Article  How the Oscars made everyone hate them (DIY contempt)

#1
C C Offline
https://www.sashastone.com/p/how-the-osc...ryone-hate

EXCERPTS (Sasha Stone): In 1978, Paddy Chayefsky took to the stage at the Oscars and condemned the use of the ceremony as a political platform. What made him so mad? Vanessa Redgrave...

[...] 48 million people watched that episode. This year, the Oscars will be lucky to get 20 million. What might help is that a popular movie is in play: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which made waves for breaking the record for nominations (16) and for having two of the stars, Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, called the N-Word at the BAFTAs by a poor man who suffered from Tourette's Syndrome.

No writer today could ever come up with satire that good. The very people who try their hardest not to offend end up offending, and yet, it’s no one’s fault. Either way, it put Sinners in the spotlight...

Nothing gets better clicks and views than hating on the Oscars. It’s an annual ritual by now, as the wealthy and privileged parade about in their finery, an entire ecosystem is dedicated to dunking on them. It seems to be almost a sadistic pleasure by now. The more embarrassing the Oscars are, the better to dig in with a knife and fork.

Most people who watch on Sunday night will be hate-watching. Either because they can’t stand the movies on offer, or they can’t stand the celebrities who have become too political of late to tolerate. It’s a thousand Vanessa Redgraves and no Paddy Chayefskys.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the ratings began to dip after 2016 [...] one of Hollywood’s biggest problems of late: they’re married to the Democratic Party.

And that’s all before they went woke and went broke. The Oscars, like every award show, were hit hard and ended up implementing a DEI mandate in 2024, which is why all movies and television shows look like THAT, and why so many are so unwatchable. They have lost their connection to real life, so how can they reflect it back to us?

[...] The predicted winner this year is a real doozy. One Battle After Another, which aims to satirize the Left and the Right, but comes away making the point that the revolutionaries aren’t skilled enough to take on the fascists and the Gestapo running this country.

If One Battle After Another wins, it will be the first time a notable flop won Best Picture. It was made for around $170 million and only grossed $70 million domestically, and, like all the films up for Best Picture except Sinners, it made more money overseas. [...] That shows how little the Oscars and Hollywood really care about American audiences, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

Hollywood and the Oscars only make sense if they care about the public. [...] They might always have paraded around like they’re better than the rest of us, but at least they still made movies for us...

What do we get out of it now? The movies are mostly terrible. [...] The celebrities have become irritating and unlikable. Why should anyone waste their time caring about any of it? (MORE - missing details)
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#2
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:Why should anyone waste their time caring about any of it?

Because I still believe in cinema as one of the great and perhaps last artforms aimed at the common man. This guy seems to have watched all the wrong films. I did watch One Battle After Another and Sinners but last night saw Hamnet which I loved and which addressed an elevating topic--the power of art to transmute the sufferings of human experience into something beautiful and noble and universal. I also saw Train Dreams, which is an absolute masterpiece capturing one simple man's tragic experience and his almost spiritual coming to terms with it. That's what film does for me. It raises the mundane and often nihilistic dross of our lives into an enlightening and novel vision of the eternal struggles of the human soul..

As far as the annual token ceremony of actors being awarded gold trophies for their art goes, I'm not exactly against it but I feel like it is pretty meaningless. The whole notion of metal trophies and medals strikes me as so utterly banal and unworthy of the greatness of the accomplishment. It's just a useless mass-produced statue. The amusing tales of actors using their Oscars as doorstops comes to mind. And Sean Penn said he's going to melt his down with a torch!

But the real reason I still like to watch is for the spontaneous interaction of all these intelligent and creative and often quirky celebrities in one place and time. People I feel like I grew up with and have affection for. It's a chance to live vicariously thru these luminaries' experiences, as we are so used to doing in their many film roles. And that to me makes the whole and often laborious 3 hours of airtime entirely worth it.
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#4
C C Offline
(Mar 16, 2026 04:28 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: A list and description of the 5 feature length documentaries nominated for Oscars. "Mr Nobody Against Putin" won.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/sto...1pHoiO-VoU

I watched "Weapons", but have already forgotten so much that I can't even remember Amy Madigan's character (best supporting actress).
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#5
Magical Realist Offline
Well it was a good night for "One Battle After Another." I was pretty much rooting for "Sinners" all night. For some reason every time they won an Oscar I got choked up. There's simply more to that film than just entertainment. The In Memoriam segment was very sad. We lost some really great ones this year.

I also noticed Paul Thomas Anderson is married to Maya Rudolph! Who could've foreseen THAT match?! Sean Penn won for Best Supporting Actor but wasn't there because he hates the whole idea of the Oscars. Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for "Sinners" and Jesse Buckley won Best Actress for "Hamnet". Overall though it was a great show. Conan was his usual hilarious self, with no direct mention of Trump but lots of underhanded jabs. Beware the Ides of March eh?
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#8
Syne Offline
Of course, MR loves the Oscars. 9_9
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#9
Magical Realist Offline
Update on Sean Penn:

I was mistaken that he didn't attend the Oscars because he was against them. He was actually in Ukraine at the time talking to President Zelensky. The Oscar they presented him with was made from the metal of a bombed railcar. A much more meaningful keepsake than some golden statue!
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#10
C C Offline
Note that the very lowest was 2021 (only ten million). Twice in history there were over 50 million viewers, but back in the glory days it usually averaged around 40 million-plus. That dropped to half or less from 2016 onward.

TV ratings: Oscars fall to 17.9 million viewers, lowest since 2022
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-...236534637/
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