Lack of Self-Awareness & the Oscar Speech Impediment — A Look Back

I have yet to see a show business person give the acceptance speech they should at the Oscars. Instead, some turn the moment into a narcissistic stunt of protest, global outrage or badge of honor for whatever social injustice they have chosen that year. Rarely do they get it right.

Peachiness is nothing new to Oscar; it has been going on as far back as when those in Tinseltown hid in a Red closet while whispering “Government borscht for all.” The only thing that’s changed is the lack of awareness the winners have to the people who pay for their product, the product being they and their films, and the level of daftness that some accepting the award go to in an effort to feel more powerful than the money and fame they already have. Speaking out can be a good thing, especially when the speakers motive is to lift the awareness of all. Yet in Hollywood, a self-important attitude is hard for most to drop, as is the party line.

Last year, Sean Penn, a man with numerous felony charges including charges of violence against woman, and one who panders to tyrants the world over, preached to Americans after his win of the horrible and hateful state of mind that has fallen upon those who do not see the world as he does. The people of California came to their decision on gay marriage freely by vote, twice. Nevertheless, to Sean Penn the will of the people is only ever served when it slants in his favor or gives way to a photo op of him in a New Orleans boat shotgun in hand. Even his recent Haiti trip ultimately became just a reason for him to have face time on Larry King while hitting “Wiffle Ball” questions out of the park in the hopes of improving his public image, which is limited.

More often winners become so emotional that they lose it on stage like a Springer Spaniel wetting the carpet of its Masters home. Then becoming unable to articulate an awareness needed to give an educated speech in regards to the character they portrayed and how that role may be transferred to a larger audience for greater exposure. The speech they should have given gets lost in the moment of the self.

Case in point, Julia Roberts and Halle Berry

Julia Roberts won Best Actress for playing a strong, tough, stubborn, sexy mother who as a legal clerk took on a corrupt system and won. Yet in Miss Roberts acceptance speech, she failed to thank the very woman who made her Oscar possible, Erin Brockovich. Rather than give a focused acceptance speech empowering young woman to go into the world and become something powerful, (So long as they don’t become Conservative women from Alaska of course.) she giggled like a hyena that’d been poked by a canister of helium set aside for a Macy’s day float. She blathered on about how great she felt to be up on stage, how she never wanted to get down from the stage and how pretty her dress was. She then thanked her boyfriend of the month, her agents, the mountains, the forest, the rain, the sun and all the other geniuses disguised as Hollywood nature. All while forgetting the possibility of the moment, a chance to empower all women with her film.

Interracial discrimination takes place inside the black community in regards to shade of skin color. Many in the black community openly cried foul that Halle Berry was too light skinned to be the first black woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress. Miss Berry never saw the struggles that single black mothers living in this country see every day, but make no mistake, in today’s culture she is seen as a black woman.

Yet Miss Berry, looking as if she’d just come from a Pakistani interrogation room at the announcement of her name, took the stage unable to seize the gravity of her win and blew her chance to make a thoughtful speech about what it’s like to be a black woman of any shade in the world, not just Hollywood. Instead she glazed over the subject with “And now the door is open for all black actresses” as if the best thing for young black woman to do is head off to the crapshoot that is Hollywood. Miss Berry went on to thank Warren Betty, Spike Lee, her agent, manager, her mother, her future ex-husband and on, and on, all while saline flowed from her eyes, snot leaped from her nostrils like bungee jumpers and facial tics took hold suggesting that the Pakistani electrodes where still clipped on and the voltage was on high.

Bush Derangement Syndrome Infects Oscar 2003

Michael Moore is a man who could benefit from Michelle Obama’s war on childhood obesity. Because he is not only fat, but also because he lives in a constant state of infancy making up stories and presenting them to the public as fact like the boy who cried wolf.

Therefore, it came as no surprise when the bariatric blob took hold of his Oscar and was the first to expose “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” He invited his fellow documentary nominees on the stage and said, “I’ve invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us. They are here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time when we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons, whether it is the fiction of duct tape or the fiction of orange alerts. We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Shame on you. And any time that you have the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.”

Choosing to come off as just another elitist slob patting himself on the back while giving a lefty hand job the attending crowd, Michelle Moore wasted an opportunity to say something intelligent and though provoking for all to ponder. The show business people in the audience cheered his ridiculous statement and the teamster back stage booed into off stage microphones.

