For its part, and despite its neutered (spayed?) title, Frozen’s loose adaptation of “The Snow Queen” plays as a consolidation of this bent, with a plotline centred above all on a sororal relationship—one that is furthermore presented as the surprise lynchpin to the film’s climax in a winking subversion of Disney’s hetero-romantic narrative tendencies. Love saves the day again, but this time it is familial, sisterly love. This, in conjunction with the supposed LGBT-friendliness of “Let it Go”—its central, Oscar-winning musical set-piece—has created some renewed popular interest in the role of gender politics in Disney films.

For a while now, Disney has been negotiating a compromise between some of the more regressive social values it has attached to itself, and the need to maintain cultural relevance and dissuade potentially harmful critique. Frozen maintains the princesses, Eurocentrism and cookie-cutter character design (look at those tiny women and huge men), but places less emphasis on idealised heteronormative pairing in order to highlight other modes of female characterisation. In the context of Hollywood, and Disney in particular, this is commendable. At the same time, it shouldn’t be taken in any way as if it is at the vanguard of media representation within these parameters. It is simply indicative of symptomatic shifts within an otherwise largely entrenched ideological core.

The extent of this entrenchedness is most visible when examining how more recent Disney fare treats modes of representation discursively detached from girlhood’s growing importance in Disney’s media profile. In Frozen itself, this may be seen in the construction of ethnic/cultural otherness implicit in the film’s troll characters. Magical, familial, communal, amiable, open and deferential to the film’s human characters, Frozen’s trolls fulfill a checklist of characteristics distinctive of subservient cultural others, particularly of the type that serve narratively to facilitate white people’s ability to love and understand each other better thanks to their intuitive wisdom and connection to the natural world. In the trolls’ case this is both symbolic and literal, with the characters themselves being composed of living rock. In terms of performance, this communal otherness is accentuated by the ways in which the trolls act as a collective unit, scrambling and speaking over each other, often in the evident voices of non-white performers —all supremely interested and supportive of the protagonist’s agenda and eager to play matchmakers for her.

This characterisation is all the more notable for the contrast it presents to the behaviour and attitudes that inform the basis of the film’s main interpersonal conflicts, all of which are centred on intra-familial secrecy and individual self-control and denial. Indeed, the main conflict of Frozen is possibly the whitest to ever happen in a Disney film, based as it is in problems predicated by a conception of whiteness that sees itself in opposition to the raucous, communal earthiness so often attributed to other cultures and ethnicities, particularly those of Black, Hispanic and Mediterranean heritage. Throughout such conflicts, whites overcome the trappings of their over-civilisation by balancing them with the subservient wisdom freely offered by cultural others. In perpetuating these narrative relationships, Disney in particular and Hollywood in general demonstrate how relative discursive progression in some areas (or freedom for interpretation, as in Let it Go’s adoption as a coming out anthem) comes with little regard for entrenched regressive values in others. While Disney’s female characters have begun ever so slightly to shed their role as satellites to male protagonists, other modes of otherness persist in much the same way as they have since Song of the South. It’s almost as if Disney’s perception of cultural otherness is immobile. Petrified or static, if you will.

This year’s theme may have been “Heroes in Hollywood,” whatever that means. But the narrative that formed around many of the night’s winners and their award campaigns was the film industry’s progress and diversity. Of course, this is not a new story either. It’s a narrative to which many would ask: progress for whom and diversity for what purpose? In 2006, George Clooney caught flak for toasting Hollywood’s liberalism during his Supporting Actor acceptance speech for Syriana. At the same ceremony, Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture to Crash. In addition, Paul Haggis’ film’s divisive win served as a misguided corrective to the unfortunate legacy of the 62^nd Academy Awards, which honored Driving Miss Daisy with Best Picture while denying a nomination for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. It’s a history which made me worry that 12 Years producer Brad Pitt was going to speak for the production as its predominantly black cast and crew took to the stage.

There is some credence to the Academy’s efforts to diversify who and what it chose to recognize. In addition to Cuarón, Sunday’s ceremony honored Robert Lopez and his wife and collaborator Kristen Anderson-Lopez with Best Song, for “Let It Go” from Frozen. The award also secured Lopez’s status as the youngest EGOT recipient, at 39. It also beat out Pharrell’s “Happy” from Despicable Me 2, though I’m confident that the producer will launch a successful EGOT campaign in time (I’d sign off on a Neptunes’ jukebox musical). The ceremony’s queer presence is still notable. Though I disagree with Dallas Buyers Club’s heteromasculine representation of the early phase of the AIDS epidemic, DeGeneres’ rocking multiple glittering tuxedos and serving penis jokes at Jonah Hill’s expense is still an exception on primetime network television.

