"In Praise of the Oscars"

From an article called In Praise of the Oscars by playwright David Macaray that appeared on counterpunch.org where you can read the whole thing:

...Whereas working actors are artists applying their craft, movie stars represent a whole other breed of animal.  These people orbit their own sun.  Unfortunately, when applied to movie stars, the term “narcissism” is rendered virtually useless.  Indeed, calling movie stars “narcissists” is as inadequate as referring to the universe as “very large.”

The screenwriter William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men,” et al) described the movie star Paul Newman as being a genuinely “humble guy,” which, according to Goldman, was something you don’t often find in Hollywood.

As an example of just how humble Newman was, Goldman noted that his contract did NOT call for a minimum number of close-ups.  Apparently, most movie stars insist on having their mugs fill the screen x-number of times.  Why?  Because, well, they’re movie stars.  But not Paul Newman.  He trusted the directors to shoot the scenes however they chose.

An even “better” (which is to say “worse”) story involved a big-time actress who had the box office clout to get pretty much anything she wanted.  And what she wanted—what she insisted upon in her movie contract—was to have her rear-end prominently featured a minimum of ten times.

...

Because the Academy Awards are one of the very few “live” events we still get to see on television, every show has at least one embarrassing, unintentionally laughable, disgraceful, or cringe-worthy moment, and this year’s presentation was no exception.

Reminding us of just how gutless Hollywood’s studio executives truly are, they inserted a revolting faux-patriotic tribute to America’s military.  Not only was this segment utterly contrived and out of place, it was obviously done in order to offset the “liberal,” anti-sexist, pro-diversity theme of the evening.