Sentimental Favoritism

EVERY YEAR, I swear I'm going to miss the Oscars. Then, no matter how hard I try, I can't resist sticking my finger back in the proverbial electrical socket. This year was no exception. The Indiana-Syracuse game ended about two and a half hours too early, and the lack of any suitable Hogan's Heroes reruns meant certain doom. My dial was irresistibly drawn over to ABC.

It's not that I object to the Oscars in theory. I see no reason why excellence in moviemaking should not be rewarded just as excellence in athletic performance or scientific achievement. Such awards should of course serve the purpose of celebrating those who have made a lasting contribution to art. But they should serve a higher function as well. Awards are not for those who receive them but for those who do not; they establish a cannon of taste, set a standard for quality in artistic achievement and defy the aspiring artist in the audience to come up with something better. Awards should be a self-effacing event, a reward of past achievement and, more importantly, a challenge to those who have failed to reach the same high plateau.

Thus, I never fail to be disappointed when the Oscars degenerate into a giant orgy of self-congratulation. But this year's ceremony dropped to an absolute, all-time, rock-bottom low.

IT WASN'T just because of the bad "entertainment," which comes as a part of every year's ceremony, although certainly watching Telly Savalas, Pat Morita and Dom DeLouise romp through a number from Guys and Dolls was a treat to be savored. It wasn't just that Bette Davis--this year's ailing, infirm old celebrity-to-be-brought-out-of-mothbolls-for-the-o bligatory-thrity-second-standing-ovation--was particularly ailing and infirm and painful to watch as she struggled through her presentation. It wasn't the numerous technical guffaws, the overly long acceptance speeches, all the celebrities taking themselves way too seriously, nor the fat women sandwiched into their designer dresses. All of these are standard Oscar fare, and this year's show accomplish with all the precision we've come to expect from the Academy.

But what made this ceremony truly revolting had to be the awards themselves. This was the first year in which Oscars were completely overrun by what I like to call We are the World syndrome. Don't get me wrong; there's always been a place for sentimentality in the Academy. A couple of special awards per year are usually dreamt up for people who haven't won the thing before (because everybody, talented or not, deserves some kind of Oscar if for just sticking around long enough). But this is the first year I can remember in which the sentimental favorite received almost every award.

I'M NOT ABOUT to say that Platoon, Oliver Stone, Marilee Martin, Paul Newman, or Michael Caine didn't individually deserve their statuettes. But taken together, the fact that five sentimental favorites won major awards says something strange about the Oscars. The Academy seems to have given up the ghost of objectivity.

There are a variety of possible reasons for this. For one thing, in the moral wasteland that is our entertainment industry, the idea of voting for the sentimental favorite has a tremendous psychological appeal.

But there is a more fundamental reason for the rule of the sentimental favorite. It has to do with the fact that the people responsible for the Oscars are show people. True show people do not stop performing when they leave the set or the theater; their entire lives are gigantic theatrical performances. This inability to separate art from reality has pervaded the Oscars. The Academy members cannot help but give you the ending that would make perfect poetic justice on the screen.

Maybe this blurring of art and reality isn't such a bad thing. Given the inherent difficulty of making judgments about artistic creations, perhaps Oscars should go to someone who simply works hard or communicates an important message.

However, it seems to me that removing even the pretense of objective judgment on the part of the Academy ruins the positive effect that awards can have on artistic production and cheapens the reward to those who have achieved something special. Besides, it's more fun to watch a contest that has at least some real drama to it.

Like the football game. I guess it serves me right for changing channels.