And the Oscar goes to
Sandra Bullock’s academy award win on Sunday came with the certainty of the red carpet itself. Her role in The Blind Side was, in every way, the equivelent of Julia Robert’s Oscar-winning performance in 2000′s Erin Brokovich: an adequate, if predictable portrayal of a stubborn woman, that involved dying one’s famous tresses from brown to blond.
There are some actresses, Sandy and Jules are two of them that have a likeability quotient that surpasses whatever talent they may have. Meg Ryan had this quality too until that nasty little affair with Russel Crow when they made the altogether forgettable movie, Proof of Life.
I liked The Blind Side in large part because it is a sweet story with a happy ending and there are far too few of those on screen and in real life.
But did Sandra Bullock deserve to win? Based on what was easily her best on-screen performance to date? Yes, though personally, she broke my heart in the film 28 Days. Based on other performances by nominees Gabourey Sidibe, Carey Mulligen, Meryl Streep and Dame (Damn!) Hellen Mirren? Nope. Not even close.
Gabourey Sidibe should have won and didn’t simply because the academy voters don’t believe that a fat, happy (by all deliberate and exhaustive accounts) black girl playing a fat, miserable one, consititutes “acting”.
If the academy didn’t believe that Sidibe is exuberant at more than 350lbs, then they likely questioned the authenticity of her performance as simply not being that difficult to pull off. To be that fat is to be that miserable…and therefore not as big a stretch to play miserable on screen.
In the land of before and after pictures, Hollywood loves transformative roles; Renee Zellweger was lauded for her (gasp) 20lb weight gain for Bridget Jones’s Diary and the lovely Charlize Theron was later awarded an Oscar for her role as doughy Aileen Wuronos in 2003′s Monster. In order for Sidibe’s performance to have been rewarded with a much-deserved Oscar,she would have had to have started out thin, gained 200lbs, and lost it in time for the fall press junkets.
Even so, it may have been difficult to trump Bullock’s likability.
And nice… matters.
If you don’t believe me, ask James Cameron. Consider that that his films, The Abyss, Titanic and Avatar, have moved the motion picture industry into new areas of development that didn’t exist until James Cameron made it so. Avatar is the equivalent of the Quadruple Axel and should have won Best Director and Best Picture no matter what metric the academy used to measure, but for one: James Cameron is a douchebag.
That Avatar didn’t win Best Picture and James Cameron didn’t win Best Director is less about The Hurt Locker being the superior film as it is that Cameron is an ego maniacal, philandering butt-head whose reputation for creative brilliance is eclipsed by his narcissism and cruelty.
I side with Howard Stern, Sidibe’s 15 minutes are ticking and nothing short of significant weight loss, preferably done front-and-center on a reality television show are going to shore up her options for more film work.
But Gabby seems to have the best of all things on her side: she is nice.
Maybe that will rub off on James Cameron before he starts work on the Avatar sequel.
Comments