As a media junkie and scholar, I feel like I should say something about the Oscars this year. Since it was perhaps the most boring experience of my life as a media scholar (I fell asleep twice it was that boring), this should sum it up:
1) The King’s Speech is evidence that you can win multiple Oscars by writing a screenplay that is primarily about White men, is completely formulaic in its relational progressions, then directing it in the most obvious fashion to highlight men’s accomplishments. Helena Bonham Carter’s role was paltry in comparison, even if she did get an Oscar nod for it (further evidence that women written in specific roles that don’t take too much of the limelight will get Oscar nods, especially if they have British accents).
2) The Oscars spent a lot of time pretending to care about a “younger generation” but a lot of time appeasing them with the equivalent of Halloween candy (here’s your best music score for NIN, congrats! Or, okay, we get you liked Inception, we’ll give it some technical awards no one really cares about).
3) The flippant inclusions of LGBT politics (“It’s been a great year for lesbians!”) made me cringe on multiple occasions. Sexuality is not the powerhouse social issue it once was when Brokeback Mountain or Philadelphia appeared. As a feminist scholar, I also have to ask, why in the year that you get a serious, thoughtful look at lesbian relationships do we spend most of the time making fun of it (except to say Annette Benning is beautiful) when the male counterparts were lauded as smart, edgy and critically worthwhile?
I could go on, but I really feel it would be a waste of effort at this point. I should be getting back to other battles.
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