James Franco: bad Oscar host or wise sage?

So much Oscar gossip, so little time.

If you didn’t watch, probably the most dramatic thing about the Oscars last Sunday (because nearly all of the winners were known in advance) was James Franco’s unbelievably lackluster performance, which even he predicted in this video he posted on Twitter. Not a half an hour into the ceremony, Franco was so out of it that Twitter and Facebook were inundated with questions about his sobriety. The main question being, is Franco high????

I have no idea if Franco was high, but I know he was not exactly into hosting the Oscars, which was the polar opposite of his co-host Anne Hathaway, who worked hard enough for the both of them. He was so not into that he didn’t even go to his own after-party, instead flying back east the same night.

I know Franco is going to school right now—studying to get his Ph.D. in literature (at Yale no less). And I remember a few weeks ago, he was on The Daily Show talking about his Oscar nomination, which had been announced that morning right before he’d gone to class. Stewart then asked if anyone in his class had congratulated him on the nom, and without even thinking about it, Franco said no. “No one said anything?” Stewart asked, skeptical, and Franco had to admit that his classmates at Yale couldn’t give a shit about the Oscars. (At least that’s how Franco read it, but it’s also possible they’re pretending not to care, which is what I really believe.)

I guess this brings me to my point—maybe Franco didn’t care about hosting the Oscars because he has bigger fish to fry—or if not bigger, then at least better. This is a guy with serious aspirations—he’s an actor (in three different venues—film, television, and daytime television), a short story writer, a filmmaker, and a scholar. That might explain why getting dressed up in a thousand-dollar tux to go to the biggest party of the year to honor a bunch of people who are honored every day may not seem like a huge priority. Sure, Franco should have said no if he wasn’t going to do his best, but I can see why it wasn’t that important to him. Because in the big scheme of things, it just wasn’t that important.

Fun, yes. Important, no.

Which might be why Franco was at his best in the ridiculous skits in which he dressed up like Marilyn Monroe or donned the tights of a ballet dancer a la Black Swan. (By the way, if you ever feel bad about the way you look in a dress, just picture Franco as Monroe, who looked wonderfully absurd.)

As one Tweeter said Sunday night, “The Oscars are a pointless, trivial, gross popularity contest that rarely honors the true best of the year. I will be glued to the screen.” Maybe Franco is simply more in the former camp than the latter one.

Franco’s uninspired performance doesn’t directly relate to the topic of this blog, but in a tangential way it speaks to the same issue. That is, the issue that there are more important things in the world than how you look in a tight dress or how white your teeth are. On the red carpet the other night, Natalie Portman claimed that, though she likes attending these ceremonies, it’s the rest of us who are lucky because we get to sit at home and watch in our sweats. I have to say, Franco’s resurrection of his Pineapple Express character was pretty entertaining from my spot on the sofa, but I imagine it might have felt mighty awkward—even scary—from the seats of the Kodak theatre.

For years, I fantasized about going to the Oscars and still a part of me wants to go some day, but lately I’ve come to realize Portman’s point—it’s probably more fun to watch on the sofa than attend.

For that reason, I won’t join the hordes of Americans who are bemoaning Franco’s performance this week. Instead, I’ll thank him for reminding me that though watching the Oscars is a lot of fun, it’s also pretty darn silly and something none of us should take too awfully seriously.

Who's really being mean here?

Comedian Ricky Gervais (pictured above) hosted the Golden Globes Sunday night, and made some pretty cutting remarks about some of the biggest celebrities in the world.

Gervais started the night by saying, "'It's gonna be a night of partying and heavy drinking. Or as Charlie Sheen calls it: breakfast." Not long after that, he made fun of the fact that no one had seen the Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp movie, The Tourist, even though it was nominated for best comedy and implied that certain Scientologists are in the closet. As Time magazine explained, Gervais also "went on to call Bruce Willis 'Ashton Kutcher's dad,' introduced Robert Downey, Jr. by referencing his Internet porn flick, suggested that cast members of Sex and the City 2 were old enough to have appeared in Bonanza, and offered Hugh Hefner's fiancé some unsolicited advice: 'Just don't look at it.'"

And when he introduced Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, Gervais took a dig at Allen's fading star: "What can I say about our next two presenters? The first is an actor, producer, writer and director whose movies have grossed over 3.5 billion dollars at the box office. He's won two Academy Awards and three Golden Globes for his powerful and varied performances starring in such films as Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Castaway, Apollo 13 and Saving Private Ryan. The other is Tim Allen."

Almost immediately, critics everywhere were crying foul, claiming that Gervais had crossed a line and that his jokes were "mean-spirited." Even before the show while still on the air, Hanks and Allen kicked off the criticism of Gervais.

Hanks retorted: "You know, like many of you we recall back when Ricky Gervais was a slightly chubby but very kind comedian."

"Neither of which he is now," added Allen.

(Call me crazy, but I think calling Gervais chubby is a lot more mean-spirited than implying that Allen is not as successful as Hanks.)