Even though the screenplay was written by a white man, Spike Jonze’s Her advances fascinating ideas (and conversation) about gender, technology, and labor in a contemporary moment. Similar issues about the voice as a technology of gender and a site for labor come up in Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet From Stardom, a film about the professional contributions and legacies of predominantly African American female back-up singers. It won for Best Documentary Feature. It also resulted in my favorite musical performance, Darlene Love’s impromptu a cappella performance of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Finally, we cannot ignore that all of this activity is occurring under the leadership of Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the first black woman to serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

A pervasive attitude of many Oscar ceremonies was that certain films and talent should be given their due. This year, it was time to honor a film directed by a black British filmmaker and written by an African American screenwriter that boldly rewrites Hollywood slave narratives by eschewing an easy moralism that flatters white viewers. It was time to reward veteran actors and newcomers who represent marginalized identity groups and gave unforgettable performances. In this regard, many believed it was time for 12 Years to win, which it did for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress, for newcomer Lupita N’yongo’s cinematic debut.

N’yongo is a star. She is a sensitive, intelligent performer who has brought the same thoughtfulness and humanity to her Oscar and Essence Award acceptance speeches that she gave to her character, Patsey. She has the self-possession necessary to pull off intricate couture and a variety of hairstyles for her politically short hair. She has a sense for how the film industry operates, skills she acquired from her studies at the Yale Drama School, as well as her experience as a production assistant. She brings a sense of wonder and purposefulness to collaboration, which allows her work with Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Alfre Woodard, and Sarah Paulson to resonate and her perceptive comments and questions during The Hollywood Reporter’s actress roundtable to leave such an impression. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

I hope Hollywood recognizes that N’yongo is a star too. Giving her this award is a start. But women still struggle in an industry that doesn’t consistently create and finance films centered on complex female characters. This is a condition that Cate Blanchett challenged in her acceptance speech for Best Actress. Historically, the film industry gives even fewer opportunities to women of color. N’yongo followed 12 Years with Non-Stop, a thriller about a plane hijacking starring Liam Neeson. N’yongo plays a flight attendant with Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery. But I don’t want to just see N’yongo play flight attendants. I also don’t want to see her or her peers limited to exploring themes of subjugation and oppression from nations’ racist histories. I want Hollywood to explore the full range of her talents. If I were pitching projects, I’d rouse Steven Soderbergh from retirement to build an international spy caper around her with romantic intrigue, double agents, and sleek designer wear. I also want to know if she can switch between popcorn fare and Indiewood with the ease of someone Amy Adams, an actor unbound by genre or director who is overdue for her own statuette. Can N’yongo star in Her or a Muppet movie? I want to find out. I hope the film industry and the Academy do too.

I’ll be honest: I watched the Oscars live on Sunday, and though I found MacFarlane spectacularly unfunny, didn’t find a whole lot to be offended over.  So imagine my surprise upon waking up to a Facebook news feed full of proclamations that the host was not only unfunny, but misogynist and racist, to boot (In my defense, I appear to have missed several of the most egregious displays of sexism and racism while chatting with fellow partygoers and/or noshing).  There’s a lot of excellent reporting and analysis out there, so I won’t spend my space here recapping it (Two of my favorite pieces include this one from The New Yorker, and this from The Atlantic).  Throughout the day, I not only learned about the moments I’d missed, but entered into online discussions with folks far and wide about the controversy, and by mid-afternoon, came across several instances of backlash in which people defended MacFarlane’s right to make the jokes he wants to make, and accusations that those upset by the ordeal were overreacting.

For my money, Margaret Lyons’ Vulture piece offers the best response to this particular counter-critique:

Jeez, the song was a joke! Can’t you take a joke? Yes, I can take a joke. I can take a bunch! A thousand, 10,000, maybe even more! But after 30 or so years, this stuff doesn’t feel like joking. It’s dehumanizing and humiliating, and as if every single one of those jokes is an ostensibly gentler way of saying, “I don’t think you belong here.” All those little instances add up, grain of sand by grain of sand until I’m stranded in a desert of every “tits or GTFO” joke I’ve ever tried to ignore.

Lyons’ argument offers the jumping-off point for this post.  I’m not here to make any grand claims about whether MacFarlane was funny or within his rights as a comedian.  I’m not even here to argue that his jokes were sexist or racist, appropriate or inappropriate (Though I welcome thoughtful arguments on all sides in the comments, or as another Antenna post entirely!).  I’m here to make a plea that before we each go to our separate corners, carefully guarding and maintaining our own position on the controversy, we open ourselves up to the opportunity to interrogate what happened and consider what it reveals about comedy, about Hollywood, about society.  I would argue that MacFarlane is not so much the problem as a symptom. There’s a lot that’s problematic about Hollywood’s treatment of women, and it neither begins nor ends with MacFarlane OR the Oscars.  But if we stop identifying the symptoms, we stop thinking about the problem.  So let’s seize the moment and have conversations about these issues.  They’re incredibly complex, but absolutely worth taking seriously and unpacking.

