Monday, March 08, 2010

The Oscars May Not Feel Like History


But today they are.
And as much as the Academy Awards are often ridiculous and political and shame-facedly wrong ('Crash'? You've got to be joking)
a woman, yes, a woman, finally won not just Best Director, but Best Picture as well.
Some facts are in order here.
Yes, Kathryn Bigelow started out as an extremely talented artist.
Yes, she studied under Susan Sontag. As in: Susan Sontag.
Yes, she was in direct competition with her ex-husband, another kind of glorious first.
Yes, she's only the fourth woman ever nominated for Best Director in the history of the awards. Which is, yes, a weeping crying idiotic shame.
But she won.
And more importantly than that simple historic fact is this:
She and The Hurt Locker deserved it.
One small film - the lowest grossing film to win Best Picture in Oscar history - that almost went straight to DVD,
that almost wasn't distributed, that almost no one saw.
Until now.
With a woman finally holding the gold in her arms.
For the first time in years, to paraphrase Michelle Obama, I'm proud of the Academy Awards again.

- Janet

5 comments:

  1. AND LOOK AT HER ARMS!!! My God! That woman is -- on top of it all -- simply gorgeous. And I love what she said about following dreams...and how long it really does take...I needed to hear that as my little "project" which I was supposed to get done immediately -- and you know the one -- just isn't happening that fast. Thanks for this post!!! Charlottie

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  2. What a great evening!!

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  3. Yeah, a great evening, except for one thing... Sandra Bullock. Jeez! Can we really put her in the same category as Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, and Carey Mulligan!?

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  4. Anna...Nope, we can't. But then Hillary Swank got there first, and she now has more Oscars than Meryl. That's just wrong, wrong, oh such Holy batpoop wrong my friends. That's what I have to say about that!

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  5. My god, Holy batpoop?
    Gotta say I did like Sandra's speech.

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