For those few of my gentle readers who are not amongst the cognoscenti, I have to tell you that Oscar night, along with Halloween and San Francisco Pride weekend, constitute the total of gay high holidays for the year. Keith McCullar and I, as keepers of tradition, did then yesterday quickly absent ourselves from another engagement, hieing away home to watch the Academy Awards. What a waste of time, but much much more on that in a bit.
Fresh from the bay Dungeness crab- the best part of our Oscar experience
I rather misspoke in the first paragraph, as our watching the Oscar ceremony is just not keeping the faith with other gay men, but rather with one in particular. It was our habit many years ago to annually watch the Oscars with a group of friends, one of whom was particularly dear. Larry would always make this an event, including cold cracked Dungeness crab, with a variety of seasoned mayonnaises. That all this occurred in San Francisco and environs you’ve probably already divined. It did, of course, and sadly most of those with whom we enjoyed this annually are now gone, including dear Larry, dead in 1992 of HIV. Keith and I don’t always speak of it, but we know in our heart of hearts our insistence on watching the Oscars and having cold cracked Dungeness crab is in memory of former days. We have, though, consigned Larry’s insistence on serving strawberry margaritas along with the crab to the dustbin of history.
Last night was a crappy show, doubtless made worse by the Academy’s decision to go forward without a host. Sans host, it was apparently also the decision to generally scrap anything fun and lighthearted. Where is Billy Crystal when you need him? Mind you, I am not taking issue with the Academy’s decision to offload the comic who was scheduled to host. His not so subtle attacks on those in the LGBT community contained within his comedy act were not just offensive but antithetical to the inclusivity the Academy is at long last accomplishing. That he said he had dropped all of this from his act is a matter of too little much, much too late. Too late indeed, as the offensive material was a component part of his act- not 30 years ago, not 20 years ago- but less than 10 years ago. His public mea culpa on Ellen Degeneres’ TV show was characterized by Ellen as redemptive, but here she and I part company.
But all this specific controversy aside, the plain fact is the Oscars ceremony has been running downhill for years, simply because it is a bore. Too slow, too much auxiliary fluff, and not enough action. I enjoy big screen entertainment, and I want to be entertained watching the small screen, too. What now passes for entertainment- although the why of this mystifies me- is the red-carpet arrival of the celebrities. What was for decades an incidental part of any Hollywood gathering has now moved centerstage, with female stars victimized by the fashion industry, forced to pose for photos- backs arched and chests pushed out- then pulled aside and forced to make unintelligible response to vapid questions posed by the hosts of TV morning shows.
This year it was the year of the train, with so many of these poor women wearing a gown odd in itself, to which a superfluous train had been appended. How so many of the women were able to navigate the red carpet, to say nothing of ascending steps to the stage if they were so lucky I’ll never know. This, of course, compounded by the obscenely high heeled shoes they all wore. Note for next year’s ceremony- have some game female presenter catch her heel in her train and fall on her tush- it will be the hit of the show. Poor Bette Midler was underutilized in last night’s outing- put this up to her, and I’ll bet she’d be game.
What to do, what to do? Shall we plan to watch next year’s ceremony? It is frankly now an open question in our household, despite our nostalgic, albeit wistful, connection with the Oscars. I would opine it is likewise an open question for the presenting network, with so very few advertisers underwriting the broadcast we counted a number of small, local businesses hawking their wares. While our counting the number of local adverts in the run of the Oscars might seem an odd occupation, it broke the monotony of the show, and is, I suppose, emblematic of the tedium the Academy Awards ceremony has now become.