Hegemony is pernicious because it relies on invisibility.  The system can only be maintained by convincing everyone that the way things are is the way they should be–that our beliefs, our existing social structures structures, our interactions are normal, and thus not worth interrogating.  Even for those of us personally and professionally committed to challenging ideological structures, normalization proves a difficult force to escape.  I confess that at the party I attended, a colleague said, “Man!  Does he think that by telling all the women how nice they look, he can get away with murder?” and I failed to see the brilliant critique that comment articulated.  Most of the time, most of us walk around without seeing the ideologies which guide our lives as constructed.

And that’s why moments when the machinations of hegemony are laid bare are so powerful.  For a few days after MacFarlane’s hosting gig, discourse has opened up around questions of patriarchy and the media’s role in perpetuating misogyny.  These moments when some of us are thinking, “Wait a minute…there’s something wrong here” and some are saying, “Oh come on.  It’s fine.  It’s normal” provide us with an opportunity to have conversations about the things we take for granted.  Take to Facebook, to Twitter, to the classroom, to coffee klatsches and have the conversation.

I admit that I didn’t necessarily expect this semester’s opportunity to unpack the relationship between media and ideology to come in the form of an awards show.  But I am spectacularly grateful that it did, and for the chance to open essential dialogue about these issues with my students, colleagues, friends, and family.  (And you!  Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments!)

The motif of Hollywood’s glory days comprised a large part of the Oscar discourse between the nominations and the awards ceremony, mostly centering on the multiple nominations and odds of winning for The Artist and Hugo (though there was also some discussion about Viola Davis in relation to the legacyandlegend of Hattie McDaniel’s Oscar experience).  Many heralded this year as indicative of Hollywood eating its own tail, creating an ouroboros of self-congratulation and nostalgia for the medium’s history. This claim was further supported by the LATimesinvestigation into the demographic composition of the Academy. The results were unsurprising: it’s mostly white men who were alive when cinema was still the dominant American entertainment form.  All of this led us to last night, an Oscar ceremony that seemed to hammer into the audience at home one clear message: “Movies are great, but they’re even better when experienced in a movie theater.  But don’t take our word for it; instead, take the word of thirty or so movie stars, a jaw-dropping Cirque du Soleil act, and a bevy of blue-silk-clad, leggy cigarette girls-cum-ushers who will entice you with free popcorn before the ad-break.”

Through Billy Crystal’s continual references to his eight other hosting gigs, the admittedly gorgeous art deco “movie palace” set design, and a decidedly skewed attention to pre-1990s films in its various salute-to-the-movies montages, this years Oscars felt like it was desperately seeking a halcyon past.  While this is often the case with the Oscars–perhaps more than any other major awards ceremony–this year posed a strongly economic undercurrent to that nostalgia.  It wasn’t as much about the movies from that bygone era but the mode of exhibition and patronage of the mass audience who treated a trip to the movies as a unique and desired cultural experience, and more importantly, who paid for that experience.

The Oscars have never seemed so baldly self-promotional to me before, which is perhaps why the irreverent moments–though few and far between–seemed all the more charming.  These moments make these awards shows the cultural events they are, drawing on the promise of liveness.  The Oscars broke out of the commercial shell (or at least acted enough like they were) when Octavia Spencer was so overcome at her win she could barely make it to the stage, when the winners for best editing didn’t try to fill in for their speechlessness and instead said thank you and “let’s get out of here” and did just that, when Emma Stone swayed onstage enticing,“Let’s dance. Let’s dance,” to convey her excitement, and when some wonderful audience plants shouted “Scorsese” during a Bridesmaids cast presentation, forcing Melissa McCarthy and Rose Byrne to pull mini-bottles of vodka from their decolletages and swig, per their SAGdrinkinggame.

1. With bookstores dying, chains and independents alike, many have great expectations for digitization. Thankfully, libraries might still matter in such a world, as indicated by Amazon making Kindle books available to libraries, even allowing you to make saveable margin notes and highlights. Amazon also has a Netflix-style e-book rental service in the works.

2. Amazon was also in the news for awful warehouse conditions, its Appstore quietly going international, and being targeted by new Internet retailer tax legislation in California. Cloud computing services are about to make the latter even more complicated. Also likely to get even more complicated is the Net Neutrality issue, which might see new rules go into effect on November 20, but those will likely be challenged in court. Meanwhile, we can all look at this cool infographic and lament that Eastern Europe and a lot of other countries are leaving the US in the dust when it comes to internet speeds.

3. You’ve heard all about Netflix’s rough times lately, but you may not have seen this handy chart of the company’s diving stock value or heard about its headquarters lawsuit. A possible future threat looms in the form of the studio-backed cloud service UltraViolet, which Wal-Mart might get on board with, while the indie world is watching SnagFilms and Prescreen with interest.