But it did not matter that Hanks and Allen—and a few others like Robert Downey Jr.—got their chance to rebuke Gervais on live television because come Monday morning, almost everyone in the media was chastising Gervais for what they saw as his inappropriate and "corrosive" humor, speculating that he would never again be invited to host another awards show and simultaneously guaranteeing he'll be replaced by someone more polite and—you guessed it—bland and boring.

(Ironically, Gervais had said beforehand his goal was to not be invited back.)

The same thing happened a few years ago to Kathy Griffith when she made a joke on the red carpet about Dakota Fanning looking like she had just gotten out of rehab, and before her, Joan Rivers was famously fired for making fun of one too many celebrities on the red carpet.

Since Griffith and Rivers have been ousted from the awards-show circuit they have been replaced not by other comedians but by another, supposedly more benevolent creature: the entertainment reporter.

These are people—like Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic (pictured above)—whose job it is to cover entertainment news. In order to do their jobs well, they need to be able to get famous people from the film, television, and music industries to talk to them. What this means is that they spend a lot of time kissing some serious celebrity ass.

Seacrest especially is known for pretending that he is sexually attracted to the female stars he interviews, which is most of the time pretty uncomfortable to watch. The end result is that the red carpet has become a huge shmooze-fest in which entertainment reporters fall all over themselves trying to suck up to the hottest entertainers, which also makes it less interesting and entertaining to viewers.

But what I think the networks and media outlets are missing is that although Gervais may be more offensive to the Hollywood elite, it's people like Seacrest who pose the most danger to the rest of us. The most obvious annoyance is that we have to worry about the fact that our brains are eroded by the inane drivel of the entertainment reporter. But, much more importantly, we also have to live with the frightening norms they continue to espouse and how those norms shape us as a society.

The most obvious example is the entertainment reporter's obsession with what the stars are wearing and how they wear it. The commentary has gotten so refined that we now hear detailed analysis of the celebrity's looks while they are still on the carpet. My God, they even have a 360-degree camera for the stars to stand in (which I imagine causes them all to have nightmares akin to those the rest of us have over three-way department store mirrors) and special television markers they use to draw attention to details on the celebs dresses—as if their clothes need to be as closely examined as plays in a football game.

What does this teach us?

It teaches us that every second of every day we are being critiqued and evaluated and judged. It teaches us that even perfect looking, sculpted, and botoxed celebrities have flaws, making us wonder how on earth we can ever measure up.

But that's only the beginning.

Because not only do the entertainment reporters immediately break-down the stars' fashion choices and the day's beauty preparations (the earlier they begin getting ready, the better!), as of late they've also begun asking them about their workout regime. I noticed that on Sunday Seacrest asked numerous female celebrities about this—but noticeably none of their male counterparts—thereby reinforcing the notion that the most important thing about a woman is her body.

What was most interesting about this question was that the two women who played ballerinas in this year's Black Swan—Natalie Portman (pictured above) and Mila Kunis (pictured below)—admitted to having to work out five hours a day seven days a week to get in shape for that movie.

Let me repeat that. . .

Five hours a day.

Seven days a week.

I've long said that the reason regular women can't look like the women in Hollywood is because it is the job of these women to stay fit and that they exercise longer than anyone who has a real job or children can, and these comments prove it.

On the other end of the spectrum was Sofia Vergara (pictured below).

Vergara was arguably one of the curviest woman on the red carpet last Sunday night, and she said then that she works out "two or three times a week," but also wears those new toning sneakers. (Note to self: get yourself a pair of those damn shoes ASAP.)

So Vergara is working out a reasonable amount and has a rocking bod, but Portman and Kunis are basically living at the gym in order to have ballerina bodies. That ought to tell us that women aren't supposed to look like they do in Black Swan.

But, wait, it gets worse.

Because it's not enough to evaluate every inch of these women's bodies and demand the details of their beauty regimes and workout schedules (what will they do next—ask them if they vomited in a paper bag before they got out of the limo?), but they also have to have their self-confidence undermined while they're at it, as Mad Men's Elizabeth Moss (pictured below) did during her interivew with Seacrest.

When Seacrest asked Moss what she was up to in the off-season, she mentioned that she was doing a play in London with Keira Knightley. Immediately Seacrest acted like Moss had told him she was appearing in a show with God.

"Oh my God!" Seacrest wailed. "You're so lucky. She is so hot." (Or something like that.)

Not only did Seacrest reduce an incredibly talented actress like Knightly to someone who was merely "hot," he also managed to do so while implying to the incredibly talented and equally beautiful Moss that he didn't believe she was as hot as her co-star. No, he didn't say it, but we all know that's what he meant: She's so hot! And you're so . . . well . . . not. It honestly reminded me of those boys in high school who act interested in a regular-looking girl until they meet her hotter best friend. His response was that immature and superficial.

So no we don't have to worry about Seacrest insulting the luminaries the way Gervais did. His tongue (and those of other reporters like him) is so far up Angelina and Brad's ass that they're going to have to name their next child after him. But we do have to worry about him messing with our collective psyche and reinforcing the notion that what matters most in women—celebrities or otherwise—is how hot they are and how well their dress fits.

