Yes, it's Oscar time again. Usually, I ignore the Oscars, but this is my first year in Los Angeles, and yesterday I came down with a small case of Oscar fever. It had to be a fever, because there's no other explanation for why I drove downtown and stood with the crowds outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I guess I was hoping to see something exciting, hoping to get a glimpse of a fame, hoping at least to find one damn thing worth writing about. Sadly, for the most part, it was a failure.
I should have known. I have spent most of my life hating the Oscars. Ever since my parents rented Gandhi, I have felt this way. You remember Gandhi, that epic Oscar winning story about a 12 year old boy who desperately wanted his parents to rent Airplane again but instead was forced to sit through a 17 hour film about a skinny bald guy who didn't want to eat. Okay, maybe 17 hours isn't exactly accurate. I admit. It could have been longer. In fact, as far as I know, somewhere in my parent's house, Gandhi may still be playing.
Nevertheless, there I was one block away from the Oscars. Unless you're into watching hundreds of tinted limousines drive by, it wasn't that exciting. There were basically two groups of people there, those who were on the lookout for stars and those who were picketing. Most of those picketing were Christians carrying signs with messages ranging from "Abortion is Murder" to "Down with Dirty Movies."
One man carried a sign proclaiming that "Homo Sex is Sin." I think he was a bit miffed when the transvestite in the fluorescent green dress walked by him yelling, "Jesus saves." The transvestite was part of the clown contingent, there to protest the exclusions of clowns from the Oscars. Jesse Jackson may not have shown up, but the clowns were there in force to protest that not one clown had been nominated this year. As one clown's sign announced, "Klowns: The Forgotten Community. Hollywood Doesn't Care." Other clowns had signs that read, "More Klowns Kissing Other Klowns on the Mouth" and "Less Love Scenes. More Sex Scenes."
As you might guess, I didn't see any stars. Sure, I heard rumors that Stevie Wonder and Jamie Lee Curtis had been spotted, but I never saw them. At one point, the window of a limousine opened, and there were all sorts of screams. Cameras were clicked. Hands were waved. Clowns were trampled in the mad rush to get to the limousine.
Who was in the limousine, you ask. Well, I don't have a clue. I didn't recognize him. I asked the woman next to me, a woman who had perhaps screamed the loudest. Her response: "I don't know, but they waved!"
As for the show itself, I didn't watch much of it. I did tune in for the major awards at the end, and it was terribly disappointing. Everyone for whom I was rooting lost. For example, I really wanted the dead guy to win the Best Actor award. That way, there would have been no acceptance speech, but the Academy screwed up again and gave the award to Nicolas Cage. I guess it was a bad night for both clowns and dead guys.
©1996 Joe Lavin