Enough Oscar, Bring Back Felix
My thoughts on the distasteful and disappointing Oscar-fest: Glib, postmodern sexism is no more acceptable than crude, premodern sexism. Seth MacF is to humor what the other Mac is to cuisine, and he both reveled in and revealed the thin, mean, one-trick horse insubstantiality of his humor.
And the casual, clumsy, "cool" unpreparedness of too many of the presenters ended by making Jack Nicholson appear suave and debonaire in comparison. The cult of personality really does require some. Personality, that is. Just being beautiful and famous will not make you witty or wise.
There were on the whole too few moments of real humor and class -- and most of them came from classy people like Shirley Bassey and Barbara Streisand, Daniel Day Lewis and Christopher Plummer.
The rest were wannabes who couldn't.
Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
ps: shopping suggestion for Mr. MacF.
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8 comments:
My daughter filled up all but six spots on her "Seth McFarlane Oscar Bingo" card, and the only reason she didn't get to fill in another was that "weed" was the only drug he didn't mention. The various shots of audience reactions to the boobs song were, um, classic pictures of people in deep social discomfort.
Also, I must take offense at your denigration of mac and cheese. McFarlane is more like fried Twinkies.
I'm shocked, shocked . . . that you would insult the supreme COMFORT FOOD which is Mac&Cheese!
Please, please, good souls. I bid you stay and consider. Far be it from me to speak any ill of the splendid Mac and Cheese -- a truly monumental presence in the gustatorial delights of my heart, and a comfort to many. I was referring to that commodity produced in massive quantities by Ronald MacDonald and his minions.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks that Seth MacFarlane is supremely unfunny. Watching "Family Guy" fills me with loathing and horror, and no one seems to understand why.
In these days, Tobias, "beautiful and famous" do mean "witty and wise," sadly.
Oh, come on, Tobias! Tell us what you REALLY think!
I would contend that the vast fast food empire does not go out of its way to make its products deliberately repugnant to more refined tastes, though there was KFC's Double Down, which I had the misfortune to accidentally order once. Perhaps a better image would be as something of a perversion of "The Emperor's New Clothes".
Thanks Mam, Bob, W...
C., I'm not sure what motive the planners had -- I assume they were making the error of two Oscars back when they thought a "younger" and more "trendy" host (or in that case a pair) would draw a younger and trendier demographic. I wonder how many of the "powers" even really knew SMcF's work from personal experience. Surely the whole model of Family Guy is rapid fire, shock and awe, offensive to all, and so edgy it falls off -- and to call it sophomoric is an insult to sophomores, some of whom at least go on to graduate. The "I can't believe he said that" -- which is in fact an element in humor -- only gets you so far, and the quickness of a comeback or a smart remark is only part of its worth as wit. I'd say only about 1% of SMcF's work contained a spark of that sort of intelligence, the rest relying almost solely on speed and shock -- of limited value in a three-hour+ variety show. (There's a reason stand up comics work in smaller time frames...)
But as to the Emperor's garments -- I think in a way we saw the reverse here -- an empty suit parading around with no emperor inside!
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