Once upon a time, the Oscars were the dazzling zenith of Hollywood glitz and glamour. Families would huddle around their glowing TV sets, enchanted by cinematic tales and eagerly anticipating which stars would clutch the golden statue. Fast forward to today’s fizzled affair, where tinsel dreams crash into a cultural black hole. Conan O’Brien, the maestro of mockery, kicked off the night’s proceedings by tossing shade at Turning Point USA, comparing their Super Bowl showdown to a halogen lamp in a hurricane. Who’s watching the Oscars, you ask? Well, it’s a mystery perhaps only the producers and a few beleaguered boomers can solve.
According to Conan, the Oscars are now a billion-viewer spectacle. Humor aside, one suspects he slipped a few zeros in there, considering even a high school debate on the merits of staplers would attract a more committed audience. Amid this decline in relevance, Conan gave a proverbial thumbs-up to the so-called “cultural insurrectionists” for coloring outside the lines of the English language. Meanwhile, if political platitudes aren’t your cup of tea, an alternate Oscars hosted by Kid Rock promised a jovial jamboree at the local Dave & Buster’s.
And here’s the kicker: the crowning of Michael B. Jordan as Best Actor, not because of sheer talent alone, but also an apparent checkbox for the Academy’s diversity elite. Yes, the Oscars now come with a DEI handbook, diligently ensuring Hollywood is reflective of a world that exists predominantly in 3D and technicolor. This newfound zeal for inclusiveness resembles the Academy’s knee-jerk reaction to the hashtag OscarsSoWhite. This daring display of creativity and inclusivity is the Academy’s patchwork fix to decades of whitewashed resumes.
In a land where film art has been forcefully collided with political activism, we find ourselves in an era where jazzy allegory about vampires, cultural theft, and black musicianship commandeers the night. Meanwhile, Richard Dreyfuss, a veteran sailing unbowed through the squared waves of Hollywood, declared the diluting of artistic purity downright nauseating. And while the very thought made the media darling gasp, this only highlights just how distant L.A. reality is from the quotidian quandaries facing everyday Americans.
Democracy perils depend on Oscar speeches, or so says an op-ed worthy of another snicker. Meanwhile, elsewhere on the dizzy carpet, another baffling display as comedians posing as actors tout war tropes and free foreign lands. The evening’s narrative—if one can call it that—was punctuated by a colorful exchange courtesy of Mr. DiCaprio’s contentious arm candy, whose verbal fisticuffs sounded like they belonged more in an improv class than an elegant red carpet gala. But fear not, for those seeking entertainment without ideology, Kid Rock’s show awaits at the illustrious arcade around the corner.
