A Very Modest Proposal To Fix Oscar Speeches

Oscar speeches. You hate them. Not only do they stink, but they aggressively stink. All that buildup to the Oscars, all the tension at the moment of opening the envelope and announcing the winner, and what is the payoff for you, the viewer? Some actor trying to remember a list.

People have bagged on Oscar speeches forever, but few have offered a constructive solution to help make them better. My initial proposal of giving every winner LSD right before the show was deemed impractical by many, though I still stand by it. OH MAN! THIS GOLD STATUE IS TRYING TO BITE MY EARRINGS OFF!!!

But I have another, more realistic proposal to fix these 90 seconds of gasbagging. If you’ve ever watched “Wheel of Fortune,” you know that, when they have the bonus round, the contestant is given six free letters to help solve the puzzle: R, S, T, L, N, E. It was not always this way. Way back when, you didn’t get those free letters before you got to pick four more. You simply got to choose five consonants and a vowel.

The problem was that every contestant, without fail, ended up picking R, S, T, L, N, and E anyway. It became so common that show producers were just like FORGET IT, JUST GIVE THEM THOSE STUPID LETTERS FREE. As so they did.

Well, Oscar speeches are in the same rut. There are a handful of people all winners have to thank, and they don’t vary all that much. Here is the list:

The Academy
Agent
Manager (like an agent, only more useless)
Producer
Director
Real Person Movie Was Based On
Cast Members
Head Of Studio
Mother
Father
Siblings
Spouse/Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Lover

That’s the list. Thank all these people individually and BOOM. Time is already up. Speech is wasted. This can be avoided. People, I am here to introduce you to the magical idea of… THE OSCAR SPEECH CRAWL.

Here’s how it works. Before the show, every nominee will be asked to fill out a form listing the names of the above dozen or so people, plus anyone else they would like to thank should they win. When they are announced as the winner of an Oscar, a crawl appears on the bottom of the screen saying SANDRA BULLOCK WOULD LIKE TO THANK… and then it would list everyone from the form.

Thus, winners never have to worry about forgetting people. They never have to take out a list at the podium. And, best of all, they are now free to ramble like idiots for a couple minutes about some liberal cause you don’t really care about. INSTANT OSCAR SPEECH IMPROVEMENT. Never again do I have to watch Hilary Swank treat the podium like she just won Marriott’s Female Executive Of The Year. No more winners fumbling like morons for their reading glasses (They’re glasses! Why do you not know how to operate them?). And no more time wasted thanking people you don’t know. They could even have your local forecast on the crawl. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Plus, you could have people who are offended at being relegated to the Oscar crawl, and not mentioned by name by the winners. And I like it when actors are offended by things.

So for Oscar 2011, I beseech the Academy to do the right thing. Install the Oscar speech crawl. Do it for the good of humanity. And please, get these stars some hallucinogens. They’re such dull people otherwise.

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