Academy Awards as Psychosocial Intertext

Anyone who knows me well enough knows this much: I am obsessed with the Oscars. I say this with no shame or remorse, and with only a little bit of self-reflexivity.

My friends and family often complain that award shows are dumb drivel or gratuitous glitz (“It’s just one long ad for ads, with ads,” my friend Dolly once pontificated). Yet, every year, I have the last laugh: the naysayers grovel in the presence of my ninety-seventh percentile GoldDerby leaderboard score, thanks to my adept prognostications. Plus, the Oscars telecast has it all: the jubilation of triumph, the bitter sting of defeat, clunky cross-promotion, progressive back-patting, and sometimes the celebration of fine cinema.

It’s enough to make you puke Swarovski diamonds.

More importantly, the Oscars encapsulate how we grapple with the unexpected. Who could have possibly predicted that earth-shattering Best Picture gaffe at the end of the 2017 ceremony? (For the cultural amnesiacs among us: I’m speaking of the La La Land vs. Moonlight snafu, or as I prefer to remember it, The Night We Triumphed Over White Mediocrity [For Once!]). That was storytelling at its finest. It flipped social scripts, exposed the reality of Tinseltown flimsiness, and became permanently ingrained in the pop-cultural lexicon through online impressions and think pieces alike.

It also crystallized a great truth of this cultural moment: every blunder is an opportunity. For a moment, all control was lost—the almighty gaffe opened up a space for idiosyncrasy, indeterminism, and sociopolitical subversion. In an age of real-time updates and ever-refreshing newsfeeds, to witness the unwitting development of a story that’s beyond us might be the ultimate award. (Blech. Cloying.)

I guess the Oscars captivate me because I like to think I’m witnessing the next great cultural moment, on par with watershed Oscars moments of yore (cue Sidney Poitier; cue Sally Field; cue Sacheen Littlefeather). Perhaps that’s why I became a self-styled scholar of memory at my tiny liberal arts college. It’s the classic trope: lonesome right-brainer withdraws to cow country and tries to understand the theoretical foundations of loss, pain, and temporality.

I can still remember those sleepless nights back in the Berkshires. All the clichéd angst. Attempting to connect my assigned readings on collective memory and the invention of tradition to my lived experience—which is to say, a life that was unfolding in real-time but didn’t look enough like the movies. Talk about sophomoric. “What does it feel like,” I’d wonder aloud, “to be in a moment that’s already past?”

“Shut up,” my friends would reply. “It’s 2 AM, and we can hear your bloodcurdling screams through the walls.”

Now, I certainly don’t want to win an Oscar. I don’t have a lick of talent that would merit such an honor. (Of course, a few drinks in, I am roughly as coherent as Jeff Bridges, and he’s racked up more than enough awards hardware.) But if I really tried, I suppose I contribute some mediocre song lyrics to Pasek and Paul’s next film and hitch an eleventh-hour ride on that rising star.

What would I say at the podium, though? “Thanks, Goldie Hawn, for handing this gilded statue to me so gingerly. I appreciate it. This is for you, Mom. I’m not a lyricist. This is all a sham.”

I often relate this non-fantasy to peers and relatives alike. They smirk or chuckle or, most often, roast me on the spot. No matter the reaction, it’s inevitable; I can see it coming from all sides. Social life truly is the Bizarro Oscars: it’s made of synthetic, prescripted moments punctuated with the quietude of phony anticipation. It’s all already passed.