March 7, 2006--Bjork's Dying Swan

There has already been so much Dis about Sunday’s Academy Awards that I am reluctant to pile on. But since it is everyone’s favorite Schaudenfreud night, mine included, please forgive me—I can’t control myself.

The consensus is that it might have been the second worst Oscar show ever, topped only by the one in 1989 when Rob Lowe opened the festivities by dancing and signing with a young woman dressed up to look like Snow White.

This year’s version was awful, but not for any of the following reasons—not because the host, Jon Stewart was not funny; not because all the nominated songs were terrible; not because of the bland choice of winners or their boring acceptance speeches; not even because the TV commercials were sophomoric. This is always the case.

No, the show was awful because of the clothes.

A lot has been said and written about the commercialization and commodification of fashion at the Oscars, including in the NY Times (see their story below). How clothing designers and jewelers vie with each other to “dress” and bedeck Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron. How once the evening is over all the dresses and shoes and jewels have to be returned. How people unknown to most humans, Jennifer Rade, for example, “styles” Angelina Jolie. Or how Anna Bingemann picks out what Uma Thurman will wear. Or how much someone like Reese Witherspoon, who makes upwards of $10 million per movie, would have to pay for her dress if she had deigned to buy it--$50,000 or so. Or that Dolly Parton wore $1,500,000 of borrowed jewelry from Fred Leighton. This is by now familiar Dis territory.

What was new this year, and spoiled the spirit of Schaudenfreud, was the fact that everyone looked too good, too sophisticated, too tasteful. And so the opportunity to trash the stars for their tastelessness was stolen from us.

I longed for those Oscar nights when at least half the people walking the Red Carpet looked like tramps. When Joan Rivers and her colleagues would brazenly say what we were all thinking—“Can you believe what Barbara Streisand is wearing? Where did Cher get that dress?”

Everything was so blanded down. I suspect because the stars have come to realize that half the reason people tune in is to see what they are wearing, and that the highlight of the multiple Red Carpet shows that precede the award ceremony (I counted at least four TV channels simultaneously covering the arrivals) is to make fun of the clothes, hair, and makeup.

If you think I’m making this up, note that these same cable channels that had those shows are no longer talking about who won which Oscar but are rerunning the Red Carpet arrivals. “Fashion Police,” as just one example, has already been on the air at least four times, and it is totally devoted to showing a panel of fashion experts (check out what they are wearing if you want to Dis) desperately attempting to make fun of what people were wearing. But again, without much bite since the actors and actresses didn’t offer as much opportunity for mockery as in the past.

I found myself longing for Bjork who showed up in 2001 wearing a white-feathered knee-length dress taxidermied to look like a swan. Now we’re talking Schaudenfreud!