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What’s it all about, Oscar?
This year’s academy awards are a black box mystery to me.
My favorite Cherokee, Will Rogers, made his first “talkie” motion picture in 1929. (He called them “noises.”) Adding his Oklahoma drawl turbocharged his movie career, and by 1934 he was the number one box office draw in the country. It was perhaps as a result of that he got the gig to emcee the Oscars that year.
Characteristically, he used the occasion to poke fun at the movie business: “It’s a racket, and if it wasn’t we all wouldn’t be up here in dress clothes.” On the pretentious title, “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences”, he opined, “If the movies are an art, I kinda think it’ll leak out without bein’ told; and if they’re a science — then it’s a miracle.”
I write about 1934 to emphasize how little I know about Hollywood, so perhaps some Medium writer will explain something if they haven’t already, to wit:
What is it with the Academy and women?
I have complaints about the list of nominees just released, but I’m not sure I know enough to rationally be as bent out of shape as I feel.
On the acting end, it seems like there is room on the dance card for one female superstar at a time. One Katherine Hepburn. One Meryl Streep.
