Oscar Watching
I was watching the Academy Awards on Monday evening. Given the time difference between SA and the United States, it’s a choice between getting up at 2:30 to watch the show live, or waiting until MNET rebroadcasts it at 7pm on Monday.
You may ask why watch when you’ve known the winners for hours already, but knowing a few names is not the same as actually watching the event. Pity there is no one in real life outside of my family for me to share my enthusiasm with- so it was just a case of running to my sister in the other room and remarking ‘That gay cowboy montage was very clever’, ‘The best song winner is utter shit’, ‘Lilly Tomlin and Meryl Streep together onstage’ ‘Charlize is a South African American?’ ‘Screw CGI. Look at how stop motion dominated the Best Animated Film category this year’ and ‘Did you see Ben Stiller presenting in his green unitard? Hilarious’.
South Africa is a bit behind this year in terms of showing the ‘serious’ Oscar nominated films. Crash has come and gone. As has Munich, Walk the Line and local Best Foreign Film winner Tsotsi.
But currently out on circuit or about to open (and which I’m keen to see) are Brokeback Mountain, Pride & Prejudice, Syriana and Best Documentary Feature winner March of the Penguins.
I know a lot of gay people have been upset by Brokeback Mountain’s surprise Best Film defeat to racial-conflict focused Crash. Brokeback won the Best Film award at pretty much every other film awards ceremony, they say. It’s an example of Hollywood homophobia yet again, they say. I have another theory. I think that Hurricane Katrina played a part in the Crash victory.
The New Orleans disaster was heavily flavoured with racial issues- many see the catastrophe as stemming from a lack of concern about the fate of poor blacks in the area. It makes sense then for the Academy, largely white heterosexual liberals, to give into their guilt. When it comes to oppressed minority groups, and giving them the Academy stamp of sympathy approval this year, race was prioritised ahead of sexual orientation.
One other thing about the Oscars: I don’t know about anyone else, but growing up watching the show I’ve played around with my imaginary acceptance speech in my head. Looking on Monday evening at how clearly passionate the Oscar nominees are, happy to be doing what they love (I’m thinking here especially of Nick Park and the Aardman bow-tie wearing animators), I thought that in my victory speech that I would have to speak about doing work that is personally fulfilling. Because wasting you twenties churning out such rubbishy catch phrases as ‘Tampon Technology’ and ‘Meeting your requirements’ certainly isn’t.
You may ask why watch when you’ve known the winners for hours already, but knowing a few names is not the same as actually watching the event. Pity there is no one in real life outside of my family for me to share my enthusiasm with- so it was just a case of running to my sister in the other room and remarking ‘That gay cowboy montage was very clever’, ‘The best song winner is utter shit’, ‘Lilly Tomlin and Meryl Streep together onstage’ ‘Charlize is a South African American?’ ‘Screw CGI. Look at how stop motion dominated the Best Animated Film category this year’ and ‘Did you see Ben Stiller presenting in his green unitard? Hilarious’.
South Africa is a bit behind this year in terms of showing the ‘serious’ Oscar nominated films. Crash has come and gone. As has Munich, Walk the Line and local Best Foreign Film winner Tsotsi.
But currently out on circuit or about to open (and which I’m keen to see) are Brokeback Mountain, Pride & Prejudice, Syriana and Best Documentary Feature winner March of the Penguins.
I know a lot of gay people have been upset by Brokeback Mountain’s surprise Best Film defeat to racial-conflict focused Crash. Brokeback won the Best Film award at pretty much every other film awards ceremony, they say. It’s an example of Hollywood homophobia yet again, they say. I have another theory. I think that Hurricane Katrina played a part in the Crash victory.
The New Orleans disaster was heavily flavoured with racial issues- many see the catastrophe as stemming from a lack of concern about the fate of poor blacks in the area. It makes sense then for the Academy, largely white heterosexual liberals, to give into their guilt. When it comes to oppressed minority groups, and giving them the Academy stamp of sympathy approval this year, race was prioritised ahead of sexual orientation.
One other thing about the Oscars: I don’t know about anyone else, but growing up watching the show I’ve played around with my imaginary acceptance speech in my head. Looking on Monday evening at how clearly passionate the Oscar nominees are, happy to be doing what they love (I’m thinking here especially of Nick Park and the Aardman bow-tie wearing animators), I thought that in my victory speech that I would have to speak about doing work that is personally fulfilling. Because wasting you twenties churning out such rubbishy catch phrases as ‘Tampon Technology’ and ‘Meeting your requirements’ certainly isn’t.
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