February 4, 2005

Times FeatureMurry Frymer

An evening of prurient viewing

By Murry Frymer
Times Columnist

I watch the Academy Awards broadcast mostly to see the beautiful busty women in their extraordinarily expensive gowns. I think I would watch the show if everybody was just going to a rummage sale. It’s the women and their gowns, not the movies, which are the attraction.

For some reason, exhibiting oneself has become especially de rigueur these days. Does it have some sociological significance, or is it the show business rule to simply give the customers what they want? Even the interviewing gals have joined in the exhibitionist mindset. Cleavage confronts cleavage.

I also like to watch the guys who are chauffeuring these women around. The guys, who know they are the lesser of two sexes on this night, usually have a two-day beard, which is the style in Hollywood, a way of showing that you have to be just a wee bit removed from all the other guys in the world who shave for big occasions.

There are also some weird tuxedos, again to establish a bit more interest. But it doesn’t.

I once attended an Academy Awards show, and I was dumb enough to have shaved. But I did offer something that few other attendees did. I arrived in a beat-up Pinto wagon with a damaged passenger door that barely opened. I was, of course, making a statement. I was a newspaperman, not an actor. It’s like the statement Peter Falk makes in his detective series, “Columbo.” He dresses in an old, unkempt raincoat to differentiate himself from the rich men he is hunting. The rich men are the guilty ones.

To get back to the busty women, it is really a shame that we don’t have a whole lot more shows where we can watch them arriving somewhere, talking to Joan Rivers and her daughter and walking off backless. They really don’t have to compete for anything. Just arriving, looking gorgeous, walking away. Hurrah!

Most of us, sitting on our sofas in our suburban family rooms, live lives of boring uneventfulness. We click the channels looking for some cops blowing away some criminals, but after a while it loses its charge. The Academy Awards are different because this is a reality show—maybe the ultimate reality show—where the characters need no plot to interest us. Their figures are sculptured, their faces glowing, their gowns glittering and their smiles glorious. There’s not a loser in the bunch.

My biggest thrill when I went to the Oscars was getting on the elevator going up to our seats (we didn’t have the best seats.) The elevator was packed with pulchritude. I wanted to face backwards. I wanted the elevator to jam. It was the equivalent of winning an award.

I think the worst part of the whole Academy Awards show comes after I have enjoyed the presence of the beautiful people. When they win something, it is the process for them to show unbridled joy and then go to the microphone and speak. They should eliminate that part. None of these people sound as good as they look. They thank a whole lot of people that the viewing public does not know or care about. They wave the Oscar around.

I usually go to the refrigerator at that time. I wait for the next incomparable presenters who are dressed in gowns only a breath away from topless. That is the good part.

I could not tell you who won the Oscar for any particular performance in any particular year. But I do remember what some of the stars looked like. For most of us, it is the look rather than the award we covet. The fashion designers now get as much glory as the filmmakers, though, clearly, what they are designing follows the same precept: less is more.

To me it is the true America, the Beautiful. This is where America shines. And to think that in places like the Middle East, the norm is to cover the women from head to toe in black outfits that deny their identity. I would never watch an awards show produced over there.