4. Oscar season might have more serious dramas in the mix, thanks especially to Sony, and it will also have some new publicity party rules, though those might mean nothing in the end. Serious drama of the non-fictional sort continues to play out in Iran, where the co-director of Jafar Panhi’s This is Not a Film has been arrested. The British apparently prefer serious drama on screen to real life, as a BFI report found that the British public considers cinema to be more worthy of their attention than world news.

5. DreamWorks might expand production into China, while Paramount is expanding in its own back yard. Stephen Spielberg regrets expanding digital effects for an earlier release of E.T. and says he won’t do it again, but you can plan to see (or not see) an expansive version of Top Gun in 3D, while James Cameron doesn’t think just anybody should be able to make films in 3D.

6. Nielsen released a comprehensive report on social media use, including a person-shaped infographic; with a mere silhouette stance, it clearly signifies hipster. (Bonus international social media use infographic!) It was only a little over five years that us hipsters started using Twitter, though it was called Twttr then (slogan: “If you have a cell and you can txt, you’ll never be bored again…E V E R!”). And now any hipster who wants to can join Google+; nearly 50 million already have (though according to my feed, only about five are regularly posting).

7. In Japan, the Tokyo Game Show was packed, but the Microsoft Kinect booth wasn’t. In the US, video game makers are enjoying big tax breaks, and GameFly professes not to be worried by Netflix’s move into video game distribution. And online, YouTube is a frequent destination for gamers, and online gamers might help to cure AIDS.

8. Spotify is now open for business to all Americans, but it’s also dealing with significant dissension and defection from indie labels over low royalty payments. Spotify argues it’s being fair, and you can compare for yourself via this handy primer on how much money a band earns from various outlets. The streaming competition is about to get even thicker; unfortunately, users seem to prefer ownership to streaming.

9. This headline deserves its own entry: “Actually, there really isn’t that much porn on the internet.”

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors (@N4TVM) post from the past two weeks: Lost History, Facebook and Social TV, Making the Daily Show, Blockbuster Streaming, Farewell to AMC, Louis on Louie, The V-Word, CBS Likes Reverse Comp, Top Chef Transmedia, Downton Breaks, Netflix & Qwikster, TV Changers, SpongeBob’s Effects, TV Everywhere Campaign. 

1. Theater owners have responded angrily to the studios’ premium VOD plans, with AMC Theaters issuing vague threats and some predicting theaters would curtail in-theater advertising for films with VOD deals, which one investment bank says gives theaters a leverage edge (a intriguing issue to debate), plus theaters now have James Cameron on their side. Meanwhile, theaters are turning to other forms of entertainment to fill seats, plus some better food, but they’re also saying goodbye to projectionists.

2. Dish Network bought Blockbuster, for some good reason, I’m sure. Redbox says research shows that discs will still be the dominant home media format at least until 2015 (seems possible that legal issues with streaming will still be mired in legal arguments then too), and Best Buy says the DVD rental delay has helped sales. MG Siegler argues that Blockbuster’s problem wasn’t the decline of physical media but resting on its laurels as Netflix invaded, a lesson even the biggest of companies today need to heed. Comcast must have read that, getting up on its haunches amid claims that Netflix dominates digital movie distribution, while some indie studios are getting wary of Netflix’s treatment of their films.

3. AOL has once again been unceremoniously awful to writers, this time in gutting Cinematical, thus bringing about the end of an era. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences says it’s starting a new era with a revamped executive structure, with former Film Independent head Dawn Hudson installed as CEO. And conservatives are yet again trying to forge their own era within Hollywood, but Hollywood’s just worried about targeting the mere 11% of us who attend movies frequently.

4. We were told Guitar Hero was dead; apparently it’s not, it’s only mostly dead. GameStop is trying to keep from dying by forging new digital distribution options, while EA Sports is enabling cloud-stored profiles for all of its games. Also new in gaming is an MTV videogame division for tie-ins with Spike and Comedy Central shows (Colbert-Stewart Mortal Kombat!) and an entry point into the Grammy Awards for videogame music, though Alejandro Quan-Madrid questions the implications of this change (and other Grammys changes are being decried). Finally, the FBI has its eyes on gaming fraud, shutting down three major poker websites with indictments and raiding a college student apartment over virtual currency fraud that might even tie in with terrorism.

5. Music labels and services continue to argue: Amazon insists its cloud service will pay off for labels (and Amazom is totally reputable these days); Spotify has put limits on its free music, which it will similarly have to do once it comes to the US any day now; and Google’s just about ready to give up altogether. Maybe Perry Farrell can save us all. Meanwhile, music sales haven’t been quite as terrible lately, and the bids for Warner Music suggest optimism, but stats showing that kids don’t like to pay for their music are surely cause for concern. Bonus link: a Nielsen study on global music consumption.

