I'll be in my pajamas early this evening but I'm prepared for the inevitable exhaustion tomorrow. I'll be staying up late for the Academy Awards and I won't be alone. The Oscar ceremony is one of the highest-rated entertainment shows of the year.
Why such a big audience? Well, we live in an awards culture in which everyone seems to judge or be judged, and Academy Award night is the time to revel in judgment. From the purely cosmetic to the politically controversial, every kind of statement will be made — and heavily critiqued.
You can join in. Make your self a set of Olympic-style score cards and rate everything: the hair, the dresses and of course, the acceptance speeches. This year the producer has promised to not push long-winded stars off the stage so we can expect to hear good, bad and ugly thank-you speeches. I always hope for tears, prayers and peace signs. It's part of the show.
The Academy Awards is a show about shows. Part of the appeal is that this is one of the last remaining experiences of live television. There are few of us who remember when most television was live and how that offered the creativity that comes with spontaneity, improvisation, accident and recovery.
I know some people like to pretend they're too smart to watch the Oscars or that it's "Culture-Lite" — too many celebrities. I don't agree. As Yogi Berra taught us, "You can see a lot by watching," and it's truer than ever when watching the Oscars. This is a television show about filmmaking, which underscores the ultimate state of our visual culture.
When this show about awards for filmmaking wins an Emmy award each year for making great TV, we have the paramount example of a recursive universe.
Yes, it is tempting to disdain movies as just entertainment, but movies, even bad ones, become part of us. They are what poems or plays were in the past: important sources of metaphor and imagery that we draw on to define our world — and ourselves. Human beings are always making stories, so stories with pictures are even better.
Of course, the best movies are the ones in which we are the stars. Yes, I know you are in your own movie. I'm in mine too. No need to be embarrassed; most of us are watching and narrating our own story a lot of the time: "This is me shopping, this is me eating, this is me walking down the street." (Think "selfies.")
One of the reasons retailers — even outdoor shopping plazas — have piped-in music is to facilitate this "story of me" that we create in our heads. In the movie version of our lives we're always seen from our best side and we deserve whatever we see: the car, the dress, the gadget. Having that little soundtrack helps the fantasy along, and therefore the spending that goes with it.
We might suspect that with all of the new home entertainment technology, the movie business will shift to television and we'll simply stay home. But that ignores something older which still draws us to the movie theater. That is the ancient urge to come together with others in the dark to listen to stories. It is our need for stories — and the editing of our own story that comes together this Oscar night.
So add some rhinestones to your nicest PJ's. Serve up the snacks and scorecards and be prepared: What will you say if they call your name tonight?
Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. DianeOCameron@gmail.com.