Putting Oscar in his place

It's been more than a week since the Oscars. Does your food taste better? Are your classes shorter, your step lighter, your bills lower? Has your life improved in any way?

Then why the hell does America obsess over the Oscars so?

For most people, the Academy Awards possess a retroactive Midas touch. An Oscar-winner suddenly becomes better, as though the presentation of a statuette has some mystical effect on the quality of the acting or directing or sound editing of a film. The fact that Gladiator won Best Picture makes it worthy of a second look. If the Academy gave it this impassive, gold-plated little man, clearly it must be more than a crowd-pleasing gladiator movie. It's drama! Substance! Art!

Protest all you like. I know that you don't think that you think this way, but it would hardly work if it were a conscious act. Like it or not, the Oscars bestow an air of legitimacy on whatever they touch. "It's an honor just to be nominated"? Damn straight it is! Any actor or director who gets the chance to win an Oscar can then put "Academy Award-nominated" in front of his title ad nauseum -- at least until he gets an actual award to put next to Mom's Hummel figurines next to the fireplace.

It's a high school student government election all over again, with uncomfortable foreign and progressive films filling in for their 16-year old counterparts.

And why not? It's certainly easier that way. Back in 1929, the judges were probably sitting around a board room with their hands down their pants, bitching about how hungover they were and how much work there was to do before this big awards shindig. And then one of them leapt to his feet, shouting, "I got it! Screw taking our time and making controversial decisions! If we want people to like our choices, then we need to make sure that our choices are supported by the majority! We'll just make it a popularity contest -- then no one can complain. Now, who wants to go shopping for some stock? This bull market is great, isn't it?"

Hey, laziness I can understand. Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals (except the weasel). Unfortunately, these lazy Oscar judges have propagated a misguided legacy that we have to thank for the spurious accolades for Gladiator and Denzel Washington.

The Oscars aren't evil. That may seem faint praise, but you must realize that I don't think awards themselves are evil. Why not recognize outstanding art and the people that make it? The Oscars aren't always wrong, and they do get people to see good movies that might have been overlooked otherwise. The problem is that they give us such a narrow perspective.

Sure, Spirited Away won Best Animated Feature (I was hoping it would lose just so I could forever point at Mar. 23, 2003 as evidence that the Oscars are irredeemably flawed), but why shouldn't animation compete against live film? I'd put Spirited Away up against most films you'd care to name. And where was this kind of recognition for Miyazaki's last film, Princess Mononoke? Both of these caught some American attention, though I'd wager that a large part of that had to do with the Americanized vocal casts. You don't often see dubbed Japanese anime starring Claire Danes or Billy Bob Thornton.

The Oscars deal in the mainstream, the popular, the American. That's fine. People forget it, though, and assign far more importance to the awards than the Academy has earned. The danger in a facile award is not in its frivolity but in its ability to convince people that it's serious.

Look at the Grammys. Yes, they often recognize pretty good musicians. I'm sure it's pretty neat to win one. But no one takes them seriously! No one pretends that the Grammy winners are the best of the best. And no one revises his opinion of any music based on the awarding of a Grammy. If you hate Eminem, no amount of gold-plated gramophones will change your mind.

Movies and music reach audiences differently -- a $5 radio will give you music nonstop, whereas $5 will hardly get you into a single movie nowadays -- but I don't see why our opinions of the awards should be so different.

Let me say it clearly: the Oscars are no better than the Grammys. The Oscars are the Grammys.

And if people would treat them that way, I'd have nothing to complain about. You barely notice when your favorite band doesn't win a Grammy. Why get so worked up over a freaking Oscar? Requiem for a Dream didn't get any Oscars. Neither did Fight Club or 12 Monkeys or You Can Count On Me or Apocalypse Now or The Shawshank Redemption. Some of these were overlooked completely, some were beaten out by stiff competition, some were robbed. So what?

It doesn't upset me that so many of my favorites -- movies that I consider to be potent and significant works of film -- have been passed over by the Academy. After all, art is all about taste. Sometimes we can separate our personal likes from appreciation for the work, and sometimes we cannot. I don't expect everyone in the world to like what I like. What upsets me is the exaggerated importance of the awards.

Hey, if a movie won an Oscar, it probably isn't bad. If that encourages you to rent it, go for it. And Spirited Away was just re-released to theaters based on its Oscar, so some good can come of the Academy after all. I just refuse to let the fact of an Oscar put a movie any higher in my estimation. Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington are welcome to brag about their acting chops -- they are good, and I know I like them -- but the minute either one tries to hold his Best Actor Oscar over someone's head, I'm putting bounties on their lives.