Bottom line: I'd take Gervais' "inappropriate" digs at celebrites over Seacrest's fuck-with-our-heads comments any day.

Of ballerinas and ball players

We went to see James L. Brooks' new film, How Do You Know?, the other night, and I have to say we really enjoyed it. So many "romantic comedies" have become ridiculously bad that it's nice to watch a movie about real people in real relationships for a change, and I appreciate Brooks for giving us that yet again. (If you don't know, he also made Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good as It Gets, and Spanglish.)

But, as much as I fear I'm starting to sound like a broken record, I have to say that I simply could not believe Reese Witherspoon's body. Honestly, she looked like a little girl, a fact made all the more apparent by her character's jockish wardrobe—she plays a softball player and spends some of the movie in little girl shorts, sandals, and t-shirt.

Her legs were so thin that they looked more like the legs of a ten-year-old than a thirty-something woman, and I found myself thinking back to supermodel Crystal Renn's admission that the goal for models is to have such skinny legs that there is a triangular space between them right below the . . . well, right below the triangle. And that's how Witherspoon's legs looked to me—too skinny to touch each other.

I wouldn't be so upset about Witherspoon's non-body if there were some other movie on the horizon that made me feel better about how women's bodies are being depicted in the current crop of holiday movies, but next up on our list is Black Swan, a film about two nearly anorexic ballerinas starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Needless to say, they both look skeletal and malnourished.

This is a far cry from last December when I wrote about Vera Farmiga's wonderful depiction of a real-sized woman in Up in the Air, and I worry that we're taking steps backward rather than forward.

I have been a movie lover all my life. Though I was a voracious reader as a child, it was really my love of film that made me want to be a writer. But when I continue to see Hollywood requiring its female actors to look like underweight girl-women, it makes me want to give up movie watching for good.

From one extreme to another

189 pounds

I've been lucky enough to see two movies this week—Precious and Brothers.

If you haven't heard, Precious is about a teenage girl (a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Gabby Sidibe) who is the victim of sexual, physical, and verbal abuse at the hands of her parents.

And Brothers is about a Marine (Tobey Maguire, also in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) coming home from Afghanistan after being presumed dead for months. In the wake of what they believe to be his death, his widow (played by Natalie Portman) and his brother (Jake Gyllenhall) form a close bond.

Both movies are outstanding, and I recommend them to everyone.

But what I want to talk about is the way these characters look.

At the beginning of Brothers, Maguire's character looks like a normal Marine—muscular and fit. But after spending months as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan, he returns home literally as gaunt and drawn as someone in a concentration camp, which was incredibly disturbing to see.

Not only does Maguire's character come home with a new body, he also comes home with post-traumatic stress disorder and some seriously disturbing issues because of what happened in Afghanistan. As a result, it is nearly impossible for him to be affectionate or intimate with his family. His character—malnourished to the point of being emaciated—looks like the walking dead, and when he lashes out at his confused and frightened children, it's hard not to dislike him despite what he's been through.

On the other end of the spectrum is Precious. Sidibe's portrayal of the movie's titular character is the exact opposite of Maguire's. Yes, like his character, Precious is haunted by a prolonged traumatic experience, but rather than become emaciated as a result of the abuse she suffers, Precious becomes obese. (A transformation which occurs before the movie begins and which the viewer only witnesses when the film flashes back to pictures from her childhood.)

But despite the abuse Precious has suffered, she has not turned into a monster who lashes out at everyone in her path. Instead, unlike Maguire's character, she is warm and giving, always looking for an opportunity for connection rather than shunning it the way he does. As a result, Precious is able to find others to help her deal with her issues in a way that Maguire's character is not.

In other words, the obese character is likeable, and the gaunt character is not.

I suppose this isn't really completely surprising given that overweight people have long been cast as the clown or the funny sidekick. Still, Precious is the MAIN character of the film, the protagonist.

And she's morbidly obese.

And everyone she meets adores her.

And the audience routes for her.

Did I mention she's severely obese?

So I can't help but wonder then if this depiction signals some kind of shift in our society. One of the goals of Precious, the movie, is to demonstrate that Precious, the character, is much more than a number on the scale, much more than her BMI. These things do not define her, nor do they determine how much people like or accept her. In fact, they have almost nothing to do with her interaction with others.

Before Precious, overweight people were a punchline, something to laugh at. But writer Sapphire and director Lee Daniels have given us a fully-drawn, complex character who just happens to be obese.

This raises the question, is it possible that our society is becoming more accepting of different kinds of body shapes? Are we finally learning that a small waistline does not determine a person's self-worth?

The answers to these questions must be yes because there is no way that their depiction of Precious—and Jim Sheridan's depiction of Maguire's Marine—doesn't demonstrate a change in our thinking. No, it seems obvious that with Precious, a clear shift has occurred. We are becoming a more tolerant society. We are accepting the fact that people—likeable people, interesting people—come in all shapes and sizes.

And I all can say is it's about freaking time!