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This Year's Pre-Oscar Show Promos: A Sappy Affair
Okay, about 45 million Americans will watch the Oscars tonight and a few hundred million more around the world. There are office pools and house parties planned. All 5 Best Picture nominees are "indies" - with none of them considered blockblusters. It could be the first Oscar show without a $100 million grosser in it in 20 years. In the spirit of how "non-mainstream" the Oscars represent this year, Jon Stewart seems a perfect choice. Yes, he's done Oprah and the Ellen Show, he's been written about in all the primetime mags (Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, etc.) to help sell the appearance. He's even been practicing the schtick, working on his best inner Edward Murrow.
As part of the enormous push to lure viewers to the Academy Awards show tonight, the annual Oscar promo trailer has been running in theaters for weeks, long enough to be a killbuzz. IF you've seen it, that is. Probably not, since there's not a whole hulluva lot pulling us into the theatres right now (Madera, anyone?). If you have seen it, that 30-second Oscar promo (viewable online at Oscars.org) is a hokey and backward-looking affair, completely at odds with the idea that Jon Stewart and a crop of untraditional movies might lead to a newer, fresher Oscar show.
Good promos draw the audience in to participate in the emotional moments instead of looking at itself and patting itself on the back.
Reading from a NYTimes article:A compilation of scenes from recent years, the promo begins with Tom Hanks saying, "The emotions of this moment will never be diminished." It goes on to intercut more starry scenes with text on screen, words that are meant to push emotional buttons. We read "The Laughs," then see Carrie Fisher and Martin Short wearing the same sequined dress. There are, of course, "The Tears," followed by a close-up of Jamie Foxx fighting back those tears while accepting his best actor award for "Ray." We have "The Memories" and a dry-eyed Hilary Swank accepting for "Million Dollar Baby," saying, "I'm just a girl who had a dream." That line, her awards-season mantra last year — sometimes including the information that she had grown up in a trailer — was already worn out by Oscar night. Here it's followed by the text, "Hold Onto Your Dreams."
All this happens while the band the Calling sings "Our Lives" ("These are the days worth living/ These are the years we're given"), a song that, like this promo, is ready-made for a Kodak or Hallmark commercial. Or a good plug for the Kodak Theatre -- the show home for the Oscars. Makes we want to weep, makes me want to holler.
The producers of the sappy promo have forgotten something basic (as have so many other old media fields, including radio and TV): the difference between us and them, between an audience that wants to be entertained and all those Oscar winners and nominees. The television audience doesn't get weepy at — and won't be pulled toward the show by — the ghosts of Oscar past. This Sunday's awards show isn't about memories. It's about George Clooney...the stars...the fabulousness of it all. It's about pretending -- even for just a small moment or for a few hours -- that someday the inner child in us all will someday grow up and win one of those Oscars for our chosen profession and make an acceptance speech heard by millions.
related article here
posted by Unknown @ Sunday, March 05, 2006,
