"I Need Attention"

by Matt Singer



By the time this sees print, or its Internet equivalent, the Oscar races will be in 
full swing.  As I am writing this, the nominations have been freshly announced.  Now, more 
than ever, I am convinced that the Academy Awards, and all award shows in general really, 
are the root of all sin.  They are the freak show of life given form.  They are incredibly 
popular, and yet universally reviled.  And they are great television.



Today there are more award shows than websites with the word "sex" in the title.  
There's the Oscars, the Emmys, the Tonys, the Grammys, the American Music Awards, the 
Daytime Emmys, the People's Choice Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, the list goes on and 
on.  And more and more keep coming.  Now there's a Blockbuster Awards, and even a TV Guide 
Award show!  What the hell do we need a TV Guide award show for?  "The award for show that 
starts exactly at 8:00 is..."  If the people winning the awards look bored and distracted, 
how do they expect us peons to sit through two hours of this crap?



To go into why I dislike the nominations for the Academy Awards would be pointless and 
tedious.  We have all heard these complaints before; the Academy chooses mainstream, 
generic pictures, instead of the truly exceptional ones; a lot has to do with advertising 
and publicity machines within the studios; so and so got snubbed, so and so got a 
nomination even though they suck.  In other words, the list is in no way an accurate 
reflection of Hollywood's best and brightest (not to mention independent cinema).



Of course, the Oscars are almost as old as movies are, and this crap has been going 
on since the beginning.  Citizen Kane, today considered one of the greatest films of all 
time, did not win the best picture Oscar for 1941.  In fact, it won only one out of its 
nine nominations, for best screenplay.  The Academy decided the best picture of 1941 was 
How Green Was My Valley.  Right.



It is incredibly chic to mock the Academy Awards, and other shows like them.  
They are inaccurate.  Dumb.  Fashion shows instead of awards.  Slow.  Way too long.  Of 
course, the majority of these complaints are well-founded.  The shows are all of the 
above and more.  But the worst is how terribly written they are.  I have seen corpses that 
seemed more alive than the poor schmoes they get to read the awful puns before they decide 
who is the most popular new hip-hop artist.  And they really matter for nothing, and 
basically just stem from this country's bizarre obsession with ranking everything, and 
giving out awards to people who "deserve" them, even if they really don't.



Yet every year, the Academy Awards is the highest rated show aside from the Super 
Bowl.  Gamblers bet serious money on who's going to win.  Almost every magazine you can 
think of has a special Oscars Issue.  People in countries whose names I cannot pronounce 
watch the Oscars.  Indigenous people who have yet to discover electricity talk about 
Jennifer Lopez's dress around the water cooler the morning after the awards. People pay 
thousands of dollars for hideous dresses that they can only wear once.  I wouldn't pay 
that much for a mail-order bride!  Even Joan Rivers and that lunatic daughter of hers are 
able to cash in on Oscarmania.  Does anyone really care about the awards anymore?  Most 
people are unconscious before the important awards are given out anyway.  And don't even 
get me started about those musical numbers (Talk to me after "Blame Canada" this year 
and I might change my tune).



All right, I'll admit it.  I will be watching Oscar Night just like the rest of you.  
And I'll probably stay up to watch the whole thing.  And I'll bitch when Spike Jonze loses 
just like the rest of you.  And I will hate myself for it.  I am no better or worse than 
the rest of you.  So you might wonder what the point of this column was?  To tell the 
truth, I am beginning to wonder that myself.  I guess I just needed to vent.  Sorry about 
this folks, I really am.  I promise you that the next column will have a point.  And maybe 
I'll include some nudity too.  




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