In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
February 22, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
As you probably were able to glean from the beginning of the article, this is yet another move by the Oscar producers that fills me with unease. Why, though? Both of the reasons I listed above that explain why the Best Song nominees won't be performed are perfectly valid. There's no question that, without those five songs being performed, even if the versions that are performed are shorter than originally recorded, the Oscar ceremony won't take as long. If you take out ten minutes, that's just ten more minutes to fill with more important footage. Also, it's hard to argue with the logic Bill Mechanic is putting forth: why do the Best Song nominees get extra time, while the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay get a 30-second bit of poorly written banter between two famous presenters? So, you ask, why do I have a problem with this decision?
The reasons that Mechanic and Shankman are providing are disingenuous, to say the least. When the news was announced early last week, various web outlets, including In Contention.com, reported the admitted hearsay that Shankman thought this year's nominees were awful. That may be (though I'm a fan of the songs from Crazy Heart and The Princess and the Frog), but is that the best reason to cancel this part of the ceremony? What if Adam Shankman didn't like this year's Best Picture nominees? Would we not see clips of the films? Would that award have been tossed aside to an earlier ceremony that isn't televised? Now, I'm jumping a bit far here, but subjectivity shouldn't be guiding the decisions about the ceremony. I don't want to see a ceremony that fits Adam Shankman's barometer of quality in film. I want a ceremony based on the movies that were selected by the Academy voters.
Also, would the idea of taking out the Best Song nominees have gone by the wayside if, say, the song from Everybody's Fine was nominated? What's so snazzy about that song, right? Oh, well, it was written and performed by Paul McCartney. Seeing as none of the five nominees were sung by anyone as famous as Sir Paul, it's clear that celebrity is a big part of the issue. So, what will we get during those ten minutes that aren't being used for the Best Song nominees? Perhaps longer clips of the Best Picture nominees? A longer and more introspective In Memoriam segment? A dance medley featuring a handful of dancers from So You Think You Can Dance? If you said the last one, you are a very smart person. Yes, friends, what better antidote to boring, non-famous songs than dancing?
I've already gone on and on about how anti-dancing I am, at least when it comes to the Oscar ceremony. I won't keep beating that drum, but this idea, while unique to the Oscars, smacks of desperation. A while back, I mentioned how Shankman used Twitter to ask people what would make them tune in (aside from movies they like being nominated, perhaps), and how bad the very gesture sounds. It's not that I distrust my fellow movie-watchers (though they did flock to Transformers 2 in droves); it's that we shouldn't be dictating the content. That's what the People's Choice Awards are for. We choose what we see. The Oscars are meant to be slightly above the idea of a popular vote. But here we have Adam Shankman wondering who might intrigue me to watch, or what might work more.
And now there's dancing. Almost 70 dancers will be used throughout the ceremony, including 13 from the Fox reality show So You Think You Can Dance. This news, reported by The Wrap, was about as comforting to me as the Twitter plea. I don't doubt that the dancers are talented, and that they'll do their best with whatever routine Shankman, a choreographer by trade, will come up with. But it's the Oscars. How many of the movies nominated this year involved dance? How will the routines incorporate the movies? I have a good enough memory of the years when Debbie Allen, a talented actress and choreographer, was at the helm, and her woeful attempts to make Saving Private Ryan seem more like a tragic ballet than, you know, a violent war movie. See, being unique is fine; the problem is that unique comes with some baggage. On the one hand, we all remember the version of Proud Mary sung by Rob Lowe and Snow White at the 1988 Oscars; it was unique. But does anyone want to see that again?
What really worries me (at least, as much as something as admittedly trivial as an awards ceremony can worry me) is that this year's ceremony is likely going to be very successful. Even though I've stated my opinion on popular movies encouraging higher TV ratings at the Oscars, it's hard to see how the Oscars won't do gangbusters come March 7. When five of your Best Picture nominees have made over $100 million, and one of them happens to be the highest-grossing movie ever, people are probably going to watch. It also helps that Avatar is still a strong candidate for winning, let alone just being nominated. So, what's wrong with all of these people watching? Well, if the ratings are great, some people may assume that part of the praise should go to Shankman and Mechanic, and their work on the show.
Yes, I realize that, for all of my worrying and ranting, the ceremony that these two men help put together might be awesome. If it is, I will not beat around the bush: I'll say I was wrong, and do so as vehemently as I've ranted. But if I'm right that the ideas being bandied about by these two fall flat while the ratings soar, it's very likely that Shankman and Mechanic could come back, unless either or both of them back out. Perhaps the real issue is that the majority of Oscar memories don't come from the memorable ceremony, so much as the memorable award winners or losers. With the exception of Billy Crystal's time as host in the early 1990s, people remember the speeches, the reactions, the awards. That's what should be considered most important: the people who win. Cuba Gooding, Jr. won an Oscar, but what we remember is his outrageous acceptance speech.
Granted, his was not normal; even when people are emotional while accepting, they usually try to acknowledge the people who helped them get to this point in their lives. This, of course, leads to another issue coming up thanks to the producers. As with most years, the nominees have been encouraged to keep their speeches short or they'll be played off. Also, they're being encouraged to write two speeches: one that they'll deliver on the televised ceremony, discussing what winning an Oscar means to them; and a second, consisting of the traditional thank-yous, to be delivered to an online feed that will go on the Oscar website. First of all, I'll gladly eat a proverbial hat if Mo'Nique or Christoph Waltz, two winners who have gone on long in their acceptance speeches, are played off after 30 seconds. It's not going to happen. And, if it does, you can bet that the winners are going to revolt, and do so while the cameras roll.
Of course, as I mentioned, this kind of plea from the producers is common; how many times have we heard producers of these ceremonies promise to play anyone off after a certain time? Talking the talk is fine, but most producers bow to the potential backlash when it comes to the actual speech-giving. Maybe it's just me, though; the idea of making a speech specifically about what winning an Oscar means is nice, but don't we all want to hear some of those thank-yous? Yeah, I don't really care who Mo'Nique's lawyer is, but she's earned the right to thank her parents, or her spouse, or her friends, right? What if the people who are going to be thanked want to be thanked on, you know, national television? In front of millions of viewers?
I know I've been sounding awfully grumpy during these discussions about the Oscars. Part of it is that the length of the season is starting to become apparent: it's going to have been three months of Oscar talk here, and there are some places that focus on these kinds of awards all year-round, so I don't know how they manage to do this without going nuts. My ire being directed towards Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic, though, is mostly because it sounds like their idea of fun and my idea of fun greatly differ. I know it's not up to them to align themselves with a common guy like me, but I do want to enjoy the Oscars; I'm just worried that the ceremony surrounding all the awards will be something of a slog. Here's hoping I'm ridiculously wrong.