I'm still reeling from the worst thing that ever happened at The Oscars
No, not that.
I’m not talking about The Slap. I’m not even talking about Green Book entering the Crash Pantheon of Movies We’re Already Embarrassed To Say Won Best Picture, Even As They’re Being Announced As Best Picture.
I’m talking about the 1989 Academy Awards “The Stars of Tomorrow” performance. (The thing really gets started 5 minutes and 30 seconds in, but feel free to start at the beginning for an appropriately grumpy introduction by Walter Matthau.)
Bob Hope and Lucille Ball (in her final public appearance, unmerciful gods) introduce the performance as “19 triple-threaters. Make a note of their names, now. You’re going to be hearing a lot from these kids.”
Some of these names are very familiar to this day - Patrick Dempsey! Blair Underwood!
Some of them are inextricably linked to their peak era - Corey Feldman…! Ricki Lake…!
And some of them are simply bewildering to the point that I wonder if the audience even knew who they were - Keith Coogan? Carrie Hamilton?
All told, out of the 19 triple-threaters I count 8 nepotism babies, 5 lesser-known siblings, 6 past or future stars, and (to date) 0 Oscar wins.
This performance really has everything a cringe comedy fan could ask for. Way too many high fives with awkwardly long wind-ups. Corey Feldman’s excruciatingly sloppy Michael Jackson impersonation. Patrick Dempsey’s deeply odd voice acting decision, not to mention his soft shoe bit (if you know Savion Glover is gonna be there, why not just pack up your dancing shoes?). And a fucking sword fight!!
But I suspect what the Academy found most objectionable about this sweaty display was how much it revealed about Hollywood. Most of the speeches and montages at the Oscars reinforce the idea that movies are important, directors and writers are visionaries, and actors are glamorous heroes. The Stars of Tomorrow performance says, “Nah, fuck all that.” It exposed Hollywood for what it is - a lot of anxious theatre kids who wanted the glitzy spotlight of the movies rather than the dusty prestige of, say, the theatre.
It’s like when Melissa Leo’s self-financed Oscar campaign was so naked and camp that people outside of the industry caught wind of it. Nobody was supposed to know that actors even campaign for nominations or wins; it’s supposed to be a meritocracy. Nobody is supposed to know that A-list actors are sloppy weirdos.
Several Academy members wrote an open letter denouncing the entire 1989 Oscars as an “embarrassment.” That’s how committed these people are to their image of being glittering and important. Nobody’s writing open letters about known abusers winning Oscars. Perhaps because the art these abusers created is too tightly bound to the Academy’s view of itself as indispensable artists. But the Stars of Tomorrow wasn’t art. It was a flop.
The Oscars have been waning in relevance for seemingly my entire life (I was born 16 months before this performance), but that hasn’t made the Academy any less precious about its perceived reputation. This feels true about most social institutions who refuse to acknowledge their impending extinction, but instead lash out at the people who call attention to it, inadvertently or otherwise. All of this to say: pay attention to the narratives an institution projects or rejects about itself, and be skeptical of all of them.
There’s also nowhere else for me to say this, but let’s please give Melora Hardin aka Jan Levinson aka Jacqueline Carlyle her flowers for her exquisite extension and turnout:
