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I was disillusioned with life last week and went walkabout. The Israelis and Palestinians were going at it hammer and tong -- still are -- and I had been informed that there is a riding lawn mower that looks as sleek as a Ferrari and can corner on a dime. There's no hope for the world, I thought. Not only is World War III going to be ignited on a piece of desert that no one in their right mind should want, let alone battle over, but I now have nightmares about my six-year-old nephew Keefe climbing aboard that lawn mover and turning it in circles, killing him and my sister's prize-winning rhododendrons.
I have recovered from my fit of the vapors, but rather than seeing red this week, I thought I'd try to cheer us all up with my erudite overview of the Academy Awards.
As is my wont, I flipped between the Oscar telecast and a movie, one in which things blew up quite regularly. Never did get the point of the movie, but then I didn't really care much about who and what won an Oscar, because it is almost guaranteed I've never seen the nominated movies. But I absolutely adore seeing what Hollywood is wearing.
The men's sartorial splendor has been muted by current fashion, which decrees dangling scarves are de trop. But what the hell is going on with those knee-length versions of an evening jacket that flap like cowboy dusters? And who was that presenter wearing a tail coat? I think I saw a scarf trailing him.
Ah, but the women! All that money, all that lack of taste! I know these mostly talented and beautiful females want to look smashing, and they get top designers to dress them. But the failure rate at that collaboration has moved from laughable on occasion to screamingly hilarious usually.
By the time men have reached this point in the column, they've gone walkabout. So ladies, let's dish the dirt.
I think that Gwyneth Paltrow is a fine actress and a lovely woman. But did she look in a mirror before she left for the Oscar ceremony? I offer this advice to all females not generously endowed in the bosom: You don't want to wear a skin-tight bodice sans bra. Gwyneth, Wonder Bras were invented for our figures, so keep that in mind next time you're shopping for a gown.
I'm rather fond of Nicole Kidman, but frankly that ruffled pink confection she wore was an exact copy of the dress I wore at my confirmation. What makes sense at 10, doesn't work well on a woman in her 30s.
Halle Berry is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she has a body I would sell my soul to the devil to have. Certainly, it was well displayed in her intriguingly fashioned gown, which showcased her curves without being vulgar. The ballooning skirt and train I found a bit over the top, but then Halle could carry it off. You could dress that woman in a gunny sack, cinch it with old rope, and she'd look gorgeous.
Of course, that dramatic gown proved perfect for the first woman of color to win the best actress award since they started giving them out. However, I do discourage a lot of knock-offs showing up at local proms and the policemen's ball, because to wear that dress you need to start planning at puberty and be allergic to chocolate.
Sharon Stone had a dress that delineated her figure without embarrassing her family.
Jodie Foster got kudos from the fashion press for wearing a sequined knee-length number. That little cross-strapped shift was an approximation of the costume I wore as a chorus member of my high school's semi-hit musical, "Rah, Rah, Rumble Seats and Running Boards." The play was beyond silly, but I was very pleased with my glittery costume.
Of course, back then if I could have displayed myself in a costume of feathers, as that Icelandic singer did a couple of years ago at the Oscars, I would have worn it to the cast pizza party. I still have fashion lapses, but I would no longer wear a swan suit in public.
Perhaps in private.
I never used to watch the Oscars. Actually, I didn't have a television set until my sister moved in with me to go to nursing school in Detroit. I had a decent stereo and a favorite bar, so who needed a television? Certainly, I didn't need to watch the three-plus hours of scripted banter, winners thanking everyone who had known them since the womb, and the occasional eccentric or drug-addled winner who refused to put a sock in it. It was beneath my exalted self to revel in self-congratulation, even if I was rooting for someone. But Erin arrived in my two-bedroom townhouse to study under the supervision of her big sister with a TV.
I had tried to imprint this child with my cultural knowledge by an occasional intervention, but when she moved in with me she thought "The Newlywed Game" was a hoot.
OK, she was 17, but this is no excuse for liking a show in which recently married nitwits spill marital secrets that should not be shared with the public.
How do I know this? Because Erin and I made a deal. I'd watch one of her favorite shows, and she would watch something I considered worthy of our time. So, while I loathed "The Newlywed Game," Erin was quite taken with the first part of "I, Claudius." "The Newlywed Game" went off the viewing schedule. PBS came on.
We did the same deal with music. I would listen to Talking Heads and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers if she would listen to Maria Callas and Billie Holiday. I quite liked Tom Petty. She quite liked Billie Holiday, found Callas a tad shrill, but she's been stuck on Placido Domingo since she heard him sing "Granada."
And yet, when as roommates we hit our first Oscar telecast, we had a minor showdown.
"I'll bring you home the newspaper," I told her. "You'll get the gist of the idiocy and avoid the boredom."
Ever precocious, Erin replied, "Susie, last year Cher wore more material on her head than she did on her body. And you want to pass this up for a documentary on whales singing?"
We watched the Oscars.
That year Sally Field won the best actress award. Her dress, like Sally herself, was cute, and I loved "Norma Jean," the movie for which she won the award.
But when Sally, who was clearly in the throes of emotion not champagne- or cocaine-induced, said in her acceptance speech, "You really like me," I fell off my chair laughing.
As a reporter, I knew poor sweet Sally was going to have to live down that exuberance for the rest of her life. But it was heartfelt. True emotion from a woman who had worked her way from "Gidget" on television to playing a gutsy union organizer in a gritty movie drama.
From that year on, I always snatched a look at the Oscars. I saw Jack Palance do one-handed push-ups to demonstrate his ability to act. The logic behind the push-ups proving his talent escaped me, but I'm impressed with anyone who can do any kind of push-up.
I saw Billy Wilder, one of my absolute favorite writer-directors, win a Lifetime Achievement Award. The German-Jewish immigrant who was the guiding light behind "The Apartment," "Some Like It Hot," and "Sunset Boulevard," was so very frail. He was a product of two cultures, but his sensitivity to women I credit to him alone. His movie heroines have flaws, but they fight to survive in a man's world. Billy died this year. We'll never see his like again.
And I saw Halle Berry's acceptance speech. God knows she went on way too long, but she was speaking for all the African-American women who had been denied the Academy Award. To paraphrase Halle, "Cut me some slack. We've been waiting 74 years for this."
The beauty of Sydney Poitier getting a Lifetime Achievement Award and Denzel Washington getting the best actor award was quite simply a gift to many of us disheartened by the racial issues that still divide our nation.
When I turned off the four-hour Oscar blather this year, I wasn't seeing red because that bad-tempered lout Russell Crowe got an Oscar for playing a gladiator, for pity's sake. This year, I had a moment of pure joy that perhaps our country was finally willing to acknowledge that the color of the skin has nothing to do with the intelligence, talent and humanity of individuals who can give us something to hold onto in these trying times, even if it's something my ever-pompous philosophy professor would call a "transient moment."
The Oscars are a superficial nod to a superficial art. But this country is superficial, as are its acceptance hurdles. You got money, you're over the bar.
Usually.
African-Americans survived slavery, a Civil War where both the Blue and Gray uniforms reviled them, Jim Crow laws, the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, humiliation and water hoses wielded by barely literate white cops. They earned their acceptance the hard way.
I agree with a friend that it would be nice if Oscars were awarded regularly to African-Americans, but I'll take what I can get.
Good on you, Halle, Sydney, Denzel. You and yours not only survived, you prevailed.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 9 2002 |