Remember when the Oscars were entertaining?

By Aussiegirl

Interesting article, but I think the author is saying that the Oscars were boring because nothing outrageous or offensive happened due to conservative pressure from the Heartland. So -- we are to blame, I suppose, for the complete lack of talent and taste in Hollywood. Is the author saying that entertainment consists entirely of people either making fools of themselves or offending a majority of people, or that comedy is only funny if it makes you uncomfortable or uneasy? Remember when the Oscars were hosted by the great Bob Hope? Or the wonderful Johnny Carson? THAT was entertainment -- and no one was offended, and Hope's jokes and Johnny's were much funnier than anything we've seen in years from all these hip presenters, without making even one person uncomfortable. What the author seems to be implying that the level of entertainment has become so debased in this culture that we tune in to these events just to watch what amounts to a train wreck, and for the same reason people crane their necks at an accident -- morbid curiosity and a certain voyeuristic desire to see people make idiots of themselves.

The American Thinker

With those preliminaries safely out of the way, it seems fair to ask whether or not the Academy went too far to not offend its viewers.

After all, for years there has been a lot of talk about how out of touch Hollywood types are, and how this political and cultural divide becomes so apparent at these awards ceremonies that average Americans get turned off.

However, it is possible this desire for material that is acceptable to a majority of viewers will result in a truly stale, flat, and rather unentertaining spectacle not worth watching. To a large extent, that’s exactly what occurred Sunday evening.

[...] As a result, it appears that our zeal to eliminate all elements that could possibly be offensive has stripped out the last vestige of spontaneity that could make the event even remotely worth three and a half hours of our time.

In the end, it would be nice if we could somehow attain some kind of a balance in these proceedings so that all viewers would be pleased without being offended. After all, when the PC crowd ruled the day, we used to tell them to lighten up and rent a sense of humor.

Is it possible that some of us on the right need to take our own advice, and recognize that if we demand too sanitized a presentation, we’ll be absolutely bored to tears?