Snubbing Oscar Back

I won't be watching the Oscars this year.

As hard as it is for a movie buff like myself, I will be undertaking a personal and insconsequential boycott. No one will care that I'm not watching the show. I won't make news or even cause a blip in the Nielsen ratings. Personal statements are what they are, personal. But they are worth making anyway.

I am a movie buff. I have been since childhood when I grew to love the movies. So much so that I chose as my high school summer job to be a theater usher just so I could get in free to movies. I'm the guy hanging out in the theater to watch the end credits and who does pretty well in game "Six degrees of Kevin Bacon". A movie buff. A fan. And a periennial Oscar watcher. Except for this year. I've been snubbed by Oscar, and I'm not taking it lightly.

Okay, I don't want to be overly dramatic here. I haven't personally been snubbed. But my movie choice for best picture, "The Passion of the Christ", was. As was it's courageous director, Mel Gibson.

I don't normally care if my personal taste for movies is not vindicated by awards. People have different tastes. I certainly have different tastes than most Academy voters. No surprise there.

But the Passion was more than just a movie. It was a cutural event, and was in fact ground zero of the cultural divide in America around Easter season. It was the Red State/Blue State divide of entertainment and culture. And we learned two things from the clash:

1. Hollywood despised the movie. Universally, they despised it. Why? Was it because it was a bad movie? No, clearly not. Gibson is one of the best in the director's role and he brought every ounce of his professionalism to this task. It was, from a filmmaking perspective alone, a great film. I defy you to watch the scene where Mary Magdalene avoids the stoning and tell me that this is not great movie making. And I'll refer you to film critic Roger Ebert's excellent professional review of the movie here.

2. It was a significant event, beyond the mere entertainment of a motion picture to a large segment of middle America, as evidenced by it's box office take which overwhelmed all projections. If I'm not mistaken, the "Passion of the Christ" out earned the box office take of all 5 best picture nominees combined. Combined. That means something.

(By the way, I know you won't believe me on this, but I knew when I saw the box office numbers for the Passion that George Bush would win reelection in November. I knew that the same hidden majority that Hollywood underestimated would also be underestimated by the political elites and would show up in force for the election. I knew it.)

I was reading an article in USA Today this week on an airline and was amused by their article on the Oscars. The writers noted that the combined box office total of the 5 nominees was down 41% from the average of totals from the last ten years. The writers then conjectured why that might be. Maybe, they posited, America just had "tearjerker" fatigue. Maybe. And maybe the writers of the USA Today have no clue as to what they are talking about. Maybe the incredibly obvious is true and Hollywood continues to produce and to honor films that are out of sync with the values of middle America. You think?

By snubbing the Passion in it's nominations for best picture, best actor, and best director Hollywood has made a clear statement to those of us who cared about that movie. The statement is that our values are different. We don't care about what you care about. We don't value what you value. That's fine. Make that statement. You're entitled. But I don't have to support you or your product with my money. I hope your proud of your statement, and your 41% pay cut that is a clear result.

So, here we are. The big event is less than 24 hours away. Hollywood is tuning up it's tuxes and dresses and statues. And for the first time in my 44 year old memory, I won't be watching. I'll probably be watching my newly purchased DVD version of "The Passion of the Christ".

Oscar snubbed me. I'm snubbing him back.