A.M.P.A.S./ABC VIA GETTY IMAGES
‘‘
THESE ACTORS ARE SO
RELENTLESSLY
ON-MESSAGE, IT TAKES
AWAY THE THRILL OF
THE OSCARS.
‘‘
categories for the general public
to vote on, offered Herrguth? Best
Dressed, for instance.
New York Magazine film critic
David Edelstein added a warning:
Don’t go converting core categories. Best Picture might be tempting to turn over to a popular vote,
if only you could compel people to
do their homework. Who’s going to
watch all nine movies?
Edelstein advocated a different
kind of outreach. How would he
fix the Oscars? By letting everyone know they’re, well, fixed. As
in rigged. Predetermined. Let the
public in on the particulars: Hollywood has its own campaign season,
where stumping means trotting out
a pretty actress at enough parties to
impress voters with how convincingly she played plain. (That’s how
the little-known French actress
Marion Cot illard became Oscarwinning French actress Marion
Cotillard, according to Edelstein).
Last year, Edelstein said, the
critical community knew The Artist would win based simply on the
aggressive campaigning of Harvey
Weinstein, who distributed the
black-and-white silent comedy in
America. “Why? How did I know
The Artist was going to win? How
many voters are there? Four thousand? Six thousand?” (By the LA
Times’ 2012 count, 5765.) “I don’t
know any voters. I didn’t canvass,
and yet I knew.”
Edelstein proposed a counter
campaign, for public awareness.
“The same way that we understand
that’s how politics works, or we’re
taught at an early age to be suspicious of commercials.”
Not that we’d choose to strip
away the show’s magic. In truth,
we kvetch because we love. Even if
James Franco and Anne Hathaway
wind up on stage for a reunion next
year with a bagful of jokes about
Tumblr, it’ll be OK. It may not be
the night we want, but as Talese, an
Oscars-watcher since circa 1940,
assured us, “We’re generally getting what we deserve.”