Oscars and Blah-scars

This past Sunday night, 34 million Americans and I watched the Academy Awards. It was a four-hour slog for the most part, with highlights few and far between. The next day, I read countless articles about how long and boring the ceremony was, truly an exercise in futility and pointlessness in a shallow industry. I’m not going to disagree with any of that. The Oscars are without a doubt the most boring awards show out of a pantheon of boring awards show. How do we fix it? Can it even be fixed? I say it can, but it’s all dependent on one big thing—they can’t hand out any more awards.

“But Drew!” you might exclaim. “How can something be an awards show without any awards?” To answer that, I point to every single other awards show in existence. The reason why the Tony Awards, Grammys, and VMAs are the most entertaining awards shows (and schlock like the Golden Globes and Emmys are not) is because they cut down on the amount of awards that they give out in favor of performances, spectacle and basically anything that television viewers actually enjoy seeing. The sort of self-congratulatory pablum present at the Oscars really only plays well to the famous audience. Not to take away from any of the winners’ accomplishments, but how many of us actually care about who wins for Best Sound Editing? These awards obviously are significant achievements, but there are more people likely to be celebrating that win sincerely in the Nokia Theatre than there are sitting on American couches. I would say that most Oscar viewers really only care about who wins the acting awards, Best Director and Best Picture. According to my notes during the show, those six awards took a grand total of 18 minutes to announce. 18 minutes out of four hours does not a mandatory viewing experience make.

The things that did enliven the Oscars were scarce this year. Chris Rock was predictably, scathingly excellent, and his opening monologue gave off such an electrifyingly thrilling high that the rest of the broadcast could only go down from there. Save for Sam Smith’s pitchy and dull rendition of the Best Song winner “Writing’s On the Wall,” the other music performances from The Weeknd, Dave Grohl, and Lady Gaga were uniformly excellent (though the exclusion of performances by other nominees such as Anohni and Sumi Jo in favor of their more famous counterparts was shady). There were moments of spontaneous fun and emotion that brightened the show, too, such as Leonardo DiCaprio’s well-deserved win and Kate Winslet’s beaming reaction, DiCaprio’s joy over a box of Thin Mints, Quincy Jones’ chuckle and anything involving the delightfully charismatic “Room” actor Jacob Tremblay. Still, the majority of the broadcast was leaden, with more boring speeches than usual and little in the way of virality or meme-ability. I kept praying for an “Adele Dazeem” moment, but we got none.

This year, the Grammys only gave out eight actual awards at the broadcasted show with the rest being handed out at an offsite pre-ceremony. That choice allowed them to fit in upwards of 20 performances in a three hour broadcast, which is a much better ratio of fun to pomp. The Grammys planners also wisely chose to hand out more relevant awards such as Best New Artist and Album of the Year exclusively—an excellent ploy to get people to tune in to the whole show. While the quality of the performances was largely lacking this year, the Grammys were infinitely more entertaining because there is always a genuine sense of joy in their celebration of music itself. The Tony Awards mine a similar vein of sincerity in entertainment, and the VMAs do away with all sense of decorum in favor of spectacle, pizzazz and catering to the Internet.

Look at Lady Gaga. In years past, she has built up her brand of subversive pop through ludicrously extravagant performances at the Grammys and VMAs and shocking and literally sickening fashion (hello, meat dress!) on their red carpets. The past year has been different though, as her recent move towards subdued yet still talented artistry has given her 2016 performances at the Grammys and the Oscars a sense of natural gravitas and emotion that is rarely present at either of those ceremonies. The quality of the performances is still very high, and her rendition of the Oscar-nominated “Till It Happens To You” from “The Hunting Ground” in which she brought out survivors of sexual assault on college campuses was a heartfelt, show-stopping moment in a broadcast sorely lacking in anything but artifice. Gaga’s performance was powerful and still paid tribute to the movie she was nominated for, which is a template the Oscars could and should follow in the years to come. 

With all due respect to the winners, the audience doesn’t need to see a lot of these technical awards. Next year, cut out the deserving riffraff, add in performances that pay tribute to the movies and don’t try to force pomp or emotion.

Oh, and don’t make it four hours.

Drew Haskins is a Trinity junior and Local Arts editor.