6. Internet advertising had a record year last year, and search marketing is expected to grow this year. Bing is claiming an increasing share of the search market (apparently taking away from Yahoo and not Google), while check-in services may decline in 2011. And Congress has plans to meddle with the internet, including on net neutrality, internet sales taxes, and privacy. Looking back, Reuters takes an in-depth look at where News Corp went wrong with MySpace.

7. YouTube draws in more viewers than Netflix, but Netflix keeps them there for longer, and Mark Cuban insists that Netflix is hurting YouTube. Google is thus reorganizing YouTube into more a of TV viewing experience, fostering live streaming partnerships, adding a stage for live performances, and supporting new-generation studios. YouTube is also getting all schoolteachery with copyright violators.

8. Fortune digs deeply into troubles at Twitter, and others agree the service is headed for trouble, but Twitter’s co-founder responds that this is just the press finally getting around to a predictable backlash, and changes are being made, plus Twitter is still growing. A serious competitor may be on the horizon, though.

9. We’re not done with the Winklevii yet, as the twins lost an appeal ruling but vow to keep fighting. That other guy is still going after Zuckerberg for Facebook ownership too. Facebook is ignoring all of this, too busy with counting its increasing ad revenue and forging ahead with apparent plans to conquer China, but Kai Lukoff says Facebook needs to heed lessons from MySpace’s China failure.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: AMC & OLTL Cancelled, Women Changing Habits, Univision Plans, Fox Threats, Genachowski Speeches, Oprah Finale Rates, Development Buzz, Cord Shaving, Comedy Central Profile, Cable Mistake, iPad Court Battle, TV Show Complaints, Beck Exiting, Mad Men on Netflix, Couric Leaving.

1. This one deserves a standalone entry of its very own: Cheezburger Network, the company behind LOLcats, just raised $30 million in its first round of venture capital funding, and earned an entry in the Taiwanese animated news as a result.

2. The Internet has gotten really, really big, so big that we’re running out of old-school IP addresses (but surely not LOLcats). It’s not so big that it can’t be turned off by an entire country, but big enough that there are even ways to get around that. After all, Mathew Ingram argues, it’s not the particular site you access that matters, it’s the power of the whole network that can help foster revolutions. Many are now wondering if the internet could be turned off in the US.

3. We worry about online privacy, but few of us do much to protect ourselves. Maybe if privacy policies were in the form of cool infographics, that would help out. Google is “helping out” by making it difficult for us to search for BitTorrent sites, but don’t worry, you can still search for “how to kidnap a child,” among other delights. But you have to work harder to find “Egypt” in China right now.

4. While Steve Jobs’ health situation prompted a stock dip, Apple is otherwise flying high financially, with record earnings, revenue success in China, and big iPad and iPod Touch sales. iPads are also making a mark on global PC market share, and even the Mac is gaining again. Playboy won’t be available as an iPad app now, but Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily iPad-only newspaper app will launch next week.

5. Outside of the item that kiosks for the first time now have higher market share than rental stores, the ancillary market movie news has pretty much just become Netflix news: Netflix is now the number 2 video subscription service (behind Comcast); it has topped 20 million subscribers, with growth driven lately by streaming; and Facebook integration is coming next, as are more aggressive studio content fights. But it’s not all puppies and rainbow streams for Netflix: Comcast could be gunning for it, sustaining its quality content and growth will be a challenge, Amazon just got a step ahead in Europe, and some instant-watch customers are annoyed at the removal of the DVD queue from their connected devices.

6. The King’s Speech is gaining major Oscar momentum, racking up PGA and DGA award wins, and such indie films (or sorta-indie films, if you’re picky about whose money is behind them) are enjoying more Academy love than the majors. But A.O. Scott castigates the Academy for not giving enough love to foreign cinema, thus curbing its momentum in the U.S. Meanwhile, the Hollywood’s non-award-worthy films are getting more love overseas than they are at home. Unfortunately, no one loves British film…well, except for The King’s Speech (a sorta-British film, Harvey?).

7. The best and worst of the Sundance Film Festival has been on display for the past ten days, and the award winners were announced last night, while last year’s Sundance standouts have made a significant Oscar nominations impact. The deal-making at Sundance went pretty well and even headed in some new directions, and Ted Hope left Sundance significantly buoyed about the future of indie cinema (which includes the return of Good Machine).

8. With albums selling so poorly, music executives being tossed around, and the future of digital music still uncertain, many new ideas are coming along: “instant” singles, a digital music awards show, more niche retail stores, 360-degree music videos, happily dismissing MySpace, and Spotify, which has finally closed its first US deal (with Sony) but is wary of Apple.

