the chutry experiment

Hey, if you remember me, I was in your Fall 2003 1101 class. I just wanted to say that you should get your future students to open blogs at www.rediffblogs.com as it has comment function already installed in the templates and no hassle of loosing them as Jeff Wei did.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jignesh. I'll probably try Moveable Type next year, but I'll look at the blog program you're suggesting, too. Hope your semester is going well. I enjoyed having you in my English 1101 class.

What was also a big disappointment were the scientific and technical awards. They seem to reflect the gender bias in the tech field: only one nominee, as I can tell from the list, was a woman - and she was part of a group. Not knowing the tech field well, however, it could be a gender bias among the nominaton committee.

What is most upsetting, however, is the way the Academy presents the awards and feels the need to always send the new, young, sexy starlet to present them to these, presumably, geeky males. Then she has to make some comment, like Jennifer Garner last night, such as "What a way for a gal to spend Valentine's Day!" Each year this bugs me, but did so more this year.

Finally, and then I'll stop, what was up with presenting the nominees for actor before the comercial break leading up to the award. This was not something they had done all night or something that I can remember them ever doing. Was it nothing more than sexism again: "Great, the hot chick won - but here comes the "real" acting award. They're so great, we want to tease you with them now."

One more thing I just remembered, and then I promise to stop. The "sounds of the Oscars" scenes, where they would capture the reaction of the winner as the award is read, were stupid and had nothing to do with sound. One wuld expect with a segment title like that to "hear" something different but, as far as I could tell, there was no other mic picking anything up. Should have been titled, "Different camera angles of the Oscars."

I was out of the room during the technical awards, but I heard Jennifer Garner's comments. I thought she sounded embarassed when she was reading that line (I assume it was scripted), but yeah that "starlet hanging with the geeks" bit bugs me, too.

If I recall, they alternate the order of the actor awards, so that was probably coincidental, but the commercial break does seem like a strange call. I'm happy Charlize Theron won for a film that was predominantly made outside of Hollywood with a primarily female creative team, but the Oscars have made a habit of rewarding "the hot chick who gains weight and makes herslef ugly" a lot lately. Zellwegger has been in line, behind Nicole Kidman and Halle Berry, for that award for a couple of years now (Bridget Jones, Cold Mountain).

Yes, the "Sounds of Oscar" bit was awful. Would have loved it if they really had miked all the nominees (imagine Tim Robbins whispering mean things to Susan Sarandon about the other nominees). I had a better joke here, but it's gone.

Yea, they do alternate actor / actress every year. The thing was that the actor award was the only one that got a plug before the commercial break with a listing of the nominees and their appearance on screen. It just seemed weird.

And all in all this felt to me like a weird Oscarcast. I don't know if it was me and the fact that I was not watching it with a group as I had done the past four or five years, or if it was the show. Or maybe it was just boring.

Renee Zellwegger apparently made some comments backstage about the "hot chick making herself ugly" thing. A version of the comments made it into the NYT, but MsMusings (I don't have the link) has a supposedly raw version of it that is a bit different. Basically, though, each have her saying that it is great that audiences can get lost in the character without realizing who the actress is playing her. This is fine, but it doesn't refute the problem. I'm sure there are some extremely talented actresses out there who never get the chance to play the role because they do not look like Theron, Zellwegger, Kidman, or (to site a non-academy award film) Paltrow. Why do they need the prosthetic noses, chins, and fat suits? There have to be women as talented who fit the physcial dimensions of the role.

I think everyone has been ultra-cautious because of the Janet Jackson-FCC flap (pun unintended), which led to a boring show. The only real "flavor" came when Errol Morris won best documentary and when they performed the song from "Triplets."

You're right about women's parts. Why not cast an unknown, non-model actress for that part? The only real reason would seem to be Newmarket's bottom line.