Outside the Bubble

This year I turned my back on my country and forgot that the Oscars broadcast exists, and I didn't rembember until 11:50 PM on Sunday. I wandered out of my room, irritated, and found my floormates doing an odd appropriation of Bollywood dance in celebration of Slumdog Millionaire's Best Picture win. It was an odd sight, and certainly not worth leaving bed for.

I love sparkly dresses and attractive actors. I love video montages and bad jokes and strange celebrity pairings. It follows that I should love the Oscars - and I do. So why didn't I watch this year's broadcast? Let's see some options:

A. I had a lot of reading
B. I don't have a TV in my room and our floor TV is horrible
C. The collapse of the entertainment industry left me, like so many other habitual Oscar viewers, disinterested in the ceremony and its offerings
D. Hugh Jackman scares me

While the answer is probably a combination of A, B and D, many observers and insiders talked a lot about C. Despite the slumping economy and resulting drastic reductions in ticket sales, the movie industry seemed to effect little change. Ticket prices went up, reducing viewership of many of this year's nominees. Films had shorter runs and more limited distribution. Although box office success technically has nothing to do with Oscar consideration, you'd be hard-pressed to find a film that no one bothered to see in contention for a major award. The Academy had a tough task: picking nominees that the public cared about while at least attempting to recognize films of high cultural and/or artistic merit. Many viewers thought the Academy failed, especially in snubbing Wall-E and The Dark Knight for best picture simply because they were respectively an animated and an action movie.

This certainly had an effect on my interest in the whole spectacle. I can count on one hand the number of nomiated films I saw this year (Milk, Iron Man and In Bruge). I couldn't really afford spending $8 to see a movie I didn't think warranted a big screen, and the few I did see were independent films that the Oscars wouldn't touch with a ten-foot stick. I am also incredibly lazy when it comes to this sort of thing, so I never even got around to seeing the aforementioned snubs. Maybe I'm just getting older, but the glamour can't justify wasting four hours when I could be studying.



The only thing I bothered watching on YouTube the next was Dustin Black's acceptance speech. At this point, the only thing the Oscars are useful for (other than wasting money) is giving winners a minute and a half to say whatever they want on any subject. Black's speech was touching without being overbearing, and as someone for whom Milk was a profoundly affecting film, he hit all the right notes in continuing the film's important message. Just goes to show that with the Internet, we can distill any video broadcast into only the parts we want to watch. I don't think I'll be tuning in next year, and there's no one to blame for that but the Academy.

By Zoe Leverant