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A former US vice president, a gospel choir, two high profile lesbians, a 25 year old Black nominee from the south side of Chicago to 75 year old, Ireland born, nominee Peter O’Toole, two Tom Cruise exes, Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, a global warming message, and the global community all come together peacefully to celebrate what else…movies.
It makes sense that the Oscars would bring about unity of this sort and is quite frankly a testament to the power of the moving image. If there’s one thing we can set aside our differences for it’s a well directed crime drama, a juicy inside look at behind-the-scenes royalty, a terrorism attack resolved, and a cute 8 year old girl- the nominees for best picture at the 79th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony, which was held this past Sunday.
During the four years I studied journalism my teachers and classmates exhausted this question of what is news until finally the truth was proclaimed, “News is what the news director says it is.” In the same way, movies or films are what our culture says it is. Thousands of years from now, if the earth is still around, I presume historians will look back at our movies to study who we were, what we thought about, what was important to us, and what once brought us together. It seems a look back at an Oscar ceremony from a particular era would do better job of articulating who we were than any United Nations archives could. Instead of hieroglyphics on ancient rocks, they will find that images on a silver screen communicated a universal language; a language that articulates history, politics, culture, and this idea of right and wrong.
It’s fascinating to me that life lessons play themselves out during the Oscars…heroes and villains, winners and losers remain the prominent theme of these ceremonies. This year it seems failure and redemption were the rewarded champions and the primary phenomena to receive our attention and applause.
Former Vice President, Al Gore stood on stage and hob-knobbed with the hottest A-list actor of the day, Leonardo DiCaprio. He received a thunderous applause of support when coaxed to announce his candidacy for president. Gore lost the 2000 presidential election and yet today reigns as a hero and champion in environmental politics. Incidentally, 2007 marked the first year for the Oscars to “go green;” meaning from behind-the-scenes production to celebrity transportation there was a conscious effort to utilize environment-friendly resources in order to pull off the Oscars ceremony.
Ellen DeGeneres fulfilled her childhood dream of hosting the awards show and brought laughter to not only the diverse Hollywood audience but to the much larger international world via television. Not too long ago she was rejected (by perhaps some of the same people in that audience) and couldn’t find work for years after she outted herself as a lesbian. She remarks in her comedic monologue, “If there were no Jews, gays, or Blacks there would be no Oscars, or anyone named Oscar, if you think about it.” That’s something to think about- if there were no former rejects, there would be no current champions.
Jennifer Hudson took home the Oscar for best supporting actress but was embarrassingly voted off the American Idol TV show and publicly told that she wasn’t “good enough.”
Martin Scorsese- a director with a 40 year career of making American classics like Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas, always nominated but never an Oscar winner, finally receives his Oscar for best director. As the gods in American cinema, Spielberg, Coppola, and Lucas, stood on stage to receive him, this former “reject” was finally accepted into the fold.
The Queen, one of the nominated films for best picture, is a real-life story about two redemptive heroes who were at odds. Queen Elizabeth, a villain for not publicly acknowledging Princess Diana’s death but a hero for being a good sport and quietly allowing the release of the critical and scrutinizing film. Princess Diana- the single mother of two British royal heirs but a failure in marriage is a redemptive hero even in her death.
Little Miss Sunshine- a best picture nominee with a literal message about winners and losers. The film is about a little girl who single-handedly ushers her entire “dysfunctional” family into major and significant life transitions by losing her dream to become a beauty pageant winner. In fact, one particular scene in the film concludes that suffering is good. In the scene a clinically depressed and suicidal character tells his dark rebel nephew that when we suffer we are our most productive.
Whether it comes in a failed attempt at an Oscar or a beauty pageant, it seems we’re all looking for redemption. Perhaps failure is not so bad after all. All of the winners at this year’s Oscars were once failures. Perhaps winning has something to do with losing. Perhaps there’s something to “the first shall become last and the last, first” way of thinking. Perhaps winning is not about being perfect, or extremely talented or gifted, or even about overcoming failure, but about enduring failure.
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