9. The Nintendo 3DS is now officially on its way, at the same time some see the PSP as on its way out. Many employees are on their way out at Disney Interactive, as that division shifts from console games to online and mobile ones, and that also doesn’t speak well of Epic Mickey. Disney should think about hiring the eighth grader who developed a game that topped Angry Birds, and how about some games with female protagonists?

10. Good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Done Deal, Egypt Coverage, Mobile Activities, The New NBCU, Ratings Primer, Hulu Future Options, Netflix Taking Aim, Twitter Feed, BBC Sitcom Debates, Olbermann’s Legacy, FCC Approves, WealthTV Sets Precedent, Golden TVeets.

These jabs contributed to what James Poniewozik describes as an almost roast-like atmosphere to Gervais’ second hosting gig, wherein the awards and the people who worship them came under attack; while there may be some of us who feel bad for the celebrities who felt the sting of the host’s wrath, it’s hard to feel bad for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They are Hollywood fetishists rather than Hollywood connoisseurs, enamored with the shiny and new, the star-studded, the zeitgeist-chasing, and whatever else will put together the most attractive, audience-drawing collection of people into the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

Every year, the Golden Globes give us a large collection of reasons to dismiss them entirely. The Tourist and Burlesque are perhaps the two most prominent examples on the film side this year, and Piper Perabo’s Lead Actress in a Drama Series nomination for USA Network’s Covert Affairs offers a similar bit of lunacy on the television side. While these may lead us to dismiss the awards as a sort of farcical celebration of celebrity excess, the fact remains that the Golden Globes hold considerable power within the industry.

It is a power that is more political than creative, with the Globes serving as a primary election of sorts ahead of the real honors being bestowed at the Academy Awards next month. Despite reports of bribes, and the clear incongruence between the HFPA and prevailing notions of quality and taste in regards to certain nominees, the awards are placed in such a way that they take on importance regardless of their dubious nature. Their legitimacy stems from studios looking for a way to propel themselves to an Oscar, and thus the Golden Globes are provided legitimacy they have not earned so as to help facilitate certain films/performers in their efforts to gain the earned (albeit fallible) legitimacy of the Academy Awards five weeks later – it was here, for example, that Sandra Bullock began her run to Oscar just last year, and The Social Network certainly seems well on its way to Oscar success in light of its victories for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score.

On the television side, however, there is no such linear notion of legitimacy for the HFPA to hang its hat on. The odd placement at the end of the calendar year differs from the Emmys’ adherence to the traditional September-May television season, and ends up creating races which could be completely different than the Emmys depending on how the Spring unfolds – the Emmys used to be given for the calendar years in the 1950s, but moved to the TV season after controversy surrounding Nanette Fabray winning an award for Caesar’s Hour in 1956 despite having left the show in the Spring of the previous year.

However, the legitimacy of the Golden Globes carries over from film to television thanks to the power of spectacle and their specific value to premium cable networks. In regards to spectacle, the awards offer an opportunity for networks to have their series featured alongside Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp, for their “television stars” to share screen time with real, live movie stars – it’s the kind of association that money can’t buy, and so from a purely promotional standpoint there is value in according a certain degree of legitimacy to the awards themselves so that the cast of Glee can all crowd onto the same stage as the cast of The Social Network.

For HBO and Showtime, meanwhile, that value is considerably higher. While broadcast and basic cable networks are looking for eyeballs, the premium cable outlets are looking for paying subscribers, and their substantial presence within the nominations is a key source of promotion. While this goes for all awards shows, with cable’s entry in the Emmys in the late 1980s helping to spark Cable’s expansion into original programming in the decades which followed, the Golden Globes are an outlet for Showtime and HBO to showcase the breadth of their lineups in order to convince viewers that there’s a reason to cough up $15 a month. Two wins for Boardwalk Empire, Best Drama Series and Best Actor in a Drama Series for Steve Buscemi, will certainly not hurt the chances of viewers considering picking up HBO in the near future, and Laura Linney’s victory for The Big C might make Globes viewers more likely to subcribe to Showtime when the series returns later this year.

In the end, though, the value of the Golden Globes very much depends on how we, as viewers, approach it. While it may carry certain weight for the studios and the networks, and the HFPA is not quite self-aware enough to realize that it isn’t just their host who considers them the butt of the joke, so long as viewers are aware of the artificial nature of its legitimacy it seems that there is a perverse pleasure in a celebration of all that is wrong with Hollywood.

And thus, perhaps, pleasure in watching Ricky Gervais call a spade a spade.

