Weekly Analysis #5

I feel that a current popular culture theme is the Annual Oscars event. This is a popular culture item because the people and events it represents are all integral to our popular culture. The Oscars just had their 82nd annual telecast which aired in place of numerous TV shows. There are several websites dedicated to them and a web search will turn up thousands of hits about the actors and actresses from the Oscars and what they won. If that was not enough, there were TV commercials for weeks before and news coverage before, during and after the Oscars. Even if you did not care what actress or actor did the best and what movie was the best, when you turned on your TV, you did not have a choice but to learn this information due to the saturation in the media.
To me the Oscars are nothing more than the fuel to the engine of the Cult of the Celebrity. The actors and actresses get to show the world that they are the best of the best in their chosen genre. From romances to actions and documentaries every genre has an award and every award will go out to the best, as all the world watches. The people across the world now have a real person to focus on for their favorite movie character. The Oscars are one more method to bring celebrity focus on our favorite and not so favorite actors and actresses. The question “Will Lindsay Lohan win an award, even though she did drugs?” is now more important after the news coverage of the incidents and the recovery events. The Oscars are more fuel for the engine, and more importantly show our youth that everybody makes mistakes and most recover from these mistakes.
The Oscars were originally designed in 1927 to bring attention to the movie industry by Louis Mayer (Leopold, n.d.). They have grown in popularity to have an estimated 39.9 million viewers last year (Leopold, n.d.). While that is not a huge amount of the population, it is large enough to justify the statement that they are indeed popular. I propose to you that the Oscars are as much a popular culture phenomenon as baseball because they bring attention to the people who are the source of the majority of our entertainment – movies. They are also forced upon us in a manner that brings attention to a majority of the population. Just because you don’t watch the Oscars, does not mean you don’t know about them. There for they are popular in our culture.
 
References
Leopold, T (n.d.) Does anyone care about the Oscars? Retrieved March 12, 1010 from CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/13/oscars.criticism/index.html