That same night the visiting aliens (Sorry, the undocumented performers.) couldn’t help getting into the act when the “Shark jumping” Bono, having taken his own temperature with his head and finding a slight fever of Bush Derangement Syndrome sang his two cents.

In a veiled protest against the war, which went unreported, Bono, sang “The Hands that Built America” from Gangs of New York, changing two lines of the song:

It’s early fall, there is a cloud on the New York skyline,

Innocents across a yellow line.

Became,

Late in the spring, yellow cloud on a desert skyline,

Some father’s son, is it his or is it mine.

I thank you for the poetic insight Bono, now go plant some potatoes and worry about your own country because your last CD sucked.

In addition, that night our neighbors to the south drop this bomb of wisdom on us via the Jewish-Mexican-American uprising when ‘Frida’ composer Elliot Goldenthal expressed his admiration for the not-currently-fighting-with-Iraq country of Mexico.

Elliot Goldenthal, clearly a “Mexican National,” failed to mention that the reason Mexico is not fighting with us, is that it is too busy fighting itself and that the only country they ever fought and defeated was France. Not the greatest bragging rights yet every year on May 5th we in the US feel the ridiculous need to have a margarita and fucking burrito.

In fairness, that same year the Motion Picture Academy allowed a short conservative rebuttal to any liberal-leaning statements made regarding the war in Iraq. In a press conference that Saturday, Academy President Frank Pierson announced that in fairness to the noble soldiers and “the people who fund our movies”, a Republican representative would be given “equal time” at the end of the ceremony to counterbalance any leftist remarks made by Oscar winners during the program.

Many members of the film community were greatly displeased by the announcement because it brought balance and fact to their Utopian mindset. No one displayed this better than the war historian and geopolitical analyst Renee Zellweger when she said, “I think it’s all a bunch of bull-honky. Winners should get to say whatever they want. I don’t like the war no matter what, and when Mr. Republican-pants gets up there to speak I’m just putting my fingers in my ears and going la-la-la-la-la!”

In the past when an Oscar winner had something to say, they did it with more creativity and insight by not making it about them. In Marlon Brando’s case, it was more imaginative and lasting than anything you will see today.

When Brando refused his Best Actor Award, instead choosing to stay home to eat cookies and milk on his rattan furniture, he sent Sacheen Littlefeather to the 1972 Academy Awards to say “Marlon Brando very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reason for this being is the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.” If Sean Penn fancies himself as the A-hole Brando, then he should have taken a queue from Marlon and sent Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi to the stage with a Judge from San Francisco’s 9th Circuit Court of Appeal to accept his award.

Then there is George C. Scott, who went out of the box before there was a box, and informed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences via telegram that he would reject a nomination as Best Actor for his portrayal of Gen. George S. Patton in Patton. Though he had tried before to withdraw from an Oscar race-for a Best Supporting Actor nod for 1960’s The Hustler — this time the 43-year-old actor declared that he would simply not accept.

George C Scott returned his Oscar for Patton, stating in a letter to the Academy that he didn’t feel himself to be in competition with other actors. However, also regarding this second rejection of the Academy Award, Scott famously said elsewhere, “The whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don’t want any part of it.” You will never hear that from a star today.

The speech that came closest to what an Oscar speech should be was Joe Pesci’s when he won for “Goodfellas.” It should be the framework for all Oscar victory speeches. Pesci stepped to the stage, graciously took the award and said, “I am humbled. Thank you.” Then walked off, unfortunately never to be heard from again.

Warren Beatty famously said, “The Golden Globes are fun. The Oscars are business.” In that sentiment can be found what an Oscar speech should really be. The truly crafted artist of the world know their place and how to maintain the mystery of their craft by being seen and heard on film and leaving the social passions of their heart to themselves.

Only a truly self-realized actor would know that the purpose of his Oscar award speech is to recognize that they and their film are products. That the podium is chance to promote that product to the world by simply plugging their movie to those who’ve yet to purchase the manufactured goods and to say thank you to those who did.

But don’t hold your breath hoping Hollywood will change its speech impediment and get the words out right. I can hear Will Smith now accepting his award for Best Actor at the 2014 Oscars for his portrayal of Barak Obama. He’ll talk of the shameful racist nature of the American people as he quotes the president by saying to Barack seated in the front row “You were so right Mr. President, it’s better to be a really good one term President than a bad two term President. Shame on you America, shame on you.”