Three things about the Academy Awards

1. Beards. So many of them! George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Jackman, Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones. I can’t remember an Oscars with so many. (Dear Friend: can it be…?)

2. Seth MacFarlane.

Dear Hollywood,

I know Seth MacFarlane is young, good-looking, and can sing. I know he looks like Mister Television, with that smugness and his way of pretending to let people make fun of him. 

But what you get when you care more about youth, good looks, and fame is an offensive dickwad who made as many racist, homophobic, sexist, and anti-Semitic jokes as he could possible squeeze in. He gave voice to hostile white people — the exactly kinds of people who run the Academy Awards and showcased people of color and women primarily as presenters or in special categories of their own. He represents truly the ugliest, meanest aspect of American culture.

Heads out of asses, please. Next year please tell me that you’ll choose Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

3. Inocente!

I hadn’t seen this film that won Best Documentary Short (look! it’s here, so I will watch it). But the filmmakers’ acceptance speeches about the importance of art makes me a little teary-eyed even now. Also because they brought the 15-yr-old undocumented artist, Inocente Izucar, who was the center of this film up to the stage with them and insisted that she appear with them in photographs backstage.

Did you know that Inocente was crowd-sourced through Kickstarter? I like the whole idea of this film.

So it was like that — the usual whiplash of the Oscars, as one’s head whips between disappointing choices and surprise triumphs. Why do I watch, again?

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