Watching the Oscars: Silly, Obscene, Irrelevant, and Artificial

Many decades ago, when I was a kid, I found the Oscars exciting. It was a time when people went to the movies more than they do now, and when the movies that got nominated for Oscars were, to a remarkable extent, the same movies that you were actually likely to have seen during the year. These days, of course, when the number of genuinely meritorious movies has shriveled while the number of garish award ceremonies for movies has grown and grown, the hullabaloo over the Oscars, or over any of these things, seems silly, obscene, irrelevant, and artificial. Meanwhile, more and more evidence has emerged that the whole American film industry is hopelessly in the grip of the kind of people who were eager enough to satisfy the gross appetites of Harvey Weinstein and to clamber onto Jeffrey Epstein’s jet for a trip to his evil island.

Yet even in 2024 — when, of all the movies nominated for anything, I’ve seen only three (Oppenheimer, Napoleon, and Maestro), to sit on your couch in Norway and tune into a Danish TV channel to watch this glitzy spectacle is to be reminded that, to a lot of people, not just in the U.S. but all over the world, this annual foolishness actually matters. Hollywood matters. Whatever else may have happened during the previous year to enhance or diminish America’s international standing, the Oscars are still, for viewers around the planet, a cultural event that, once again, reaffirms America’s role as the unrivaled No. 1 manufacturer of the world’s popular culture. And that role is the sole reason why my 7-year-old Norwegian nephew understands every single word I say in English. (READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: Napoleon: Full of Sound and Fury — But Signifying What?)

This year’s telecast began with the red-carpet frivolity, during which one of the presenters informed us that the ceremonies were being held on “the traditional lands of the Tongva people.” Funny, I didn’t see any Tongva people on the red carpet — perhaps their invitations were lost in the mail. I read that this year’s Oscars goodie bag, presented to nominees in the acting and directing categories, is worth $170,000 and includes “a three-night stay at a luxury Swiss chalet for 10 people worth $50,000,” “a seven-day wellness retreat to Golden Door in San Marcos, California,” and “three nights in a private villa at Saint-Barth Paradise in the Caribbean,” plus various skincare products, kitchen appliances, designer pillows, and “handmade vegan chocolate,” among much else. What delicious items, I wondered, is the Academy sending to the Tongva people, who these days number about 1,700? Surely that traditional-land acknowledgment wasn’t just an empty gesture?

In any event, that Tongva business was just the beginning of the usual parade of bubbleheaded showbiz politics. During the last moments of the red-carpet segment, the actor Mark Ruffalo — who is one of the most vapid, far-left clowns in Tinseltown (and who is known for having called Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer) — announced, apropos of Gaza, “We need to stop killing children!” In his monologue, Jimmy Kimmel — who vies with Stephen Colbert for the title of late-night host who’s most fully in the tank for the Democratic Party — mocked the GOP rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address (of course, he didn’t joke about that history-making trainwreck of a speech itself); celebrated the fact that Lily Gladstone, star of Killers of the Flower Moon, is the first Native American to be nominated for Best Actress; and exalted Hollywood as “at its heart … a union town.” Right. Kimmel is the anti–Ricky Gervais, sucking up to the stars instead of discovering the real humor in this gaudy three-and-a-half-hour display of narcissism. (RELATED: It’s Globe-fficial: Hollywood Has Lost Its Sense of Humor)

It was nice to see 92-year-old Rita Moreno looking so terrific — but it was cloying to experience the grotesquely hyperbolic praise with which she nominated Honduran-American America Ferrera for Best Supporting Actress: “America, from one woman to another, congratulations on your tour de force.” The winner of that trophy turned out to be Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who was raised in privilege (she attended Temple, Yale, the British American Drama Academy, and Oxford) but who, listening to her acceptance speech, you’d think had climbed up to stardom from the grubbiest of gutters. “For so long I’ve always wanted to be different,” she said in a trembling voice, “and now I realize I just need to be myself.” She proceeded to spew a boatload of nonsense about being black. It’s a shame to witness the disgorging of all this toxic crap that’s been stuffed into so many otherwise worthy people’s heads ever since Barack Obama became president.

On it went. A naked guy presented the award for Best Costume Design. (Infantile.) People in Native American costumes — who, like the woman who turned down Marlon Brando’s Godfather Oscar back in 1973, may or may not have been authentic Indians — performed some horrible music. Accepting the award for Best International Film for The Zone of Interest, a movie about Auschwitz, Jonathan Glazer seemed to celebrate Hamas as a “resistance” group — thereby implying a parallel between the Nazi Holocaust and the current Israeli actions in Gaza. During the gushy tributes paid to acting nominees by former winners of the same prizes, we were told that one actor’s performance was “extraordinary and transformative,” that another actor is “simply a wonderful human being,” that yet another actor “elevated the craft,” that one nominated actress had provided viewers with an “intense sensory experience,” and so on.

The self-celebration never ended. When Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito came out to present the award for Best Visual Effects, they got a standing ovation. So did Ryan Gosling when he finished singing — if that’s the word for it — “I’m Just Ken,” which may be the most insipid Oscar-nominated song ever. (Oddly, though, there was no standing ovation for Steven Spielberg when he stepped onstage to present the award for Best Director.) Just before the presentation of the Best Picture award, Kimmel read aloud an unflattering — and absolutely true — comment about his mediocre hosting skills that had just been posted by Donald Trump on Truth Social. In response, Kimmel quipped witlessly: “Isn’t it past your jail time?” And when they cut to the audience, everyone in sight was cheering, as if Kimmel’s line was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Honestly, what more do we need to know about these awful people? 

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