Cruising the blogs, the Oscar predictions seem to be less about what will win than about whether Chris Rock will outrage some section of America. I suspect the answer is yes, not because anything he'll say will be that harsh but because a certain segment of America now actively looks for ways to be outraged and to define Hollywood as some aberrant, elitist cult. Outrage can be a very useful political tool.
A few months ago, it looked like these people were hoping/expecting that Fahrenheit 9/11 would be nominated all over the place while The Passion of the Christ would get shut out. That would have enabled them to raise funds on the premise that "Hollywood" (whoever that is) hates religion but loves America-bashing. Never mind that a lot of very religious people hated the Mel Gibson film or that a lot of good citizens thought the Michael Moore documentary was highly patriotic. It still would have been a good, saleable bit of red state/blue state division, and the whole point of hyped outrage is to make one group of Americans hate another.
Unfortunately, the Academy voters screwed up that marketing plan by not nominating either film. I got a few feeble e-mails from folks trying to sell me on the concept that the absence of a Best Picture nomination for The Passion of the Christ proves that the elitists out here hate religion or Christians or traditional values or something of the sort…but the campaign was a half-hearted exercise. I only bothered to write back to one guy and point out that, first of all, those who cast ballots do not consult Barbra Streisand or one another and come up with one, simple reason for their votes. That presumption is one of the phoniest things about the Oscars…the post-vote simple reason for each win. Tomorrow, we'll hear that the voters picked Clint Eastwood for Best Director because they admired his choice of a non-commercial script…or maybe we'll hear that they went for Martin Scorsese in that category because they felt he's been overlooked for too long. They'll also talk like it was some sort of unanimous viewpoint even though for all we know, the winner may have only won by one vote.
There can be a hundred different motives why ballots go one way or another, just as everyone who voted for John Kerry didn't all have one particular message in mind. A lot of folks probably thought the Mel Gibson film was too violent to honor…or in some cases, even to see. Others may have simply felt not that it was something to be condemned but that it was only the sixth best movie of the year. Whatever the mindsets, it lost its potency as a topic to polarize Americans, helped on by the failure of the Academy to nominate Fahrenheit 9/11, and Mel Gibson's statements of fellowship with Michael Moore. So those who wish to generate outrage tonight are instead going to have to pick through Chris Rock's remarks, and also pray that some winner will say something controversial. They'll probably find what they need.
Maybe it'll be early in the show when Rock needs to prove that just because it's the Oscars and he's in a tux, he's still Chris Rock. Maybe it'll be later when we get some sort of line about how if the show runs any longer, they'll have to get Clint Eastwood up there to put it out of its misery. But the Academy Awards are of no use to these people unless they find some reason to act shocked and to condemn some seemingly-expressed value…so they will. Or, at least, they'll try.