It's always struck me that Hollywood and academia have a lot in common: a closed, deluded society, self-anointed big cheeses, and an unseemly love of awards. Consider the Oscars, as everyone seems to be doing today. About the Academy Awards, Marlene Dietrich once snarled, "What's wrong with these people? Are they children, that they have to be given prizes?" And the answer, of course, is yes, they are children. They have to be given prizes, not to mention a lot of anticipation,and special clothes as a build-up to the big prize-giving day. It's not unlike the university, which awards tenure, endowed chairs, and, yes, prizes, with the same bloated build-up and accompanying hoohah on the days the tenure committee meets. Except that the university eschews sparkly gowns and dance numbers. I put it down to a failure of the imagination.
Don't get me wrong. There are two bloody dripping chunks of popular culture I never miss: the Oscars, and the Super Bowl commercials. The Super Bowl has a more legitimate claim on my attention, since it's the groundwork for advertising trends that inky-stained copywriters like me will be forced to contend with, react against, or copy during the following year. Whereas I have no excuse for watching the Oscars. Year after year, they're generally as dull and boring as they were the preceding year. But I'm a film buff and so is my husband and, I suppose, we could count ourselves as having brushed up against the industry from time to time.
Now that the economy is turned to a progressively slurping quicksand, and now that we, in our slow ::duh:: American way are becoming both angry and populist, it might be time to initiate Oscars for Everyone! Think of of it: an Oscar for the best supermarket checker! An Oscar for the speediest gal at the McDonald's drive up window! An Oscar for the top Frisbee-playing dog! An Oscar for the fastest car detailing guy! You get the idea. And with it, of course, I propose a full orchestra, rented tuxes for everyone, a gigantic audience, and a 45 sec. limit on acceptance speeches.
Great idea, or what? Or maybe it's just the cold I've had for a week. Cold medicine puts me into a weird Carlos Castaneda-land. I start to imagine things.
Or could you tell?
Don't get me wrong. There are two bloody dripping chunks of popular culture I never miss: the Oscars, and the Super Bowl commercials. The Super Bowl has a more legitimate claim on my attention, since it's the groundwork for advertising trends that inky-stained copywriters like me will be forced to contend with, react against, or copy during the following year. Whereas I have no excuse for watching the Oscars. Year after year, they're generally as dull and boring as they were the preceding year. But I'm a film buff and so is my husband and, I suppose, we could count ourselves as having brushed up against the industry from time to time.
Now that the economy is turned to a progressively slurping quicksand, and now that we, in our slow ::duh:: American way are becoming both angry and populist, it might be time to initiate Oscars for Everyone! Think of of it: an Oscar for the best supermarket checker! An Oscar for the speediest gal at the McDonald's drive up window! An Oscar for the top Frisbee-playing dog! An Oscar for the fastest car detailing guy! You get the idea. And with it, of course, I propose a full orchestra, rented tuxes for everyone, a gigantic audience, and a 45 sec. limit on acceptance speeches.
Great idea, or what? Or maybe it's just the cold I've had for a week. Cold medicine puts me into a weird Carlos Castaneda-land. I start to imagine things.
Or could you tell?
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