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When it comes to open rebellion against the Oscar shtick, I say look to la Anniston.
I'm surprised that no one is commenting on Jennifer Aniston's barely concealed anger. Sarcastic eye-rolling met every cliched query, every poke into her private life. I think one red carpet interviewer asked her what it was like to be considered really beautiful. She looked back for a beat, eyebrows slightly raised, exasperated once again. No, I don't want to discuss my private life. Yes, you guys are total idiots. Such collosal disdain deserves notice.
As for freakish cosmetic surgery: Ms. Dolly Parton is your woman. Eyebrows stretched to the middle of her forehead and, lips saturated with collagen... if you go for a few years without a viewing, her other proportions can be counted on to startle as well.
As for scary hair, that's easy: just look a little to Tim Burton's left. Wife Helena Bonham Carter had a toppling bouffant that left her looking like a crack ho.
About a conspicuously plunging neckline, see Felicity Huffman. Some critics thought Jennifer Garner could have used a little more material over her breasts. Perhaps she made the purchase before the pregnancy?
I thought Jon Stewart was fine. Loved the opening number. I was disappointed that I had seen the gay cowboy montage on the Colbert Report. Occasionally his self-deprecating Jewish guy shtick didn't work so well (green guy circumcision), occasionally it did (Schindler's, Munich trilogy). Certainly he's a tremendous improvement over Chris Rock. Cintra's characterization as manic-depressive doesn't ring true. He seemed a little more overwhelmed, perhaps restrained, than usual; but that was to be expected. Apparently one person's normal is another's wildly labile, one person's witty, another's dull.
The Oscars are profoundly oxymoronic. Celebrities acknowledged more for perpetuating the idea of celebrity than for their work. Actors are asked politically (I mean this in the sense of career politics: did you choose this role in order to get an Oscar nomination? asked over and over again---why would anyone admit that this is the case?) and personally charged questions to which they can only respond with simplistic wide-eyed idealistic assertions that it's all about a meaningful performance choice, it's all about the work.
A less grandiose truth is that being phenomenally good-looking has little or nothing to do with ability, and the mechanism that drives this event is crazy consumer fantasy. George Clooney might do good works, but if he didn't have that crazy charisma would it simply wouldn't matter. The answer to that would be a resounding no. Being a celebrity is kind of like holding office; chances are you had to market yourself in some unseemly fashion in order to get the power to do what truly interests you.
My favorite quote about the Oscars comes ALESSANDRA STANLEY of the New York Times:
There is something delicious and embarrassingly decadent about the national obsession with the Oscars — an entire country caught eating raw cookie dough while reading "in Touch."
And, of course the biggest oxymoron of 'em all is that passionate dedicated moviegoers with discriminating palates can't keep away from the cookie dough.
