No, Young Padawan, The 90th Oscars Was No "Turd Show"

I was disheartened and somewhat disappointed to open my Facebook page Monday to see a post from a nephew headed "Oscars What A Turd Show!"   What prompted such a harsh judgment? There was little elaboration other than it "sucked" and "was too long" - but reading assorted critiques around the net one quickly concludes one of three reasons: 1) The show is long (this time running 4 hours and "trying even the patience of hard core movie lovers" (according to one WSJ piece, 2) too much politics and activism on display, or 3) the films receiving awards weren't the big box superhero or other flicks the hoi polloi wanted to win.

Fair enough, but I'd argue it's not enough to call the Oscars a turd show".. What is a real turd show is any Trump presser or photo op in the White House  like with the DACA gathering or the recent one on guns- when we know the guy is just going to lie and play everyone in his typical con game.

According to a WSJ piece yesterday ('Oscars Hit Sour Note With Viewers', p. B1,  Business & Finance) the viewing audience ell by 19 percent from last year's which drew 32. 4 million. The previous low was 32 million in 2008. We also learned (ibid.):

"There was no shortage of social commentary during the broadcast, as the issues of sexual harassment and equal opportunities for women took center stage. ...Many on social media pointed to performers using their platform to espouse political and social views as  factor in viewers tuning out."

Another lame excuse given for the drop in viewers was from Brandwidth which "attributed the decline to the pandemonium on social media last year when the wrong movie  La La Land  was accidentally announced as Best Picture winner instead of the rightful winner, Moonlight."

Of course, the very reason that snafu occurred was because a genius from Price Waterhouse Cooper  which controlled the award envelopes  was too enmeshed in social media texting to attend to delivering the correct envelope to the presenters (Faye Dunaway and  Warren Beatty).  For people now  mainly social media addicts - to tune out because it might occur again is total bollocks  it also doesn't say much about their average IQ.

But I submit that the preceding reasonos may only account for perhaps 5 percent of the dropouts at most. After all, as any intelligent person  -viewer knows, such politicizing has always been part of the Academy Awards, certainly in the past two decades, and we know the movies don't exist themselves in a bubble - detached from the greater society. Especially now in the age of Trump where every thing the bastard does or says grabs air space and headlines. So why the hell wouldn't a reaction to it?

For example, the latest blockbuster superhero movie, 'The Black Panther', was described in a recent TIME article as "an act of resistance by its very existence."  Indeed, the latest issue asserts that as recently as five years ago it likely couldn't have been made  - a spectacle film with nearly all black cast and black super hero to boot. We saw it with our friend Muriel two weeks ago and loved it.  And for sure the power projected by the  black citizens of the fictional African nation of Wakanda would make any white nationalist or Trumpie racist tremble in his boots.  As would the "Black Panther" himself:


In a similar vein the Best Picture winner,  The Shape of Water, was about diversity and breaking down the barriers that divide us. Personally after watching it twice at the cinema, it ought to be required viewing for every Trumpie.

This brings us to what is more the actual likely reason for a drop in  Oscar viewers (ibid.):

"The sheer number of entertainment choices is causing an industry wide decline in rating across all TV programming. Live performance had, at least for a while, been the exception to the broader declines, as audiences recorded shows or turned to on-demand streaming services."

This condition is what author  Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock"Alvin Toffler, as "over choice ".   Too many choices, especially in media, diluting any collective attention to one thing, one show, one event.  From Wikipedia we have:

"The phenomenon of overchoice occurs when many equivalent choices are available.^[Making a decision becomes overwhelming due to the many potential outcomes and risks that may result from making the wrong choice"

In terms of entertainment media, there will inevitably be a kind of "regression to the mean" which often translates to the most comfortable choice  for many viewers.   Take my nephew, for instance. If he is a frequent Netflix user, or even more inclined to play video games  - and is then confronted by a choice between these and watching the 90th Oscars on network TV,  he will almost certainly go for one or other of the former.  He will skip over the Oscars because it doesn't deliver the mode or type of entertainment he wants.  (But to call the Oscars a "turd show" because they're not his cup of tea, is going a bit too far imho.)

This phenomenon is not so critical in terms of entertainment but becomes a real danger to our democracy when we have balkanized news media    - including one  (FOX News) which lies and distorts as a kind of  agenda to pander to its viewers.

 In October of 1962 all 100 million of us watched the same Walter Cronkite on CBS as he spelled out the latest news on the Cuban Missile Crisis. There wasn't some "channel X" that half the citizens tuned to which told them  "we repeat again-  this whole Cuban Missile crisis is a hoax, this is a big nothing burger."

We watched and enjoyed the Academy Awards as we do every year because we are hard core movie lovers  seeing on average 16-20 movies a year, by which I mean actually showing up to buy tickets, get cokes etc. and recline in the new D-Box seats.

It is true, as the WSJ piece notes that "most of the nominees and winners  came from films that weren't box office hits"  and this could also explain a lack of viewer interest But on the other, hand, the Oscars enables the opportunity to highlight little known quality movies that   while not "block busters"   are well worth seeing.  Not every great film has to be about super heroes, or be  a super hero sequel.

Maybe one day my young Padawan nephew will appreciate that and also be more inclined to move out of his comfort zone.

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