The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was an invention of Louis B. Mayer. Mayer wasn’t an “artist.” Mayer was a businessman and the co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios. In the late 1920s, he recognized that unions would soon cut into his bottom line. To stave off the rise of unions in filmmaking, Mayer brought top producers, actors, and “Arts and Sciences” guys together and sweet-talked them into patting themselves on the back. It likely wasn't a hard sell. Actors love actors – particularly the one in the mirror.   

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was elected president. What was next? Actors needed a vehicle to publicly pat themselves on the back – so the Academy Awards was invented. The first back-patting event took place in 1929 in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel. It was a bit of an afterthought, but really a natural outgrowth of an industry that loves itself. Actors handing themselves trophies with an audience applauding was like handing heroin to an addict. Louis Mayer knew he had a winner. In "Lion of Hollywood," Mayer is quoted as saying:  

I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them. […] If I got them cups and awards they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created. 

The trophy was called “Oscar,” but it took a few years for the name to catch on. The name was officially adopted in 1939. Who came up with the name "Oscar" is disputed.    

I don’t remember what year I stopped watching the Oscars. I lost interest when it seemed the show was no longer entertainment or entertaining. I lost interest when it became a means of making political statements and when presenters and trophy winners spent their time lecturing the world. I lost further interest when films became a collection of hot garbage and storytelling was replaced with computer graphics.  

The Oscars have seen a slight increase in ratings over the last few years, but the decline in interest is pretty obvious. Maybe it’s because some truly awful films have not just been nominated for Best Picture but have won for Best Picture. "The Shape of Water" is a remarkably bad film, loved by all “artists” in the Academy. It won Best Picture in 2017. It featured a gay character who didn't need to be gay, but every award-winning movie must have a gay character. It's a rule. The government agent in the film is an evil knuckle-dragger, because America is mean and evil. A deaf woman falls in love with a fish-man that resembles the "Creature from the Black Lagoon."    

"Moonlight" won Best Picture in 2016. Its main character is a black gay guy. In 2018, "Green Book" won Best Picture. A main character in "Green Book" is a brilliant musician - also, a black gay guy.  

This year’s Academy Awards is teed up to be, as the kids say -“lit”. Maybe it should (metaphorically) be set on fire, but what I mean is that the environment is ripe for lots of speeches denouncing Trump, demanding a stop to repatriations. 

“Slava Ukraini” will be uttered ad nauseam. There will be pins-a-plenty for Ukraine. I’m tempted to watch this year’s show just to see how long it takes before someone mentions Ukraine and/or Trump. Two minutes - tops. 

Who will win Best Picture? I don’t care, but it seems the frontrunners are "Conclave," "The Brutalist," and "Anora."

"Conclave" is about a pope who is a chick pretending to be a man. "The Brutalist" has a gay main character who viciously rapes the protagonist, so, points against it because the gay guy is a vile human. But it’s allegorically anti-American; it's a "draw" on the pro/con virtue points scale. "Anora" glorifies/condones prostitution. The main characters are wholly unlikable, and the storytelling is a mess. The ending is ridiculous. It will probably win.  

Two months ago, the movie one would have assumed would sweep The Oscars fell somewhat out of favor. With 13 nominations, "Emilia Perez" got more nods than "West Side Story." The Academy loved it. It’s a French, Spanish-language, musical, crime film - adapted from an opera that was taken from a single chapter in a French novel. No wonder it's loved by the Academy.  

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The musical is about a Mexican cartel leader who is marked for death, so he “transitions” into a woman to avoid getting whacked. Although most audiences hated it (with a 16 percent Rotten Tomatoes viewer rating), critics and the Academy loved it. Why? Because it checked a whole lot of boxes. The lead is played by Karla Sofía Gascón. Gascón is a “person of color.” He's a biological man who pretends to be a chick in real life. His character is a man pretending to be a chick in his fake life. Ergo, the first transgender man to be nominated for best actress. The only box Gascón missed was being disabled. He was a shoe-in. Groundbreaking. Then the ground broke. 

Alas, Gascón will not win. He would have won but for his social media. He posted some anti-Islam comments, but the real coup de grâce was being critical of George Floyd. As my colleague Teri Christoph wrote: 

And, now, in a major plot twist, it seems that the Best Actress nominee has a history of posting politically-charged commentary on social media.

In a now-deleted social media post in Spanish, Gascón said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity that urgently needs to be cured.” In 2020, she called George Floyd a “drug addict swindler.” 

In another post, she took aim at the 2021 Oscars, saying, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”

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In Hollywood, being critical of Christianity is fine. But criticism of Islam is anathema. However, the kill shot was offering a bit of reality about Floyd. That was the end of Gascón’s Oscar run. Things you cannot do in Hollywood--criticize Islam or the patron saint of fentanyl. Doing both in Hollywood is like admitting to being a conservative. Would Gascón have thanked his surgeon? Alas, we will never know.  

Although the Oscars won’t have its first dude stealing a real woman’s trophy, plan on lots of anti-Trump, "Trump's a Nazi" rants and lots of “Slava Ukraini” fists in the air and Ukrainian flag lapel pins. Throw in some "Who is going to cut your lawn?" comments, and you have the 2025 Oscars.

I won't be watching.