ErikLundegaard.com - Oscar: Doing the Wrong Thing

Oscar: Doing the Wrong Thing

I'm finally getting together my invites for the Oscar party on Sunday, Feb. 26 and got distracted on the oscar.go.com site. Is that an official site of the Academy? It looks to be. There's oscars.org as well, which is definitely official, but I assume the organization runs both.

Anyway I was distracted by a “Celebrate the Movies” photo gallery that is also advertising the Oscar broadcast this year and the Oscars and the movies in general. One photos shows Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” with the line WE SHOWED YOU HOW TO BE A MAVERICK; another shows Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany's” with the line WE SHOWED YOU HOW TO HAVE STYLE. Etc.

It's halfway to annoying. But it went the entire way with the following slide:

"Do the Right Thing" on the Oscar site

YOU showed us how to make a change? How about Spike Lee did? Or not even. He made a good, incendiary movie, which, in a weak year, didn't get nominated for best picture or director or cinematographer. It got ignored by the Academy—infamously—in favor of past pleasantries. Yet here you are using it to promote yourself.

WE SHOWED YOU HOW TO FUDGE HISTORY.

WE SHOWED YOU HOW TO USE THE ABUSED.

WE SHOWED YOU HOW TO TAKE CREDIT FOR WHAT YOU ONCE IGNORED.

All are more accurate.

Posted at 09:59 AM on Sat. Feb 11, 2012 in category Movies - The Oscars
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COMMENTS

Alex Bradbury wrote:

“Do The Right Thing” was unquestionably the best movie that year, a real standout. Am I wrong, or am I remembering that something completely banal like “Dances With Wolves” won it that year ?

Comment posted on Sat. Feb 11, 2012 at 10:12 AM

Erik wrote:

DRIVING MISS DAISY.

Comment posted on Sat. Feb 11, 2012 at 10:16 AM

Alex Bradbury wrote:

Worse yet.

But maybe you should give the Academy the benefit of the doubt, their message possibly being: “We fucked up, but time has given us some perspective and we admit our error.”