Sounded Good at the Time...

Over the years, the shine reflecting off some tremendously talented and classy people, like Cary Grant, Elizabeth Taylor, David Niven, Sidney Poitier, Grace Kelly, and Hattie McDaniel, has been replaced with grandstanding and politicizing. Here are a few examples from Allstarz.hollywood.com:

• 1969 – Amazingly, film legend Kathryn Hepburn ends up tied with Barbra Streisand for Best Actress. To my thinking, Babs’ nasally rendition of some otherwise memorable songs (many of which I sang in High School Choir) in “Funny Girl” doesn’t quite compare with The Great Kate’s tour-de-force portrayal of Anne of Aquitaine opposite Peter O’Toole in “The Lion in Winter.” Kate had the good sense to be absent from all the ballyhoo.
• 1973 – Marlon Brando declines his Best Actor award through proxy Sacheen Littlefeather (supposedly an Apache, but in reality aspiring actress Maria Cruz). The beef? The “treatment of American Indians ... by the film industry.” As one-eighth American Indian, I personally find no fault with how my ancestors have been portrayed. The real issue is such false grandstanding by someone who has very different motives and who presents himself as speaking for a whole bunch of people with a common genetic background. His little stunt certainly didn’t speak for me. My grandmother and her mother would have been put off by such actions. They were very down-to-earth people (according to my father, who knew them a lot better than I did).
• 1974 – A streaker flashes the peace sign as he runs across the stage while David Niven introduces Elizabeth Taylor, one of the presenters. (Hey, it was the 70s. Sounds like a TV show.) Ever the suave gentleman, Niven quipped “Probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings.” In my view, streakers put everything out in the open (bad pun – sorry).
• 1977 – Muhammad Ali grabs the spotlight from Sylvester Stallone. “Sly” was trying to accept his award for “Rocky” when “The Greatest” came onstage and started sparring with him, declaring “I'm the real Apollo Creed!” Totally classless.
• 1998 – James Cameron displays aplomb and modesty by declaring, with statuette held high, he’s “king of the world!” Sure, “Titanic” was a, well, TITANIC achievement, but a little of Niven’s suaveness would have gone a long way here. Thank goodness the streaker fad has been put behind us (another bad pun). [Now, he is “James Cameron, Tomb Raider.” (Wait, wasn’t that supposed to be a woman?) He is producing a documentary that claims to have found not only the burial place of Christ, but the remains, which shouldn’t be there because, well, he didn’t stay buried.]
• 2002 – Halle Berry is the first black woman to receive the Best Actress award. Hmm, Jennifer Connelly played the wife of Russell Crowe’s lead character in “A Beautiful Mind” but was nominated for, and won, Best Supporting Actress (not Best Actress as you might expect). I guess, if she had been nominated for Best Actress and had lost out to Berry, it would have looked a little odd. A movie that took Best Picture and Best Director would have lost both Best Actor* AND Best Actress.

*Crowe was nominated for Best Actor, but lost to an inferior performance by an otherwise excellent actor, Denzel Washington.

Let’s not forget the memorable acceptance/activism speeches such as in 2003 when Michael Moore lumbered up to the podium to accept an award for a documentary about the Columbine High School shootings. He took that opportunity to call President George Bush “a fictitious president” who was in office due to “fictitious election results.” In grade school, we called that being a poor sport, Mike.

Looking at where some of the awards have gone is even more revealing. A few examples for Best Picture:

• 1947, “A Double Life” – A dark drama where Ronald Coleman portrays an actor who can’t quite sort fact from fiction. Gee, sounds like a common problem in Hollywood, especially among documentarians like Moore.
• 1999, “Shakespeare in Love” – A fun romp through the Elizabethan era in England. Not very factual to Bill S.’s life, but hey, it’s wasn’t meant to be. It was meant as a series of filmdom insider jokes. Chances are that the person laughing loudest in the theater was “in the business” [of making movies].
• A series of movies that glamorize deviants and criminals, such as: “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Sting,” “Pretty Woman,” “Baby Doll,” “Malcolm X,” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” (Note: This year’s Best Actor award went to Forrest Whitaker for portraying a murderous, hellish dictator – Idi Amin – in “The Last King of Scotland.” What a denigration to a fine country to have it’s name used in the film title.)
• Let’s not forget that tender love story, “The Piano” where a man thinks that the way to get his mail-order bride to behave more lovingly toward him is to chop off one of her fingers. (Maybe that’s why he had to get a bride through mail-order. The local eligible ladies objected to such extreme motivational measures. Makes holding an embroidery needle somewhat awkward.)

This year, the biggest disappointment (although the least surprising) is having Best Documentary award go to “An Inconvenient Truth,” a mockumentary full of distortions and skewed statistics. (At least Gore got to cozy up with buddy celebs like DiCaprio and later declare to reporters that his “carbon footprint” is small. Of course, an item from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research Website states that his estate uses energy at 20 times the national average rate.) When something so undeserving wins an award, the relevance of that award is greatly diminished. Just as “diploma mills” drag down the value of a hard-earned degree from a legitimate institution of higher learning, calling such a film a documentary drags down real documentaries. I feel sorry for those real documentarians who were nominated but stood no chance of winning.

Truly, the Oscars, once symbols of high achievement in the film industry, have become just a pat on the back from one good ole buddy to another. No wonder Fox News’ program was such a great alternative. Heck, watching “The Paint Drying Channel” would also have been more meaningful – not to mention exciting.

Sigh! There’s always next year. Can’t wait for the Nobel prize awards show.

Copyright © 2007 A.C. Cargill

A.C. Cargill resides on the East Coast for now, has lived in several locations, including Europe, and now uses her background in technical writing, including researching topics online, along with her degree in Philosophy and English, to point out good ideas that aren’t so good after all.