The 94th Academy Awards were marked by a scene that will surely live in infamy, one of those immortal Oscar moments destined to overshadow everything else about the ceremony, its winners, and the overall season. Whatever one might think about it, AMPAS wasn't to blame for it. However, there's no way to deny their responsibility for the night's other failings. Indeed, The Slap wasn't the reason I'd call the 94th Academy Awards the worst ceremony of my lifetime. That would be its overall contempt for the art of the movies. This came through in the ceremony in ways that Nathaniel and Eric have already written about.
And yet, hope is everlasting. The 94th Academy Awards ended on a positive note that might point us towards a better future, a return to form...
The Academy's new contempt for movies is Oscar poison, but there is an antidote. You can't lovingly rib something you don't love which is why the jokes about movies and artists on Sunday felt contemptuous. In better Oscar times, Whoopi could invoke Ingmar Bergman's name for a joke about depressing cinema. Nowadays, the ceremony's producers and its hosts prefer to consider their audience an uncultured mass of movie-hating folks who, for some unknowable reason, are spending their night watching the Oscars.
But speaking of Whoopi Goldberg, she's the gold standard for host, and that stems from one crucial fact. Whoopi loves both the movies and the Oscars, a fact she never concealed under the guise of ironic coolness. Most importantly, she talked as if the audience at home shared that sentiment. If the best parody comes from a place of deep affection, so do the best Oscar night jokes. The self-hating state of the present Academy only serves to produce joyless, sour presentations that bore everyone to tears.
But at the night's end, we caught a glimpse at who could be a worthy successor to Whoopi and the ultimate Oscar host...
Presenting Best Picture alongside Liza Minnelli, Lady Gaga showed incredible grace, genuine care for the award she was giving, and the living legend in her company. For all that the Oscar-obsessed community has made fun of the star's delirious best Actress campaign, it's undeniable that she loves the movies and everything for which the Academy is meant to stand. Even if earnest to a fault, Gaga is a deep well of sincerity, an antithesis to the snide self-hatred AMPAS has come to embody. Better yet, she's an über-referential master entertainer, gifted with boundless charisma and the voice of an angel.
She could be the savior the Academy so ardently needs if only ABC were brave enough to hire her and produce an Oscar ceremony guided by the tenet of movie love rather than contempt. So, enough with the bullshit, please hire Gaga and stop hating yourself, AMPAS!