Hey Oscar, how about not trying so hard?
Here’s the thing about being cool—the harder you try, the less you succeed. Case in point: last year’s Academy Award’s disastrous choice of hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco. This year the Academy may have taken a different route, but the results were pretty much the same. After the whole Brett Ratner and Eddie Murphy debacle (the two backed out as executive producer and host after Ratner made a series of public sexist and homophobic remarks), it appeared as if the Academy was going to play it safe by dusting off Billy Crystal to host yet again.
And yet, from Crystal’s opening montage, it became apparent that this year’s awards were going to be another series of missteps stemming from the Academy’s desperate attempt to stay relevant while refusing to accept the changing nature of today’s entertainment. How else do you explain the bizarre mixture of Justin Beiber, Billy Crystal, and Billy Crystal in “black face” as Sammy Davis Jr.? The joke fell flat, and so did the rest of the show. With fewer and fewer people going to the movies, the Academy did its best to try and remind us of the golden days of cinema (see: The Artist’s win as Best Picture), but instead reminded viewers of how far the industry has and has not come.
Last Thursday I taught my lesson on feminist media studies to my students in WMS 150. In explaining to them the difference between quantitative and qualitative analysis, we talked about the different kinds of representation we see on screen and why that might be. I asked my students to watch last night’s broadcast and suggested they think about the number of women nominated for awards, the types of awards for which they were nominated, the types of roles available to women, and lastly to just observe in general how men and women were treated during the broadcast. In terms of quantitative data, the Women’s Media Center did a great job of compiling stats on this year’s nominations (http://www.womensmediacenter.com/blog/entry/where-are-the-women-at-the-oscars-the-stats). For example, this year, no women were nominated in the categories of Directing, Cinematography, Documentary (feature), Music (original score), Sound Editing, or Visual Effects. In only three categories, did the number of women nominated outnumber men, but in all these categories there were also male nominees. Clearly, the “male gaze” is alive and well in Hollywood. Need more proof? How about the “popcorn girls” walking down the aisles as the show cut to commercial break. Is this really the golden age of cinema to which we want to return?
There were some highlights, though. Gabby Sidobe’s moving comment that, “When I see myself onscreen, I know that I exist,” served as a reminder for the potential of how far the film industry has come, but also the distances it needs to go. While this montage as a whole was yet another way in which the industry seemed desperate in its attempts to prove its worth, Sidobe’s comment speaks to the media’s complicated relationship to difference—whether it be by gender, race, class, or body size. I applaud her for saying this and the Academy for including it.
Perhaps the best moment of the night, though, was on the red carpet before the main show actually began. When Sacha Baron Cohen, who came in character from his upcoming film The Dictator, spilled the “ashes” of Kim Jong-Il on red carpet host Ryan Seacrest, I thought to myself, “finally, someone gets it.” Cohen’s brilliant mocking of Seacrest, the Academy, and their self-inflated sense of importance may have gotten him escorted off of the red carpet, but by then it was too late. The joke was literally on them, and as Cohen reminded us, it has been for some time.
I enjoy watching award shows such as the Oscars or Grammys just for the fashion aspect. Seeing what the stars are wearing is entertaining for me, where i could truly care less about who wins what. Unfortunately this year I only watched the red carpet portion and switched it to something else after so I was not able to see the true debacle it was. I did see a statistic page that showed the number of women nominated for oscars and the number of men, and it was honestly shocking how little women where nominated. Women of course where never nominated for best director or producer, but instead for fashion designer. This just implies that gender roles in hollywood are still well intact. Hollywood tries to make all these claims that they are breaking the boundaries of cinema and becoming “edgier” but i guess recognizing women in cinema is not as important as making the next blockbuster. I did see the part when Cohen dumped Kim Jongs ashes on Seacrest, I didn’t realize the mocking it was making until Jenn pointed it out. Everyone seemed in complete awe over what happened but all had nothing to say. In all the Oscars came and went and women were again unnoticed with no one saying anything. I hope that soon there will be an equal amount of women and men being nominated for best director, music…etc. The Oscars is a pretty large event that a lot of people watch, if they are trying to be of new day and age then they should start incorporating women in their more popular nominations.
