Are the Oscars in danger?
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Lisa Napoli: The big news about the Academy Awards last night was that they happened at all. Just a few weeks ago, that wasn’t a clear bet. Another interesting thing about the show was when the host, Jon Stewart, whipped out an iPhone.
I asked a very hoarse David Carr of the New York Times if product placement had infiltrated the Oscars:
David Carr: You know what, none of us in the press room could really figure out whose ox was getting gored. It’s a very modern world we live in. The Oscars is generally the least modern of most places, so it was a little shocking to see it. I went up to Jon Stewart afterwards and talked to him about this show but absent tasering him into telling me the truth, I don’t know.
Napoli: What about the writers’ strike impact on what happened last night?
Carr: Well, it’ll take a lot more than a writers’ strike to convince Hollywood that they’re not the center of the universe. But one of the things that I think was apparent tonight, if you’ll notice in the acting categories, Lisa — four actors, all of them not Americans. The guys who won for directing a best picture, the Coens, have very little involvement with the whole Hollywood apparatus. So even those this event was conceived as a way to market and promote major studios, it was not a night when the big players got much attention.
Napoli: Right, right. And what do you make of that? What, does that say anything in the picture, is it just how it panned out this year?
Carr: You know, the Oscars is in danger of being sort of impugned on its own good taste. These are not big movies. I mean, Juno did business, but in general these are small movies that not a lot of people saw, and I think that’s got implications for studios going forward.
Napoli: David, thank you so much for your time, I hope you feel better.
Carr: All right, enjoy your night.
Napoli: That’s David Carr of the New York Times, whose voice was felled by an evening at the Oscars.
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