Oscar: Who Cares?

My Oscar prediction is that this year is going to be the least-watched, most political, boring, devoid-of-entertainment-and-spectacle Academy Awards show on record. Government and corporate corruption, homosexuality, and racism. Oh, my. The Best Picture contenders are mostly reflective of Hollywood left idealism -- or perhaps more appropriately, guilt -- with no broad appeal. And Jon Stewart as host? The final nail in the coffin of entertainment. I can't wait to read the articles explaining why this year's show was such a dud. But if the opinion of Roger Ebert, whose reviews I mostly enjoy, is any indication, Hollywood will continue to deny why it's losing its audience

The five best picture nominees, however, were (as usual) the kinds of projects passed over by the major studios. We are entering an era when the studios do not often attempt to make Best Pictures, and most of the nominees are generated by independent filmmakers and specialty distributors. This may say more about audiences than it does about studios, which would cheerfully make good movies if they thought they could sell them. Hammered by the idiocy of formula television and video games, a generation is forming that has no feeling for narrative and character. The Oscar nominees represent filmmaking at a high level, but who do you know who has gone to see more than two or three of them?

Ebert has a point, but he is losing sight of the real reason nobody is seeing these movies, and exudes what Kevin at The Smallest Minority describes as ideological hubris. The liberal elite is so immersed in its own microcosm that it understands little of what really drives the rest of the population -- nor does it probably care. Like Pauline Kael's astonishment at McGovern's defeat in 1972 ("How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!"), Ebert is mystified by the lack of appeal of the Oscar nominees because everyone he knows probably adores them. No doubt the nominees represent a high level of craft, and American tastes have been dulled a little by years of TV banality and mind-rotting video games. But since when has TV not been banal? And video games have been rotting brains for decades. What stands out with this year's Oscar contenders is the absence of epic and spectacle and the prominence of blatant leftist politicizing, a guarantee to appeal to absolutely no more than a small percentage of movie-goers. Ultimately, for a movie to have broad appeal, it has to tell a story that either reflects the audience's beliefs and values or entertains the audience without insulting them. Take me, for instance, as a representative of typical red-state Jesus-freak movie-goer types. One of my all-time most-esteemed films is 1959's Best Picture, Ben Hur, but I also rather enjoyed 2002's winner, Chicago, even though it represented some of the lowest elements in our society. It was clever and loads of fun to watch, but didn't try to convince me that I should particularly like any of its characters or share their values -- it just entertained.

In previous years, Oscar-caliber movies tended toward broad appeal. They were often big, lavish spectacles like Ben Hur or Gladiator, and sometimes more personal like On the Waterfront or Schindler's List -- but they reflected values that are at the core of American culture: love, duty, freedom, honor, sacrifice. Others, like the engrossing Godfather movies or the energetic Chicago, don't necessarily showcase traditional American values, but neither do they insult them. Now, I have been proceeding on the assumption that the people making this year's Oscar nominees even want to appeal to a large audience. There is certainly a money-making component to Hollywood (a huge component), but the elite also suffer from "the vision of the anointed," and perhaps never more so than now. Look at a list of the previous Best Picture winners and you will recognize films that are adored by many, many people. Most of them set the narrative and technical standards for years to come. But there is nothing lovable or groundbreaking about this year's Best Picture front-runners -- these films won't even set any political standards, because they are just tired retreads of a failed ideology. I get the feeling that the Acadamy either (mistakenly) thinks its in tune with what Americans believe (thus the various and contrived excuses for a declining box office) or more likely that it's acting as a minority arbiter of truth and good, because the American public is too idiotic and unrefined to get it.

Well, Oscar is going to flop, and I hope the Hollywood elite learn a lesson from this. They either miscalculated hugely what mainstream America is all about or they simply failed to thrust their enlightened vision on the unwashed rabble. Either way, here's hoping that in years to come this year's Oscars will stand out as a historical blip -- reflecting a social experiment that failed -- after which we got back to the serious business of entertaining.