A poster from an earlier retransmission consent battle

Last Sunday was a double nail biter for Oscar enthusiasts who subscribed to Cablevision in the NYC metro area. Not only were they nervously awaiting the envelope (please) but were anxiously wondering whether they would receive the telecast at all. The 3.3 million Cablevision subscribers were the most recent victims of a retransmission consent dispute between a cable operator and the owner of a local broadcast TV station. A 1992 statute dictates that every three years a broadcast TV station must either decide whether to demand that their local cable system carry their signal without receiving compensation (called must-carry), or elect to negotiate some sort of compensation for carriage (called retransmission consent). In this case, WABC, the ABC network’s NYC affiliate, owned by the Disney Corporation, wanted Cablevision to pay Disney $1 per subscriber to carry WABC. Cablevision ran ads lambasting the greedy Disney Empire while Disney encouraged viewers to switch TV service to a satellite or telecom carrier. Early Sunday morning Disney pulled the plug on its WABC signal to Cablevision, prompting the parties to reach a tentative agreement, but not until 14 minutes into the Academy Awards broadcast when WABC’s Cablevision signal was restored.

One impetus for the must-carry and retransmission consent rules was the recognition that local broadcasting was in some way a public good — that the form of television that was locally produced and freely available for all who owned a television receiver was something worth preserving. Must-carry and retransmission consent were policies to ensure that local broadcasting would remain economically viable as cable and satellite forms of nationally distributed programming expanded – they were meant to provide local broadcasters with some measure of leverage in contract negotiations with cable operators. But when media conglomerates grew to own TV stations, broadcast networks, cable networks and other media properties, the must-carry/retransmission rules became tools for leveraging corporate power in carriage negotiations. In the 1990s, FOX used retransmission consent to get cable operators to carry its FX cable network, ABC did so to leverage ESPN2, and NBC leveraged CNBC. More recently, in addition to leveraging carriage of conglomerates’ non-broadcast networks, retransmission consent disputes have negotiated direct per subscriber fees for broadcast TV carriage. For example, FOX negotiated per subscriber fees for its owned and operated broadcast TV stations while other large multi-station groups, such as Sinclair, have obtained per subscriber payments for their broadcast stations as well. With more precedents for per subscriber fees for broadcast TV station carriage, cable and satellite operators have formed a group to lobby the FCC to arbitrate these disputes and prevent broadcasters from pulling their signals during contract negotiations.

But rather than push these public disputes behind closed doors, perhaps now that we, the subscribers, are in effect paying directly for local broadcast TV, perhaps we should have more say about programming decisions and corporate practices. If corporate conglomerates used the privilege of retransmission consent (a policy derived from the foundational principle that the airwaves are a public resource) to leverage their corporate interests in negotiations, why can’t we, the subscribers, use this policy to leverage our demands for more corporate transparency and voice in programming decisions.

Well, for inside-the-beltway folks this would be just silly. But we can imagine, and even begin to organize, a way to make these retransmission consent disputes more publicly relevant beyond missing Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin’s 14 minutes of opening shtick. As the next retransmission consent dispute inevitably looms (quite possibly to a neighborhood near you), perhaps what we need is a Retransmission Consent Awards Show that allows viewers to express their viewing desires and hold the conglomerates accountable for their corporate practices. Let the subscribers have a voice in terms of how their money is allocated, to decide which corporate entity is more worthy of compensation.

An Awards Show for this latest dispute would have subscribers vote for least egregious practices in compensating executives, or for records on labor relations, another for merchandising practices and perhaps one for campaign contributions. The Show might include dramatic reenactments of corporate activities, such as when Disney pressured the Harvard-affiliated Judge Baker Children’s Center to evict the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood after the advocacy group proved Disney’s Baby Einstein videos had no educational value and persuaded Disney to refund customers who purchased these videos. There might be a sports award that allowed viewers to comment on how Disney’s ESPN and the Dolan’s MSG franchises cover sports. I for one miss ESPN’s Playmakers, the scripted show that was critical of NFL culture and, likely, why it was short lived. I’ve also become a fan of women’s softball, but get tired of waiting until the Olympics to watch it on TV (which is no longer the case since softball was dropped from the 2012 games). Indeed, perhaps others would want more coverage of women’s sports in general from these conglomerates, especially given ESPN charges cable systems close to $4 per subscriber for carriage. Cable subscribers might also have something to say about how much their per subscriber fee for a local broadcast channel actually gets allocated to the local station, rather than to the station’s affiliated network or conglomerate. I watch local TV news in the morning (and indeed, studies show that local TV news is still the leading media source for news) and enjoy the weather reports and puff pieces on community events from dog shows to what not. But I would appreciate it if the station had more investigative personnel to cover city hall and local commerce — as I’m sure local news producers would like more resources to do so as well.

It’s our airwaves and increasingly our direct payments. What would other subscribers like to see exposed, talked about and shared in the coming retransmission disputes?

