Competition is as American as reality TV. And like reality TV, as opposed to reality, which we’re all trying to avoid as much as possible these days, it’s everywhere.
The Oscar nominations were announced this week and I can remember as a boy, before there was buffering and such a thing as an internet feed, a time when there was a shiny, unexpected anticipation as to what great slight and/or inclusion might transpire in those categories of five. Now we have:
Up to 10 best pictures nominees (nine this year despite know-it-all media hounds swearing it’d be only six, or seven at most)
Handicapping on all four major networks and most cable stations as opposed to just Vegas bookies, bitter industry people and know-it-all relatives
And general awards weariness because the Oscars are the last in a gaggle of trophy races run by SAG, the producers, the writers, the Hollywood Foreign Press, every major city where there is a film critic and every ethnic group that reproduces a human being.
Of course, the Razzies (those statuettes for the worst films of the year) haven’t yet been announced so there is still something to look forward to – especially when there is the potential that an actress with the sense of humor of Halle Berry will show up and accept the award live for her bad performance as she did in 2004 for “Catwoman.” (Note: I actually didn’t think she was that bad in the movie. I mean, have you seen Keira Knightley in “A Dangerous Method” this year?)
"I'd like to thank my new kitchen. I did this for you!"
But I digress.
The Oscars are probably our international baseline of competition. Or is it sports? No – the Oscars because I’m not much of a sports fan and therefore don’t want to write about it. Okay, fine – Tebow, Manning, Brady, blah, blah, blah, football –- now can we go on?
As I was saying – Oscars are the baseline – and even include sports because I actually thought one of the best films this year was “Moneyball” – the sports movie for non-sports fans. And it received six Oscar nominations, two of which were for Brad Pitt, one of our true cultural prom kings/class presidents/and all around Mr. Popularity Renaissance Guys of the day. Plus he’s “married” to our beautiful but sort of dangerously naughty senior class vamptress and all around perpetual queen of our never-ending fantasy prom, Angelina Jolie.
Voted "Best at existing" 40 years and running
Yes, as they say and I’ve said – the entertainment business is high school with money. But I digress. Again.
Anyway, with the Oscars as the baseline, then it shouldn’t be surprising that pretty much all competitions have become entertainment and vice -versa.
Tune in one of the 32,123 Republican debates, Okay, take the fun one on CNN in South Carolina.
Last week, you were treated to very expensive logos that popped off the screen with the words GINGRICH, ON THE RISE (what a scary thought, literally), ROMNEY, THE FRONTRUNNER (well, that was a week ago), PAUL, THE INSURGENT (Uh, okay); and SANTORUM, RENEWED MOMENTUM (the least catchy but somehow that seems fitting too). This was all behind sound effects usually reserved for an ESPN boxing match. You sort of half expected them to emerge in brightly colored satin boxing trunks while praying (even if you are an atheist) , please, if there is any taste left in the world, that they don’t. Or perhaps like a line up of thoroughbred race horses, with hooves, a bridle and a number on their backs – and praying (atheist or not), if there is any justice in the world, that they actually will. Sadly, that didn’t happen either.
It’s all a hybrid of hype, but what is being hyped? By all accounts – both politics and the Oscars are having a mundane year. Is that all it is — the overall mundaness of the movies and the candidates? Or do we simply not really care about any one competition when everything feels like it’s a contest?
The contests of today try to remind us of the public spectacle of the Roman times in the Coliseum when warriors would fight to the death. As for the competitors of today – when you think about it – do any of them really lose? The political candidates become lobbyists, consultants, book writers with huge advances or continue in government with upper middle class pensions and life long health benefits. As for Oscar nominees – their price goes way up and so do the deals, meetings and offers.
In the end, as is often the case in times like these, there seem to be no real losers. Except us. The (or their) audience. But of course, we’re not onstage. We’re just paying, in more ways than one, and hoping to experience something through all of this that amounts to a real win.
If your parents never told you that you are your worst enemy they should have. (My Mom did and look how much it’s done for me!). Nothing, nothing – not all of the unfairness in the world or the injustices you might face at the hands of your friends, co-workers or the industry you work in (yes, even the entertainment industry is included) can sink you faster than yourself. And if you find yourself sinking and are still playing the blame game you might as well tattoo a big neon Titanic sign across your ass because truly – you will wind up so far down below the bottom of the ocean that not even James Cameron’s newfangled crane/camera technology and a slew of nimbly written and expensive press releases plus a year of community service will be able to excavate you to dry land. At the very least you’d have to join a church, synagogue or mosque, do a year or two out of the public spotlight and write a book and, let’s face it, who has time to consider all of that.
We’re speaking of course of the debacle this week that is called Brett Ratner and Herman Cain. I use the royal “we” as an homage to Mr. Cain – who seems intent on continually speaking about himself in the third person as if he were the title of a new reality show and not, simply, starring in a real life version of one.
(Charles Foster) Cain
As for Mr. Ratner, the purveyor of the gay slur (“rehearsals are for fags” – I guess I can use the word because I like to rehearse), and kiss and teller of his mastery of oral sex (oy…) and avoiding STD’s to Howard Stern on the radio, he seems to have been banished from the Royal Hollywood Kingdom for the time being by who really knows whom (I suspect more than a few MAJOR Hollywood director/producers dialed him directly) and says he will be helping in the synagogue of GLAAD as a way to stop anybody who speaks or represents said rehearsers in movies the way he referred to them. For my money, I’d prefer he’d just stop talking and not make it any worse for us rehearsers but hey, that’s probably why I’m not in a position of power or even someone with consultation rights. Still, I will offer that a better strategy is to just go away and make a good movie but “good,” as all of the rest of us learn as each day of the media circus goes by, is truly in the eye and ear of the beholder – rehearser or not.
