This is my late addition to the Oscar furore. I've been scribbling thoughts down since the night but I found it hard to pull all the strands together with the cacophony of crazy opinions whirling around out there in the ether. Human beings love a bit of hysteria don't we? Hype, hysteria...for some reason we'll use any excuse to turn into sheep and blindly follow the flock. Or we're extremely vocal in opposing the hype, thereby immediately becoming part of it. Either way, through a combination of facebook, twitter, reddit, blogging, radio, opinion TV shows and more, the Western world is insistent upon asserting our right to free speech at absolutely every turn.
In fact it's the idea of free speech that seems to cause controversy from all quarters. With half of us clinging onto this right for dear life and the other half getting more and more sensitive to language and opinions expressed in the media it's, frankly, all starting to get a bit silly. This is why, more than anything else, once again the topic most debated after the 85th Academy Awards was not the content of the winning films but the performance of its host Seth MacFarlane.
I'll say right here that I'm not an advocate of entirely free speech. Or at least not the decision to use it regardless of the consequences. I've written before about how unnecessary it seems to purposely create bad feeling, offence or else solely for it's own sake. I know others believe that it's important to have the option to do that and, while I respect their opinions, for me it's just as horrendous to purposely upset and target others for no real gain as it is to stifle their speech.
Having said this I really think it's time that people stopped laying in wait ready to take offence. I don't think every comment needs to be deconstructed to see whether it's possible to infer a negative intent from it, I don't think that people should be attacked for accidentally or purposely utilising a word that doesn't fit into others' definition of 'acceptable' and I don't think that making the discussion of appropriate language a subject for academic debate really helps change anything at a grassroots of society level. On that note I understand that catching people out early helps to expose and pinpoint potentially harmful ideas before they become lodged in society's subconscious. I just think we need to stop being quite so didactic.
I think Seth MacFarlane, on the whole, sucked at the Oscars. I don't think he held his own, I thought his humour was crass and juvenile and yes, he talked about women in a pretty ignorant way. But this man is famous for creating Family Guy and the movie Ted. Both can also be described using the adjectives above. What exactly were people expecting? That he was going to suddenly morph into a sycophantically sweet, highbrow, suave Hollywood host? There were so many other options they could have gone with if that's what they wanted. It's too late to feign surprised outrage now.
As is usual with the web there is already so much out there to try to deal with in this blog so, to directly address a few things in more detail, I'm using one of the many anti-MacFarlane articles that went viral soon after the event. This one is from BuzzFeed*, was viewed by over 700,000 people and I found it on a friend's facebook wall under the title 'horrific'. For me it's a clear example of how our society seems to garner so much of it's information and opinions in the guise of badly informed hype.
9 Sexist Things That Happened at the Oscars
1. The Boob song happened
Yes, the boob song was crap. It wasn't funny, it wasn't original and yep it seems a bit to weird to talk about boobs rather than the fact that the films were innovative pieces of art with heartrending stories and strong actresses. But, to be fair to MacFarlane, he's a comedian, he's not there to say what everyone else is saying and it was framed as a joke, as a bad decision to perform at the Oscars, in a scene that drew to attention his juvenile humour. Plus, why all the outcry over men objectifying women? Do we not devote hundreds of pages both online and in magazines to photos of Ryan Gosling's naked torso? Do we not flock to the cinemas to see beautifully sculpted males in topless roles? I can assure you that the first time I saw a film with Brad Pitt in it I was shocked he could actually act because all I'd ever seen, heard or read about him in mainstream media focused on his face, torso and lovely little bum. How would we feel if it'd been a song about penises in film? Would it still be sexist? If no then...why not? If yes then relax, it could've just as easily have been penises if a woman was hosting. But we chose a man so, y'know, deal with it.
2. The Prospect of George Clooney getting with Quvenzhane Wallis was discussed.
No it wasn't. This is what Seth MacFarlane said, "To give you an idea just how young she is, it'll be 16 years before she'll be old for Clooney". That was it. Now once again YES IT IS A TASTELESS JOKE. But, and I swear this'll be the last time I say this, that's the style that we accept Seth MacFarlane brings to his performances. So on that basis what's the big deal? It's not an actual suggestion that George Clooney has ever, will ever or should ever take a nine year old to bed. I'm sorry to have to say that but that's essentially what everyone freaking out is insinuating. If anything it's a joke on Clooney. Hence why, immediately afterwards, it was him to whom MacFarlane 'apologised'. It was a comment on how his girlfriends are way younger than his age. It was making fun of George Clooney, a Hollywood stalwart, and to infer anything else from it is ridiculous. Seriously. Try to articulate exactly what you think Seth MacFarlane was suggesting.
