Oscar Madness

the revues

Will Smith’s Violent Outburst Made the Oscars Impossible to Love (thedailybeast.com)

Ratings had done a beautiful swan dive into a tropical lake of irrelevance. People complained about how the movies they actually cared about (starts with Spider, ends with Man) weren’t nominated. The Academy and producers had made several decisions that angered longtime viewers of the show, like excising crucial categories because they didn’t have famous people involved. A tear-jerking movie, the plot of which I can’t recount because it makes me weep inconsolably when I do—and yet was somehow dubbed an Oscar “villain”—won many awards.
But then the most famous man in the world got out of his seat, walked onto the stage, slapped a beloved comedian, and continued to shout at him from his chair.
Again, remember when we thought no one would care about the Oscars?
It’s a tragic thing, in multiple ways.
It doesn’t matter that, for the first time, a streaming service (Apple TV+), won Best Picture at the Academy Awards for CODA, a seismic event in terms of how the industry thinks about how film is consumed. It doesn’t matter that it’s not Netflix that broke the barrier, despite its rich investment in filmmakers, like Jane Campion’s presumed favorite, The Power of the Dog. It doesn’t matter that it was possibly the most targeted and consequential night when it comes to Hollywood addressing—and moreover, representing—LGBT issues.
It was the biggest night in entertainment in my lifetime. Because of all of that. And also because Will Smith slapped Chris Rock and then won an Oscar.
The question is: Were the Oscars good or bad? After what happened, I don’t know if you could possibly say one way or the other.
First, there is the explanation that has to be done. Sunday was the Academy Awards. Many people, this writer included, thought they were going to be unwatchable. There were categories moved to pre-shows, presenters hired that made no sense, and all indications that the people involved in producing the biggest night in movies actually did not like movies at all.
What they forgot, in all of their controversial producing, was that you just can’t produce good TV.
Chris Rock made a horrendous, unforgivable joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and then her husband, now-Academy Award winner Will, slapped him in the goddamn face.
I guess the Oscars were good?
I don’t know how famous you have to be that, when a comedian makes a really bad joke (to just define our take: so terribly bad) about your wife, you ignore the many television cameras that are filming the most hallowed night of Hollywood television, interrupt a live broadcast by walking on stage, slap somebody, and then from your seat scream, “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.”
There is, apparently, an exact level of famous you have to be to do that, and that is Will Smith-level famous.
Will Smith did something that the Oscars have reliably tried, but in their insecurity about ratings and buzz, very nearly thwarted itself from doing: creating a moment. It shouldn’t seem like rocket science, but apparently it is: When you put the world’s most beautiful and famous people in a room together and just set up a camera, you capture the weirdest, most beautifully out-of-touch shit.
That can be a very positive thing. I don’t love that Jessica Chastain tied her speech back to Tammy Faye Baker, whose legacy is… complicated. But I am grateful that she devoted so much of her time onstage to talking about the rights of women and LGBT people that are at stake. Only when you are that famous would you presume to have the megaphone for that. (Again, thank God she did!)
It can also be a horrible thing.
Let’s be clear: An assault happened. At first, every aunt, college roommate, and person I have ever met asked me if Will Smith getting angry at Chris Rock was a bit. While I’m flattered that anyone thought I had inside information, I can say definitively, at this point, it was not.
We’re so programmed to being programmed that none of us knew how to deal with it.
In that moment and in his speech, Will Smith revealed himself to be a very famous person rendered very human. I do not condone his assault, but I understand the ethos. (Imagine any of these words ever being used in relation to the Academy Awards before.)
But again, I am trying to imagine just how famous and privileged you must be to—at the goddamn Academy Awards!—get out of your seat, slap someone, sit back down and heckle, and then win the Oscar.
It’s not that it’s great TV. It’s the kind of TV we still don’t know how to process.
[…]
In any case, was this year’s Oscars good? I’m better at the other question. Was it bad? No, absolutely not. That I’m so obsessed with the awards and can’t answer either way? Well, that: That’s a slap in the face.

the hill:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is stressing the territorial integrity of his country as officials from Kyiv and Moscow prepare to meet for negotiations this week.
“Our priorities in the negotiations are known. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt,” Zelensky said in a televised address Sunday evening.
“Effective security guarantees for our state are mandatory,” he added. “Our goal is obvious — peace and the restoration of normal life in our native state as soon as possible.”
That comment, however, appears to be a shift from Zelensky’s remarks to a group of Russian journalists earlier that day, when he said Ukraine would consider neutral status as part of a peace deal if such an agreement were assured by third parties and put to a referendum.
[continues]

think this is a deal breaker though:

he said only a face-to-face meeting with Russia’s leader 

if zelensky won’t leave ukraine for the meeting, i can’t imagine putie has the guts unless it takes place with him sitting at the end of a very very long table stretching across the border from an ultra secure place in russia. 

🙂

Billionaire Abramovich, Ukrainian peace negotiators hit by suspected poisoning -reports | Reuters