EDITORIAL: Why Don't They Look? (3/24/98)

So I had the Oscars on last night. I don't know why, except that it was Monday, and I was killing time before "Daria" came on, and since they moved "Buffy", there's not a damn thing on Monday nights anyway, and Level 4 of Reboot (PSX) was giving me the plastic hassle, so there you go.

So the Oscars were on my TV, and Starship Troopers didn't win for special effects, so there may still be a God, and then they did this... thing.

It was one of those things people joke about being on awards shows, one of those things you would THINK they would realize just plain shouldn't be done. It was interpretive dance numbers set to the nominees for Best Score. And a nation collectively asks itself, "Why?"

I mean, the freaky stiff-leg scissor dance apparently representing "As Good As It Gets" was bad enough. Closing with a diaphonous babe on a big wire harness for "Anastasia" was bizarre. The guy and two girls running around the stage spastically for "My Best Friend's Wedding" was just creepy.

But the crowning achievement in lameness, the pinnacle of just plain wrongness, was the middle sequence involving six guys. Dressed in freaky purple suits. Representing "Full Monty" gadded about like dragonflies while three dancer understudies pretended to watch. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse . . .

Right about then, when your aesthetic sense is at the breaking point, the Full Monty guys rip off their clothes to reveal . . . more clothes. Men in Black suits, in fact. And to celebrate Danny Elfman's mediocre score to a mediocre movie, these six "agents" proceeded to do the single goofiest dance in the history of mankind.

Those of you who saw it know what I mean. Those of you who didn't can't possibly imagine. But one day, I just want to crawl in the head of that choreographer, that producer, that director, and figure out what exactly makes them say, "Yeah. Half of 'em squat, the other half point. We'll go with that."