The writers’ strike is over, and thank God, because the strike made the entertainment world profoundly boring. In addition to the obvious problem—the lack of newly written words for actors to say—there was the problem that the strike itself, for all its worthwhile rationales and my love of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), was really boring to hear about. As NBC’s wacko chairman, Ben Silverman, explained, “Sadly, it feels like the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school are trying to cancel the prom.”
But those nerdy, ugly writers finally got a fair (enough) deal, and the Screen Actors Guild contract isn’t up for another month, so prom is back on!
And just in time, because award season so far has been pretty dubious. The Golden Globes were a total bust—an overanalyzed, anemic press conference with miniscule ratings and flash. And then there were the Grammys. Even in a year sorely lacking in glossy awards shows, and despite performances by Beyonce, Tina Turner, Amy Winehouse (from rehab—no, no, no … ) and the possibility of a Kanye meltdown if he didn’t win enough awards, this year’s Grammy telecast had the third-lowest ratings of all time.
But it’s not the performers’ fault. The record industry as a whole is, you may have noticed, completely screwed up: down 36 percent since 2000, with layoffs and downsizing almost daily.
And the Grammys, rather than rewarding critically acclaimed music, consistently reward the CDs you’d find in a minivan—middle-of-the-road crooners and occasional vaguely edgy or cool things (“hip-hop!”) that the kids are listening to, while remaining about 15 years behind the times (remember Steely Dan over Eminem? Santana? Herbie Hancock?). People who care a lot about music don’t care about the Grammys.
People who care a lot about movies, on the other hand, generally do care about the Oscars.
As February 24, Oscar night, approached with the strike yet to be settled, panic began to appear in the eyes of Gil Cates—the telecast’s producer—ABC, the advertisers who signed up for spots and the twittering “Oscar ninnies” in the blogosphere. Enough panic, maybe, to have helped broker the strike deal. (Gil Cates happens to also be a member of the Director’s Guild, whose own contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers was the blueprint for the WGA’s deal.)
And now it’s here. Oscar Night is this Sunday, host Jon Stewart is scrambling to write enough witty banter for the whole show in a week and the world—at least one specific part of it—waits with bated breath for the results of a contest determined by a bunch of working stiffs with dubious taste (Dances with Wolves? Crash?) and arbitrary rules (whither Jonny Greenwood’s nomination for his score to There Will Be Blood?). But even the non-freaks will be watching—the Oscars are second only to the Super Bowl for advertisers who want eyes on screens. It’s the perfect nexus of the glittering world of celebrity, the pictures and the tabloids, the dresses and the occasional, wild gaffe—and in this brave new strike-free world, we can all, guilt-free, indulge.
That’s entertainment.
