{"id":2320,"date":"2019-02-21T14:06:57","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T19:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2019-02-21T14:06:57","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T19:06:57","slug":"preoccupied-with-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2019\/02\/21\/preoccupied-with-1989\/","title":{"rendered":"Preoccupied With 1989"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n<p>1989 was a bit of a surreal year \u2013 the Berlin Wall came\ndown, the Tiananmen Square protests gripped the world\u2026. And a hostless Academy\nAwards ceremony become infamous in the annals of Hollywood history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just like this year, the producers of the 1989 Oscars\nceremony failed to find a host for the event. This time around, the award\u2019s\nproducers are cutting, cutting, cutting. There won\u2019t be any performances of the\nBest Original Song nominees, three categories are being relegated to commercial\nbreaks\u2026 and the ceremony is still supposed to last over three hours. Presumably\ncutting the host means cutting the opening monologue, and the inane stunts in\nthe middle of the ceremony, right? Surely that leaves time for the actual\nawards and the songs? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps the producers are trying to avoid a repeat of the 1989 ceremony, which was\u2026 a disaster. A total, unmitigated, humiliating disaster that I can\u2019t believe didn\u2019t end Rob Lowe\u2019s career. The ceremony began with an opening number sung by Lowe and a campy, Disney-esque Snow White (Disney later sued for copyright infringement). This opening number\u2026 it\u2019s something. Lowe and the pale princess dance and scamper about with people dressed as tables and stars. Snow White sounds more like Lina Lamont than an angelic princesses. It\u2019s campy, but not glorious or self-aware campy. It\u2019s just cringey. I made it to 1:19 before I had to stop the video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The 11 minutes that ruined Hollywood producer Allan Carr&#039;s career forever\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9mronRVvdmw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It lasts <em>eleven and\na half minutes<\/em>. You think it\u2019s going to get better when Snow White leaves\nthe stage and is replaced by couples dancing the samba, but then Merv Griffin\nappears, and he starts singing \u201cI\u2019ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts.\u201d Then the\nwomen with huge coconut cocktails on their heads appear. And they start\ndancing. And there\u2019s a sparkly cowboy? Who just seems to be chilling on the\nstage? The whole thing is briefly redeemed by Cyd Charisse, but then Snow White\nis back? And Rob Lowe is her blind date? And they sing? And the tables dance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I fast forwarded from there and briefly resumed watching when there was suddenly a kick line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Really, it\u2019s not good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a second musical number later in the show. Don\u2019t\nsubject yourself to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the end of the broadcast, the show\u2019s producer, Allan\nCarr, would never work in Hollywood again\u2014even if he did draw a record number\nof viewers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what went wrong? Hollywood, and most of the viewing public, agreed that the ceremony was over the top and embarrassing. Seventeen former Oscar winners, including Julie Andrews and Gregory Peck, signed a letter condemning the ceremony as \u201can embarrassment to the Academy and the motion picture industry.\u201d The denizens of a hugely popular industry gathered to celebrate another year or artistry and skill, and Allan Carr and his musical review made a mockery of everything Hollywood wanted to take pride in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the Academy is facing similar problems as it did in the lead up to the 1989 ceremony. Viewership is flagging, and valid criticisms of the Academy (such as #OscarsSoWhite), highlight that Hollywood is disconnected from the people who watch its movies. It will be interesting to see how the ceremony attempts to woo that audience back, and if they\u2019ll repeat the same mistakes as 1989. <\/p>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1989 was a bit of a surreal year \u2013 the Berlin Wall came down, the Tiananmen Square protests gripped the world\u2026. And a hostless Academy Awards ceremony become infamous in the annals of Hollywood history. Just like this year, the producers of the 1989 Oscars ceremony failed to find a host for the event. This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academy-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}