I did not watch the Oscars last night. I don’t think it makes me a better human being or any such nonsense, but I thought I would share why I didn’t watch.
Truth be told, I forgot they were even on, so maybe the more appropriate title of this post is, “Why The Oscars Aren’t On My Radar.” The reason I forgot is that I was in Northern California visiting my (technically ex-) mother-in-law. I am with my Little Man, and First Born is with his dad at home. Since the divorce, we haven’t had alone time with our boys, and it was kind of nice it worked out this way. They each get special time with one parent, and Little Man has never had alone time with his savta (grandma). I was running around doing stuff, speaking for a JCC in Foster City, and then getting dinner and doing that sort of thing. I literally forgot.
That being said, I don’t much care for awards shows. So here’s why it wasn’t on my radar.
1. Not a huge fashion person
As you know, I don’t really understand trends and I have no interest in watching people go down the red carpet talking about their clothes. There occasionally are roundups of women calling out reporters for their ridiculous questions, and I usually make the top of those lists. I did see that Reese Witherspoon and some other actresses are supporting the #AskHerMore campaign which encourages smarter questions for females on the red carpet rather than simply asking who they are wearing. That might make the carpet more interesting to me as a viewer and participant actually!
2. Hermit
I rarely see movies, and this year I saw a handful mainly because I got them through the Screen Actors Guild as screeners. So I typically have seen literally none or only one or two movies nominated so it’s often pointless to watch.
3. Trying to be normal but can’t figure it out
Given that I saw some movies this year, I was very affected by some of the negative stereotyping of women along with the shoddy and, I would argue, culturally disturbing ways that women are portrayed in many movies. It’s not “entertaining” for me to imagine all of the impressionable young people seeing movies that demean women or portray them as many movies do. So I was kind of over the movie scene this year, sorry to report. It makes me feel I’m not normal, or that I’m weird, but as Graham Moore said last night (I saw this in my Twitter feed), he wants me to stay weird. Can do. Can do.
Maybe one day I will be able to have an impact on how I see women treated on the carpet, in movie scripts, and throughout the world, where the issues of the day relating to women involve things not popular to talk about (I have written here, for example, about the rape trial in Steubenville and the rape of Egyptian women as part of political protest).
Leave it to me to make an Oscars post about the denigration of women; I promise I can be fun sometimes. I appreciate my industry and I know how important the Oscars are. This year, I was glad to be with my mother-in-law and my boy celebrating the most important things to me right now: family, love, and tons of hugs.
