There’s certainly a lot of commentary-worthy news going on these days but I’m still mulling over the Oscars. What I found disturbing was the choice of The Shape of Water for Best Picture. Reminiscent of the 1984 fantasy-romance, Splash, in which a young, handsome and horny Tom Hanks has an affair with a blonde bombshell mermaid swum by Daryl Hannah, Water features a mute girl who falls in love with a merman who resembles an even hornier monster from the 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon. It must be something in the water, I suppose, although I can’t imagine a post-coital aquatic cuddle in an oyster bed, even with a kelp coverlet. It just seemed silly. It was a little ironic, too, that the mute woman was played by a speaking actor unlike deaf actress Marlee Matlin’s 1986 Oscar for Best Actress in Children of a Lesser God for portraying a deaf character. Besides, I thought we had crossed the interspecies romance bridge decades (if not centuries) ago with the various reprises of Beauty and the Beast, innumerable seasons of TV sitcoms like “Bewitched” and its bro-mance spin-offs like “My Favorite Martian” and “Mister Ed.”
Meanwhile, a true love story of sensitive and sensual spring awakening, Call Me by Your Name went unrewarded. Giving it a Best Adapted Screenplay seemed to be a consolation prize rather than a real recognition. It’s sad. The subject is apparently still too uncomfortable and intimating to be celebrated. But, despite our aversion to embracing reality, it is certainly more a universal tale that finding love in an aquarium. And, we all went through it. I suppose some may have fallen for a flounder but, for most, first love was much more than a crush, it was an affirmation. Call Me by Your Name had that reality.
Then there were other Oscar winners like the guy who won for Best Performance by an Actor in a Fat Suit Portraying a Functional Alcoholic. I saw Darkest Hour and, for me, as a hobby historian, it sped by (although my companion at the screening didn’t think so). But I thrive on documentaries and docu-dramas. Still, I’m not sure imitating historical personalities quite deserves the honor of an Oscar. I saw Dunkirk, too (at the Avalon, so I didn’t get a lot of the dialogue but the explosions came through OK). Thanks to clever editing, this cinematic reprise of World War II was technically thrilling as an experience, but somehow, knowing how things turned out, it wasn’t nearly as riveting as, say, the quieter Call Me by Your Name. Besides, English Royal Navy Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh) often wore his hat askew, not in a jaunty way, but in an inattentive wardrobe way, a continuity distraction that, once noticed, never goes unnoticed and spoils any hope of convincing historicity.
I know there’s a range of criteria for the awards but with all the lofty talk of diversity and inclusion and #MeToo, one would have hoped for more socially conscious consideration. Perhaps it’s too much of a philosophical question, but why are we celebrating regurgitated fairytales and still denying human love, pure and simple?
