Man, I used to love the Oscars. I watched it every year, no matter what was nominated. It wasn’t the glitz and the glamour (What exactly is glitz, and how does it differ from glamour?). I think what interested me was that it was an entire event devoted to the arts and weirdos and made-up shit. I think actors are wonderful nutjobs that live in a candy-cane gumdrop world and they get to do fun stuff for a living. Alongside the producers, directors, writers, and the slew of other people, they take what they do very seriously. (Although, probably a little too much.)
It was a break from the real world. I watched that and other award shows and I would bet on the winners with my wife, even though we barely knew any of the nominations. But suddenly, just after the 2016 broadcast when Birdman won, I stopped caring. And, for some reason, when that happens, I always go back to Cheez-It’s.
When I was really little, I would visit my grandmother and she would always have Cheez-It’s on hand. They are the salty cheesy crackers that come with a case of dusty fingers and apocalyptically hideous breath. She would pour them into a little Dixie cup and that would be my snack. I ate them all the time. I never questioned them. Then one day, maybe I was thirteen or so, I stopped. Suddenly, they tasted and smelled like fried barf. I haven’t eaten one in thirty years. I don’t remember buying them in my adult life. I’m not sure if my kids have ever eaten a Cheez-It.
That’s what happened with the Oscars and award shows, in general. It's not a big loss, although I liked the guessing games Amy and I would play. Just something about that year, that particular crop of Oscar hopefuls just turned me off from the whole affair. I think its related to the second theory of mine: We care too much about the Academy Awards. You might not watch the shows either, but I bet you’ve chimed in once or twice about them. Usually, someone complains: “How is that an Oscar-worthy film?” “Who has even heard of that?” “I don’t know a human being who has seen that movie.”
That’s the problem. We apparently have our own personal high bar when it comes to what’s the best movie out there and who did the best job putting it together. We wouldn’t bitch about it if we didn’t disapprove. Birdman was a fine, but forgettable movie. Like so many other award winners, we will one day wonder why anyone gave a shit.
If the Oscars were going to truly mean something, if it were a quest to define a true artistic achievement that defined a specific area, it wouldn’t happen every year. It would happen every 3 or 5 years. They would strive to uncover what worked, what stuck around, what is now part of our cultural conversation. But it’s not that at all. It’s a yearly special that makes a ton of money and advertises stars and upcoming projects. It finds the best inoffensive film that had the best PR campaign.
I think what we can take away from this is that movies matter to us. We’re a young culture and we put out way more movies than any other country out there. They mean more than just an escape for two hours. If so, then maybe a different way to acknowledge needs to come along. The Oscars don’t really cut it.
Or we could just pick up a book once in a while.
