Award shows -- long speeches inappropriate to the viewing audience, over-produced musical numbers, smarmy video segments, skewed voting on awards -- they were, in their hay day, aversion therapy, dropping you on the floor at one in the morning having learned nothing and marinated in bad experiences. The Oscars have worked hard to keep it short and make it palatable, but are only a little successful. On the other hand, there are so many media outlets now including the internet, that there is probably a demographic niche for nearly everything, with small viewer groups. I think the flaunting of clothing and fawning attention is overtly unappealing, a real insult to the poor non-celebrity folks who fall down in the couch to watch. The public is being diminished and overlooked with lavish aplomb. It's all a misunderstanding of accomplishment. No wonder so many celebs die young, have miserable personal lives, act out in public, live with substance abuse and abuse of others. The whole events should be taped and then edited to about twenty minutes, with full lists of awardees offered online -- I'd run the lists before the event, but that would never happen. But as long as millions will tune in or click on, masochistically, these will be offered up with a big ladle like bad soup.
:
