Where was Gollum? An Oscar Night Review

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Taken from Danish newspaper Politiken, written by Morten Sabroe (and translated by me, any crappy english is my fault!).

Where was Gollum?

He should have crabbed his way across the stage of the Kodak Theatre, sneered and simpered for the always harmless Billy Crystal, cast his greedy, almost insane look at the golden Oscar statues and in rapture have whispered, 'Precious, my precious!'

He should have been there to serve as a mirror for all the over-styled narcissists and demigods who in five weeks earn a hundred times more than normal mortals do in a lifetime, and who have come to be the only rolemodels our gollumized world has. But are we schizophrenic like Gollum?

By now, aren't our desires and longings only for the majestic picture that the unworriedly, unbelievably rich once a year rub shoulders in?

It's one hell of a group shot. We drop our jaws at the sight of so many millions of dollars. And quiveringly sit there waiting to see if one of them drops an upper lip, an ear, a nose or something else they've had glued, screwed, sewed on to stay eternally young.

Because that's what it is: A picture of immortality. When we look at all the great Hollywood stars, it seems impossible that they should die. Maybe they won't, because already today such a superstar body is hard to declare dead. Who can find Cher's pulse, and is that a heart beating behind the silicone, or is it because someone dropped an alarm clock into the product during surgery?

And what about all the Hollywood Hunks and Hotties who in a stream of uniformness glide down the red carpet in front of the Kodak Theatre? Are they battery-powered, do they run on regular or unleaded, or are they simply CGI?

In their attempts to keep death away and the career alive, many of them have injected pretty much anything pretty much anywhere, and what we saw sunday night might as well have been called The arrival of the Replicants.

But only a very few in the room attain immortality, and that is what the Oscars are about.

'Precious, my precious!', they whisper to themselves, for the golden statue has the same attraction to them as the Ring to Gollum. Only the few touch the gold and gain an immortality that is as cold as death itself.

Sean Penn, who for a long time stayed too good to attend the party, expressed a hope that he could learn to love it, but he will, if he is still Sean Penn, have a hard time saying that the day after tomorrow after staring himself blind on the empty gold.

Yes, Gollum should have been there. Not only as a mirror for the people who were in the room, but also for those of us who stare longingly through the windows. It's the same year after year. We get nothing back, not a thing.

Allesandra Stanley wrote in her review of the televised show in New York Times that it was a tame as an Academy Award show in the 1950s. The wildest thing that happened was when Owen Wilson outside the Kodak Theatre stared at tv-correspondent Maria Menounos' breasts - only poorly covered by a 2.5 million dollar diamond covered top - and asked, 'Are they real?'

In the Kodak Theatre nothing is real, not the breats, the buns, the noses or the feelings. Everything is fake and cold calculations, and that makes it strange that one of the most human things seen on screen in a long time, Gollum, wasn't there.

He should have gotten an Oscar. The argument that he wouldn't be eligible because he's part computer made doesn't hold, half of the people in the room were.

The show was delayed (censored) by five seconds for fear that someone would do something obscene. An absurd idea, because true obscenity has long been normalized by Hollywood. There isn't a set of teeth that haven't been bleeched, a pair of breasts not stuffed, an ass that wouldn't deflate should you stick a needle in it - and not a man over 55 who doesn't chew Viagra until he's blue in the face.

In Hollywood the only obscenity is normality. Overthere, noone would bat an eye if one of the colleagues springs a leak at next year's show. When Melanie Griffith is leaking Botox or sillicone until there's just a flab of skin in a $20,000 dress left, they'll pretend nothing happened and remove the dress in all haste. That's why I think Gollum should have gotten an Oscar. He's much more interesting, and he can't break.