I know not to expect much from the Academy Awards.  I know that the Oscar
show is inevitably boring and long-winded.  I know that the nominations are
disappointing.  I know that, quite often, films that I don't think deserve
to win end up winning.  I know that we can expect self-important political
drivel from presenters and award winners [Gee, I wonder if Richard Gere
_was_ able to change Deng's mind about Tibet? :-)].  But this women if film
theme was such an extreme example of tokenism, half-hearted praise, and
hot air that I feel like I have to complain to SOMEONE about it and (lucky
you) Screen-L seemed like the logical place.
 
To get the obvious out of the way:  the Liza Minelli number was appalling.
Nobody said anything constructive about [tho' a few people mentioned the fact
that] 1992 was a _terrible_ year for women's roles in Hollywood films.  The
Whiggish story of women just getting stronger and stronger in the film industry
by working harder and harder is simply not the case [example:  in the feature
on editing before the award for best editing, the Academy mentioned that, at
first, editing was seen as menial work and, therefore, done mainly by
women.  But then, it became a profession in its own right.  What the Academy
failed to mention that as editing became a profession, men became a more
dominant part of the process.].  Barriers to women's entry into the film
industry take place at a far lower level than who gets an oscar nomination.
The PROBLEM is that there are so few women directors in Hollywood, NOT that
Penny Marshall and (ouch) Barbra Streisand aren't getting academy award
nominations. And the fact that the evenings theme music was "Thank Heaven
for Little Girls" bears mentioning, as well.
 
But there were serious, less obvious, problems with the presentation of
women and film at the Oscars.  Watching the film tribute to women in
Hollywood movies made me think of feminist film criticism a la Laura
Mulvey about the male gaze of the camera.  Usually, I take issue with such
criticism as too reductive, but scene after scene in this montage of women
in the movies involved women presented to the camera simply as objects of
voyeuristic fantasy.
 
Well, this note has grown long and I had intended it more to illicit other
responses to the Oscar show (and for that matter the awards, which I haven't
really mentioned) than to toot my own horn.  So I'll wrap this note up . . .
 
-- Ben Alpers
   Princeton University