Like Laudine said, I am the same way when it comes to award shows. I do not really care who wins what, the fashion is what is the most interesting to me. This year I was not as excited as I thought I was going to be. I never really thought about the amount of women versus the amount of men that are nominated for awards. While I watch the shows to see who wins what, now that I really think about it, most of the nominations are men. When it comes to best director or producer 99.9% of the time all the nominations are men. Women produce movies as well and it is annoying to know that women are not getting noticed for all their hard work like men. Women are either nominated for best fashion director or some other category that does not hold as much meaning. As much as we like to think that gender roles are being broken, that does not seem to be shown in the movie industry. Women are just as talented as men when it comes to the movie industry, I just do not understand why they are never acknowledged. After reading Jenn’s post I looked back at the part when Cohen dumped Kim Jong’s ashes on Seacrest. I would have never noticed it unless I was truly looking for it. It was kind of pathetic to me the way people reacted, but no one said anything. It is really bothersome to me to see how much work women put in and how little they are noticed. One can always hope that women will eventually get the acknowledgement that they truly deserve, but when that will happen is hard to say.
A little bit off topic but yet still infuriatingly relevant. You know those really bad days you have when the political decisions or climate you live in just make you want to go back to bed?I had such a similar experience while writing our “mission statement analysis” paper last Thursday night. I got a call from my aunt saying “Did you hear what Rush Limbaugh said”?
Of course I know he is a highly controversial and successfully so, by angering people and saying the things that “some” very extreme people like to hear said. Akin to the likes of Howard Stern, if you will, as an example of his provocative politics. Although I tend to normally not subject myself to such torture by sacrificing my ears to his radio talk-shows, I was directed by another to google his “comment” of the night.
Forgive me for using block quotes, but I don’t want other students to think I am rewording the truth to sound more outrageous.
“Three thousand dollars for birth control in three years? That’s a thousand dollars a year of sex — and, she wants us to pay for it. … They’re admitting before congressional committee that they’re having so much sex they can’t afford the birth control pills!”
“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.” (Rush Limbaugh March 2012)
Obviously this is enraging, and simply not true. The truth of the matter is that Fluke was bravely stating the fact that birth control is used for a variety of medical reasons, and in the case of her friend, to preserve fertility during the course of her ovarian cyst treatments. My outrage at this comment does not merely stem from a man with is known for political rancor, but that his proposals are defenses of current political climates that effect our bodies.
Last week while I was at URI health services I probed the nurse in the women’s clinic about a printed list of birth control prices in the college pharmacy. Apparently plan B was very inexpensive compared to outside versions of it (at CVS pharmacy), and all other forms of birth control were similar in price (American College Health Association). What I inferred from this was that it was the institutions intention to make an intrusive form of emergency contraceptive at the same cost as preventative maintenance “plan A’s”. I asked the nurse for a copy of the document but she feared reprieve for doing such, and when I asked her why she said “politics”. When the actual doctor came in I questioned her further on my worry, and she said a lot, but asked not to be quoted. She suggested I approach the pharmacists with my inquiry “but to not upset them”. The two pharmacists on staff are males.
I did although take a picture of the prices with my phone, if anyone does not believe me.
The statements said by Limbaugh are not merely to stir up public uproar for ratings. To me, they are a reality of the situation, in which I am really, really sick off. Luckily, in backlash many major advertisers such as the mattress store, eHarmony and ProFlowers pulled their accounts. I think it is ironic that the first companies to pull their ads are ones that people who have interest in the opposite sex tend to place significance.
These small events are encouraging and female backlash is certainly help make Rush rue the day he forgot women vote too, and make money. It is my intention of writing this that people in our class might post something on their twitter, facebook, or any other account that would help encourage more advertisers to disassociate with Limbaugh.
“Any advertiser who sticks by Limbaugh is silently condoning not only his “slut” comment, but also his follow up request: ‘If we’re going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.’” (Limbaugh from NJ.com)
Works Cited:
Contraception: Choosing a Method. American College Health Association. URI Women’s Clinice. Sept 2010.
Star-Ledger. NJ.com- Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Sandra Fluke hurt GOP. Rush Limbaugh rightly loses advertiser over “slut” comment. Rush Limbaugh calls woman on birth control ‘slut…March 2012.
Limbaugh, Rush. Asshole.