Ever since NBC first broadcast the Oscars in 1953, they have served as a sort of Authenticity Litmus Test. Massive star ‘meet-and-greets,’ whether telethons or awards shows, allow fans to see what appears to be the authentic and unmediated star: oh, look, here’s George Clooney, uncognizant of the camera, just hobnobbing around with buddy Matt Damon!  Of course, The Golden Globes presents itself as even less mediated; nevertheless, stunts like the direct address, tears, and blown-kisses of admiration between former co-stars and current nominees at this year’s awards facilitate the believe that the Oscars presents the ‘real’ actors behind the performances for which they are being honored.

But just because a star can act — or can attract attention to his/her personal life — doesn’t mean that she should be trusted with enlivening a 3.5 hour show.   Some stars, such as Robert Downey Jr., can spice up the most dour material; others (read: Cameron Diaz) can’t even read the teleprompter — or improvise when the teleprompter forgets to change the name of the presenter.

So when a star gets on stage, reads a prepared speech, either presenting or accepting an award, and fails to say something either poignant or hilarious, a little something dies inside the fan.  Unlike a star’s endearing ‘just like us’ moments featured in US Weekly, these banal Oscar flubs and speeches  simply make the star appear unworthy.  For example:  no matter how arduously the writers tried to make fun of Baldwin and his ‘authentic’ feelings of inadequacy…it still didn’t ring true, or even humorously.  I could see both Baldwin and Martin trying to squirm out of the bad-writing straightjackets they had been laced into, but I still felt that my belief in Baldwin as intrinsically funny was forever compromised.

And while some stars’ appearances seem to perfectly confirm their dominant images — I’m talking to you, Dude — they don’t necessarily engender elevated feelings of appreciation and devotion.   A pitch-perfect speech, on the other hand, can perform such heavy rhetorical lifting.  And, to my mind, the only person who did this last night — and did it in spades — was Robert Downey Jr.

Secondly, the stars aren’t dead, despite no small number of eulogies in recent years.  Granted, there will certainly be some interesting postmortem concerning what the triumph of The Hurt Locker — the smallest grossing Best Picture in history (and one that killed off its only ‘name’ actor in the first ten minute — says about the future of the industry.  As Roger Ebert tweeted to conclude the ceremony, “Shortest Oscar story in history: ( ! > $ )”  But while  The Hurt Locker‘s win affirms that the Academy itself still values embodied acting, shouldn’t Avatar’s ridiculous financial success indicate that expensive technology, rather than expensive stars, actually bring in the audiences?

Yes and no.  First, it’s no mistake that the three STARS of the Avatar — Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, and Sigourney Weaver — were all presenters at the awards.  Their faces, even if modified and blue, are essential to the heart and soul and success of that film, however ideologically repugnant you might find it.  While other directors posed with their actors in last month’s Vanity Fair, James Cameron was photographed with his massive camera.  It’s ironic, then, that following Avatar’s virtual shut-out, Cameron’s stars received far more stage time than he did.

Even more importantly, the two main contenders for Best Actress starred in FOUR big hits this year (Bullock in The Proposal and The Blind Side…and we’ll conveniently forget All About Steve; Streep in Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated).  Stars aren’t dead, then — they’re just working for less.  The $100 million paycheck that characterized Tom Cruise’s halcyon 1990s is gone.  But they stars still do draw audiences: see, for example, the behemoth $116 million opening weekend of Alice in Wonderland, a product presold via concept, director, and star.

This year’s Oscars attempted to bring aspects of Old Hollywood glamour back to the show.  To my mind — and I’m by no means alone, judging from the Twitter cacophony from last night — it was stilted, poorly edited, and embarrassingly written.  There was not a single shining moment, save the glorious win by Kathryn Bigelow.  There was no Brangelina; no Pitt Porn; no Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise or even Edward Pattinson.

But when Mo’Nique went backstage after accepting her award, she was asked about her choice of outfit: a blue dress and a gardenia in her hair.  Apparently she choose both because they were exactly what Hattie McDaniel had worn, nearly seventy years ago, when she became the first African-American to win an Academy Award.  Stars — and our memories of them, their presence and even their appearances on awards shows — matter, and the Academy Awards are a piquant reminder of why.

For a star’s triumph, coupled with residual goodwill affiliated with his or her image, can allow us to forget what she is being awarded for.  Was Jeff Bridges being awarded for his performance — or for being Jeff Bridges?  And what function did Sandra Bullock’s star image — that of the tremendously nice, likable, girl next door  — play in glossing over the parts of her winning performance, and the film in which it finds itself, that are so insidiously and quietly dangerous?  I love and am enthralled by stars, but find myself constantly reminding myself, and others, of the maxim at the very heart of star studies: stars embody ideologies, but they also mask their work.  The spectacle — of the awards themselves, of a dress — can distract us from the complex labor performed by the star image in propping up dominant understandings of race, sex, sexuality, and what it means to live in America today.

And finally: LiveTweeting the Oscars with a gaggle of media scholars was far more amusing than watching them.  Next year: join in!  And please share your own thoughts on the show — and the stars — below.