Oscars 2022: well that happened

[ironymaiden]

I'm guessing what people are going to remember from this year is Will Smith losing his chill. I was impressed with Chris Rock brushing it off and I'm pretty sure he didn't know that his unfunny joke was in such poor taste. a) GI Jane is 25 years old, who remembers the thing and b) you don't joke about a woman's missing hair unless you know for goddamn sure that it was a choice.

meanwhile the thing i need to complain about is that there was this whole meat market covid testing joke (!) sequence when a bunch of actors got pulled up onto the stage and Regina Hall said she was going to examine their throats with her tongue and then later groped Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa. Fuck off into the sun, that shit is not okay for anyone to do to anyone.

clothes-wise, i loved how many men had colorful or sparkly clothes. more please. i didn't really have a favorite outfit for the women, i was too worried that the titty tape holding things together was going to fail to notice the rest of any of the dresses.

weird shit that was more "important" than the awards that were given before the live telecast and spliced in:

• the fan-voted moments? from what i could tell there was some kind of internet voting and it got ballot-stuffed in a big way by Snyderverse fans. the way they weren't talked up and sped past, i think the Academy realized it was a mistake but had to pay up or get reamed by the Snyder bros.


• comments from some k-pop band?


• a tribute to James Bond movies


• a tribute to The Godfather


• some Oscars filk to "We Don't Talk About Bruno" (AKA Disney's we submitted the wrong song oh no no)

that said, really happy that Ariana DuBose won Best Supporting, well-deserved. lots of good wins for Dune (but not the big ones, hoping it goes the way of LotR and cleans up with part 2). several great speeches, the hosts saying "gay gay gay gay gay", the presenter signing the winner (and then holding the statue so he could talk) and the audience ASL clapping when the deaf Best Supporting actor won. also, the bit with the Pulp Fiction actors opening a briefcase with a light inside to pull out their envelope, that actually worked and delighted me.

Comments

[swingandswirl]

I'm on Smith's side on this one; this isn't the first time Rock has picked on Pinkett-Smith, and he should know better, considering he did a whole documentary on the importance of hair in Black culture, and Pinkett-Smith has been open about the emotional toll of her alopecia. He fucked around and found out, as the kids say.

[mimerki]

Yeah, I'm seeing a whole lot of "Rock is the victim" commentary online this morning (which may be that I am *seeing* that and not that it's the majority of commentary) and as a woman who's just gone back to the buzz cut because she can't stand her own bald spot anymore, I am over here just enraged that it's okay to bully a woman who's lost her hair, but not to slap the jerk who's making fun of her? (Also, that Rock did it from a literal physical and social position where he thought he was safe from consequences.)

And I am of the opinion that Smith's action were a whole lot more thought-through than they look: He slapped Rock once. He told Rock to keep his wife's name out of his mouth. This isn't a man who's lost it. This is a man who had a plan for when this thing happened and enacted that plan when it was triggered. I don't know if it was a plan he expected to need at the Oscars in particular, but I believe it was a plan.

And now, hopefully, everyone will think "should I say a thing about Jada's hair?" and then think "no, for I would like to remain in the club of People Not Slapped By Will Smith." And, selfishly, I hope that extends out to other bald women (and men).

(Apologies for the tirade. I have feelings.)

[phosfate]

I agree. He's not an idiot and if he'd genuinely lost his shit he would've hit him a lot harder. I assume he's entirely ready to accept any consequences.

Scold Twitter is going on about how violence never solves anything, when anyone who's ever been to an American public school will tell you that it absolutely does.

[ironymaiden]

The phrase "scold Twitter" is new to me and I love it

[phosfate]

It's not mine, sadly, but I am happy to share.

My current favorite is (I am not making this up) WHAT IF BETTY WHITE MADE THE JOKE AND HE'D HIT BETTY WHITE AND SHE'D FALLEN AND BROKEN HER SKULL? Um, Ms White died three months ago. He would have hit the evil necrophile ventriloquist who had obviously stolen and defiled her corpse, and I think few of us would disagree that the evil necrophile ventriloquist had it coming.

[ironymaiden]

At least that's funny. Better than all the reddit comments that boil down to slut-shaming Jada and calling Will an insecure cuck.

[phosfate]

That's on Twitter too, but you have to tell it I'M NOT INTERESTED IN THIS TOPIC about 500 times before it turns up.

Then Twitter gave up and went back to the original topics I wasn't interested in.

My personal fave is Billy Kelly: I am legally blind in one eye and I talk about it on stage. Recently a comic on a bill with me made some jokes about my vision troubles but he didn't get slapped in the face because my depth perception is off.

[ironymaiden]

I see your point about him having considered the scenario since it was a slap and not a punch or a shove, and his pace was measured. he was so adrenalized later when he got his award, it had to be so hard to hold it together

I am surprised/impressed that they didn't hold the camera on him or Jada for the dramaz afterward

[chase_acow]

I don't really watch the Oscars but I inevitably click on the best dressed articles throughout the week. I hadn't seen anything about Regina Hall through all the Smith v Rock chatter, but you're so right, that's gross. (I did like the men's bow ties.)

[yourlibrarian]

I totally agree with you about Hall's bit, plus it went on for so long. It could have been entertaining if she'd just read off the list of names quickly and then moved on.

No kidding about GI Jane, and it wasn't even a huge hit at the time either.

No surprise about the ballot stuffing, especially since there could have been so many fan favorite moments (including some of the finalists) that a variety of fan groups could have gotten behind. As was pointed out somewhere, this particular take of the movie was never even in the theaters.

Although I'd set this up to record, curiously only the overtime part got recorded so I saw the last half hour or so. I agree that the Pulp Fiction tribute was not only well done but a lot briefer. But it seems a real shame so many people didn't get their moments so that we could instead have bunches of tributes, songs and montages.