For the one or two who don’t know what the hell we’re (royal, again) speaking about, here goes. U.S. Presidential candidate and former Godfather Pizza founder Herman Cain was accused this week of sexually harassing one two threeFOUR women in the nineties (that is at blog press time). Brett Ratner spouted his use of the homophobic slur this past week while trying to promote his new movie at the Arclight for no reason at all other than, well, he did. But that wasn’t all — for dessert he kissed and then voluntarily told about his exploits with women in and out of the bedroom on Siruis Radio. Even though the industry looks at the Stern show on SIRIUS as a bit of a non cost effective audience disappointment and anything but serious, the remarks eventually did land on the ears of enough influential people by the end of the week in the Motion Picture Academy (obviously not Stern listeners, though Stern ironically himself does qualify for membership in the Academy as the star and writer of his 1997 film “Private Parts”) to give Mr. Ratner the final push over the cliff as the producer of this year’s Oscar show.
The latter gave me pause as an “out” rehearser because I couldn’t help but wonder why Academy president Tom Sherak was willing to stand behind Mr. Ratner after his offensive comment about those of us who like to “prepare” (nee rehearse) but yet when he talked grossly about his sex life he was put in the inevitable position of resigning. Is it worse to talk publicly about your sex life than it is to malign a particular social or ethnic group with a 4-letter slur? Obviously. Somewhere in the Academy rule book it must state that using a mean word about the rehearsers in the business is a hand slap but talking about the size of your private part and/or your prowess as a non-rehearser is a fireable offense. Hmm. Not sure I would have called it that way but it could account for the sorry state of most studio movies nowadays. (Perhaps if us rehearsers were a little more represented things might be different. Not necessarily better but different, which in itself might be at least a momentary blessing).
Who has one thumb and is a huge jerk? THIS GUY!
The drama that is (Charles Foster) Cain continues this week in light of vehement denials and a perhaps planned public press conference with at least two and possibly four of his accusers on some public stage or forum for the no doubt benefit of the public. In his own press conference several days ago, Mr. Cain, as is his right, categorized one of his accusers as a “troubled woman” and lamented that there were forces that wanted to stop a “businessman by the name of Herman Cain” from being president. That businessman/presidential candidate’s cigarette smoking campaign manager then separately accused Politico, the publication that first broke the unsavory story of one of Cain’s sexual accusers, of having an axe to grind because it employed the son of said accuser but the following day that allegation was proven to be false and the employment disproven. As to the sexual allegation, Mr. Cain said he would be happy to take a lie detector test to prove his innocence but then added he’d only do so if he finds it necessary. Hmmm. Is it necessary? I guess I’ll leave it up to you. Oops, I misunderstood. I guess the decision is really up to him – whether it be his first or third person doppleganger – (Herman or Herman 3.0)
Everyone has the key to that lock
The bottom line from all of this WORD/PLAY is a lesson that keeps popping up again and again ever since Al Gore invented the Internet and Ted Tuner started 24-hour Cable News. NOTHING. IS. PRIVATE. ANYMORE. (Not even your parts). You can’t speak publicly, online, or even act slightly oddly privately with another living being or recording device of any kind present and not expect it to rear its ugly head and attack you with octopus tentacles that will grab you and put you behind the public 8 ball. Adult males seem to have a particularly difficult time with this concept. As if they’re operating from some 20th century paradigm of privilege and have not yet caught up with the fact that the rest of the world is OCCUPYING their zone, too. Yeah, AS IF!
We know how this mystery ends...
It’s been difficult for the Chair (that’s me in the third person) to understand all the hysteria about Facebook privacy settings because the Chair has been able to perceive that it wouldn’t take much for any one of its students who are unable to drink in many states (but able to go off to war) to certainly invade not only its privacy but its, well…everything. Fine. They can have it all. Because The Chair will thus live its public and private life in an honest, truthful and respectful way and let all the proverbial chips fall where they might. As for me in the first person, my Dad is and always has been a gambler (literally!) and gave me this advice long ago. He didn’t go to college, never produced a megahit movie and doesn’t live in Allan Carr’s old house (check the Ratner real estate records). He also certainly won’t be running for president or running a Washington, DC lobbying firm (that’s what the Restaurant Association was, guys) or even be founding his own pizza company (he hates cheese) any time soon either. But as far as life lessons go, he was always right on the money, as gamblers tend to be. And — as I and my third person Chair can assure you — that’s not just word play.
… EDDIE MURPHY, RATNER’S CHOICE FOR OSCAR HOST THIS YEAR, JUST RESIGNED. AND BRIAN GRAZER, OSCAR WINNER FOR PRODUCING “A BEAUTIFUL MIND,” HAS BEEN NAMED AS HIS REPLACEMENT…
LATER BREAKING NEWS…
… THERE COULD EVEN BE A HERMAN 4.0 AFTER HERMAN 3.0 CONDESCENDINGLY CATEGORIZED FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER AND CURRENT CONGRESSWOMAN NANCY PELOSI “PRINCESS NANCY’ IN HIS RECENT WEDNESDAY REPUBLICAN DEBATE PERFORMANCE…
LATEST BREAKING NEWS…
…BILLY CRYSTAL HAS JUST REPLACED EDDIE MURPHY, A PERFORMER WITH HIS OWN CHECKERED PAST WITH US “REHEARSERS,” AS THE NEW OSCAR HOST…
notes from a chair 