The Oscar Bowl

Here are a few of what I’m sure are unoriginal observations about Oscar night.  The Academy Awards has somehow evolved into the Super Bowl.  And, in general, the big football game is celebrated more by men, as the big movie night is more by women.

Consider the following…Men eat more at Super Bowl parties than we do at Thanksgiving, and we don’t even care what teams are playing.  We tell our friends, coworkers, and complete strangers about our planned grilling escapades for the game.  I’ve heard women plan appetizers for their Oscar night parties months in advance.

The commercials have become as big as the Super Bowl itself.  The good ones are talked about for weeks, and the best are talked about for years.  Similarly, the dresses worn at the awards show are scrutinized all night on Twitter, are the topic of water cooler discussion, and the “best” dresses are etched into the history books and People magazine.

To pretend we are all about football and therefore better than you, men try to commit to memory obscure sports facts.  Similarly, Oscars purists pretend they know all about and care deeply for obscure actors and films.

Super Bowl rings are given to players you wouldn’t recognize if they were wearing their jersey in front of you checking out at the grocery store.  Oscars are awarded for sound mixing.

The television networks have unnecessarily overloaded the Super Bowl with celebrities performing the halftime show, the national anthem, and anything else we can possibly get them to agree to do to try to broaden its appeal.  The Academy has allowed Seth McFarlane of the “We saw your boobs” fame to host.

The NFL has Ray Lewis.  The Academy has Roman Polanski.

This year at the Superbowl we had the awkward commentary trying to fill the silence left by a power outage.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVt0bXRmH9k) The red carpet coverage is just as poor on a yearly basis.

Regardless of which one you watch, you are supporting ridiculously rich people who think they are that much better than you.