Gee, you think producer Adam Shankman is hedging his bets on his precious Oscarcast (based on the song “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa) turning into ladies’ night? Given that he just added a slew of vanilla-flavored beefcake to his roster of presenters, the testosterone of which should make just about any typical Gay Super Bowl viewer’s heart skip a beat (Gerard Butler, Bradley Cooper, Tom Ford, Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Pine, Keanu Reeves, Ryan Reynolds, and Sam Worthington), odds are pretty good he’s aware of Kathryn Bigelow’s impending coup and is just preemptively trying to tip the scales back in favor of what Dlisted’s Michael K so lovingly refers to as “the peen.” Nice try, Mr. So You Think You Can Stage an Oscarcast Without Allowing Lauren Bacall to Accept Her Honorary Award. No matter how many male hip-hop dancers Shankman perches atop that glass ceiling, there’s no stopping Bigelow from breaking through it this year.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that her movie boasts more kinetic, tense action set pieces in its first hour than ex-husband James Cameron manages to insert into all three hours of Avatar. So, yes, the lip service the Academy now gets to pay toward gender parity in what has heretofore been Oscar’s most Promise Keeping category should go down a little easier than it would’ve had Jane Campion or Sofia Coppola not had the bad fortune to go up against, respectively, the Holocaust and a bunch of cute little gay trolls. (Heck, even the King of the World himself has issued statements ordering magnanimously suggesting Academy members throw their votes to Bigelow.)
The Oscars being the Oscars, self-fulfilling historic moments occasionally make sense in layman’s terms, and maybe we should all be grateful that this landmark award is coming on behalf of what is, wonder of wonders, one of the year’s best directed movies. Especially since history, in this sense, changes nothing, and it’s not like there are going to be other opportunities down the road for the Academy to throw trophies in the direction of the equally deserving Agnès Varda, Claire Denis, Lucrecia Martel, Lynne Ramsay, Kelly Reichardt, etc. Or Barbra Streisand.
Will Win: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Should Win: Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
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