As soon as the Christmas tree is taken down, Hollywood begins celebrating its own holiday, a span of several weeks known as “award season.” Festivities began with the Golden Globes, continue with the all-but-unknown BAFTA and SAG awards, and will culminate next month on Feb. 24 with the Academy Awards. Many of us will tune in to watch the Oscars, and some will even begin watching early to see the celebrities walk down the red carpet. However, everyone involved hates something about the awards very, very deeply. Not just the people in the audience, but also the people we watch on television. This helpful list delineates why the Oscars are really a curse on each and every one of us.
1. Film Snobs: If it were up to these people, every award would go to the strangest, most obscure films that are released every year. According to them, any movie in English should be instantly disqualified. Almost any film snob is angry about how commercial the awards have become, and many are still livid that “Avatar” was even nominated for Best Picture. Many feel persecuted and frequently use the awards as an excuse to remind us that Three Six Mafia has as many Oscars as acclaimed director Martin Scorcese. And that Three Six got theirs first.
2. The Losers: This is obvious, but should not be overlooked. Nobody wants to get dressed up, be scrutinized by thousands of cameras on a night out, surround themselves with their professional rivals, and then have millions of people watch their face as they lose an award. That’s truly an awful evening. And because of the cameras, they’re not even allowed the consolation of quietly swearing about the winner.
3. Sound-Mixing Professionals: I don’t actually know why these people hate the Oscars, because like most Americans I choose this portion of the show to go make a sandwich. I would imagine, however, that their distaste would stem from the fact that nobody goes to see a movie because of sound mixing. Also, the reward that these people get for reaching the absolute pinnacle of their field is being the most forgettable and unrecognizable award of the evening.
4. The Winners: This may sound weird, but it’s not unheard of for the winners of major awards to not only hate the Oscars but to hate them so much that they refuse to attend. Actor George C. Scott refused to attend the Oscars, and would explain only by repeatedly calling them a “meat parade.” More notably, Marlon Brando refused to attend because of the film industry’s treatment of Native Americans. He sent a Native American in his stead to deliver a 15-page speech explaining the reasons for his actions. It takes a great deal of conviction to hate people when they’re calling you the best at something, but actors routinely pull it off.
5. The Casual Observer: We’re going to watch them, we can’t really help it. We know they’ll be overlong, we know they’ll have very few memorable moments, we know that whoever’s hosting will tell the same jokes that the last host used. However, even though we didn’t watch any of those documentaries, and have never heard of any of the short films, we’ll sit through the whole thing just to see the last two to three awards. Then we’ll be confused about why, and we’ll feel the slight twinge of regret after the hosts take their bows. But the one absolute, metaphysical certainty is that we will forget about that by next year’s awards.
