As most people have mentioned, the Oscar's this year didn't offer many surprises. The ceremony was even more boring if you tried to watch it on the internet at oscar.com like me. There you could only view the "backstage happenings", which are to the Oscars like burned toast is to Wonder bread. But this lack of a show gave me time to wonder, aren't there other people besides paid actors who deserve Oscars for their stellar 2008 performances?
For instance if I was in charge, I might have awarded a prize to the heads of the auto industries who flew private jets to Washington to ask for more money, then when chastised by an irate public, redid the journey, driving their company cars most of the way before jumping into their energy efficient concept car's for the final miles. I think the oil industry and banking executives who sat before Congressional hearings and refused to be contrite or to apologize deserved a prize for audacity. That's the Oscar spirit, combining American can-do spirit and fine acting. Hearing committee members deserve special awards too, for acting like disappointed parents when they're actually chuckling to themselves, "each one of you CEO's owes me soooooo big time".
Barbarous Ethics
2008 was a ripe year for Hollywood style performances. Most years seem to have the hint of a theme, have you noticed? Some years, cinema seems to serve up a slew of movies about dysfunctional families, other years the "theater of war" seems to be a dominant subject. In real life, this year's theme seemed to be ethics. For real-life best Oscar performance as a bad guy, I'd choose Golden Boy, former Illinois Governor Blagojevich. For best performance as a good guy I'd choose Senator Roland Burris.
Blagojevich came off as though he were auditioning for the movie sequel to Casino, or Goodfellas, with braggadocio to spare and a prize winning four letter word vocabulary. It was at first a simple tale -- a man of Bosnian descent lives his particular version of the American dream. The story then morphed into a jump the shark endless news that broke up the steady stream of economic bad news in early 2009. The most disconcerting parts, since we all quickly habituated to his prolific use of the word "f*ck", were comments from people who we thought seemed smarter, but seemed incredulous about the Governor's audacity. Prosecuter Patrick Fitzgerald started the trend, expressing shock that Blagojevich continued his shenanigans knowing full well he was being investigated:
"you might have thought, in that environment that pay to play would slow down. The opposite, happened, it sped up. Governor B. and others were working feverishly to get as much money from contractors, shaking them down pay-to-play before the end of the year."
Oh, surprise. Does the prosecutor deserve an award? But of course the Blagojevich scandal was always more than just a crazy hairdo, a weird Nike swish meets Chia Pet diversion. The tale unfolded over time, bloomed like fungus. Then along came Roland Burris, smiling like a Cheshire cat, to secure his place in the Senate. His Senate peers smiled back nodding about what a fine controller he had been. But now of course, when they learn of his little game, they're surprised at Burris's gall. And like all good family ventures, it's not just Burris, there's Son of Burris too. If the audience is still surprised they must be acting.
Ethics Piracy
Blagojevich ran on a platform of ethics, vowing to clean up the state. The voters bought it. But his was a common theme. Bush ran on an ethics platform, promising no hanky-panky in the Lincoln bedroom, and we saw how far his ethical standards got us. Take the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the series of ethics scandals uncovered in recent years. The department's ethics page which I just accessed (02-2009) was last updated before Christmas holiday season in 2007. Hear no evil, speak no evil.
During DOI Secretary Dick Kempthorne's tenure he said that he was routing out the bad apples. The apples were prolifically malignant -- "interfered with Endangered Species Act decisions, convicted of lying to Congress, discovered to have had sex with oil-industry executives and used cocaine and marijuana" -- and those were the ones that got caught. Second in command DOI "COO" and coal lobbyist Steven Griles went to prison for collaborating with Abramoff. Kempthorne himself raised eyebrows with his bathroom remodel. I think the whole cast of DOI deserves an award.
Melting Caps and Visual Effects
For best visual effects as in the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", we can imagine a movie where George Will et al conjure in their heads the melting polar caps regaining ice, while the commentators insist that global warming is a hoax. As for the miraculous reverse aging process of Mr. Button, I bet Al Franken wishes he had some of that magic so that when his term ends he can erase the worry lines and wash out the gray.
Many other awards are due, for instance Steven Johnson of the EPA, who drew out public comment periods longer then olympic water ballet performers stay under water, so that the the EPA could most effectively thwart environmental protection during the Bush administration. That's persistence. Not Slumdog Millionaire level, but certainly award winning mulishness. When the Bush administration was over the entire cast of the EPA probably felt like the little kid who steps out of the outhouse covered in goo. Shower time.
