Keplinger.
Subject of the Short Subject, the self-styled King of the Gimps fell to
the floor in apoplectic ecstasy when
his
Oscar was announced. As glad as I was to see this truly uncomfortable
moment rolling around in the Shrine Auditorium's red carpet, I couldn't
help thinking that this moment was no less planned than the opening
number's choreography (but just a little less sexy). We do know that
Dan has not only purposefully played off Pulp Fiction in his
self-deprecating nom-de-plume, but has also been known to shake up a
little drama on his own in his palsied past.
But bashing the body-botched has never won any awards, so I'll blame the
Academy for framing this moment. And as much as I'm appalled at being
tearfully taken advantage of by those clever bastards, at least the
seizure-scene was more a child of Lynch than of a lesser god.
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