3. There was a 'joke' about domestic violence.
Sigh. He said "Django is a movie where a woman is subjected to violence, or as we call it, a Chris Brown and Rihanna date movie". So everyone is making a big hullaballo about - 'Domestic Violence isn't funny'. Of course it's not funny. MacFarlane wasn't suggesting we laugh at the idea of Rihanna being beaten up. He was drawing attention to how ridiculous it is that Chris Brown, a known abuser, has a successful career and a continued relationship with the same woman. You know what's worse than making a joke about Chris Brown? Perpetuating his career, producing his albums, promoting his performances, selling his songs, publishing interviews with him. If a man can publicly be known as having attacked his girlfriend and maintains a career in a high profile industry where he, like it or not, appears as a role model and has great influence then that's when we should worry.
4. Jennifer Aniston got called a stripper.
Jennifer Aniston and Channing Tatum came on stage and MacFarlane said 'Of our next two presenters at least one is honest about being a former exotic dancer'. And Channing Tatum used to be an exotic dancer. Soooo...not sexist. Because Channing's a guy. So rather than calling Aniston a stripper he was simply bringing up the fact that one of them definitely was a stripper. Not really funny either. A bit weird. But not sexist.
5. Seth MacFarlane made fun of women for dieting.
So? They do. He said, "For all those women who had the "flu". It paid off. Looking good." I think it was entirely unnecessary but it's not a lie. The scrutiny of women on the red carpet at the Oscars is huge and, for that reason, women do crazy stuff in Hollywood to try and look good. I think men probably do too but it's not as widespread or obvious. But why not make fun of it? In the big wide world it is a little bit silly.
6. He also said 'Zero Dark Thirty' was evidence that women are difficult.
He didn't 'say' that. He made a joke about it. That doesn't mean he thinks it's true. It probably means the opposite. The humour in the joke came from the fact that it's a super heavy movie about torture, so to boil it down to that explanation is both ridiculous and amusing. Lots of us laughed. We were all female. It was one of the better jokes actually. Couldn't make that joke about a guy. The lead role is a lady.
7. And then he talked about the Kardashians having facial hair.
BOMBSHELL! I'm not going to defend him here. That's mean. Not funny. Unnecessary. I can't think of a way not to take that personally either for the Kardashians or for women in general who are selfconcious about possibly having facial hair. Don't perpetuate the idea that something about a woman in unnatural or ugly. And there's not really another way this could have been taken.
8. There was this questionable joke about Jack Nicholson's house.
They said there was going to be an orgy at Jack Nicholson's house. This was either a completely random joke or it's been suggested that it was an allusion to the fact that Roman Polanski raped a girl at Jack Nicholson's old house. There's not really enough evidence to assume the latter so it seems silly to get offended on the basis that it 'might be'. Also I don't think it's sexist. Rape is pretty bad so I don't think we can assume he was condoning it which, I think, is probably the only way it could be sexist.
9. MacFarlane said it was fine that no one could understand Selma Hayek, because all they want to do is look at her.
He was calling her beautiful but he was also kind of suggesting that she had no other discernable use or skill so yes I can see that this would have been sexist if it was actually what he said. What he actually said was, "Well we have finally reached the point in the ceremony where either Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz or Selma Hayek come on stage and we have no idea what they're saying but we don't care because they're so attractive. Please welcome Selma Hayek." You know Javier Bardem's a guy right? Right?
I think it's clear that a lot of MacFarlane's jokes sucked. There was a bit of an unevenly weighted focus on women and their appearances which I'm glad has been flagged up. However in responding so melodramatically to his performance what critics have actually achieved is to create lots of copy and content for magazines and the internet, to draw attention to the Awards ceremony and MacFarlane that's better than any paid for publicity could ever manage and, essentially, hand power over to him to continue to garner attention, unearth his supporters and raise his profile doing exactly what he's doing.
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