The Oscars Vs. Weddings

The Case For The Oscars

Some might ask, "Why are you qualified to judge the relative essentiality of the Oscars and weddings? After all, have you ever won an Oscar?" (No.) "Have you ever been married?" (No.) "Have you been to the Oscars?" (Only through the magic TV box.) "Have you been to a wedding?" (Yes. Lots.)

But I'm not judging the merits of these two events as institutions. I'm judging them as experiences. And I've experienced lots of Oscar ceremonies (if not as a primary participant) and lots of weddings (if not as a primary participant).

The case for the Oscars is this: the Oscars are...well, the Oscars of show business. They are an event so huge that other industries steal them to make their events sound better. ("The National Home Heating Convention is the Oscars of home heating!")

There's a reason that no one ever says, "The National Home Heating Convention is the Grammys of home heating," because what would that mean? The convention is confusing, irrelevant, and interrupted in the middle by a long, scolding plea not to steal your neighbor's heating oil?

But everyone knows what the Oscars mean. Garishness. Drama. Ludicrous over-the-topiness. And don't we all need some ludicrous over-the-topiness in our lives?

Sure, you gripe, you whine, you complain about the nominations, you throw balled-up handfuls of wet toilet paper at the TV whenever a presenter shows up in a hideous dress. (You don't? You should try it. It's fun. And easy to clean off the screen later.) Sure, the Oscars are usually wrong and frequently irritating and almost always way, way too long. Sure, the hosting gig eats funny people alive, and forces unfunny people into your homes for four excruciating hours. (Think of all the time you've spent listening to Whoopi Goldberg that you would never have had to spend listening to Whoopi Goldberg if there was no such thing as the Oscars.)

But can you really live without them? Or, rather, would you really banish them instead of weddings? After all, what have weddings got going for them?

Well, since you asked...

The Case For Weddings

Here are the bad parts: the planning. The expense. The stress. The fights over whether you should invite your cousin from Sacramento, and does that mean inviting her husband, and their three kids, and if so, then you pretty much have to invite your soon-to-be-spouse's cousin from Albuquerque and his new wife and their two stepkids, and suddenly it's a quiet little wedding of 250 people.

Also: the cake. There's no such thing as a good wedding cake, unless you get your good friend the Excellent Baker to make it from scratch, as my sister did, and it was awesome, and the stuff of legend.

Also: no matter how much you say you're going to write your own vows and put your personal stamp on the ceremony and sidestep all the wedding clichés, you're going to play Pachelbel's Canon at some point. Because it's the law.

Also: unless you are the bride or the groom or an immediate family relation thereof, weddings are boring. They just are. Somewhere along the line they stopped being about everyone gathering in the town square at huge tables and eating bread and getting drunk like in The Godfather. Now they're more about sitting on hard pews in churches or synagogues or other houses of worship, watching someone you care about walk really slowly up the aisle in a dress she paid way too much for. Unless we're talking about a naked wedding on a cliff with bongo drums, in which case we should probably be comparing the essentiality of that to the Independent Spirit Awards.

And yet, when you lie withered on your death bed, it is virtually guaranteed that some of the dozen or so days of your life that you recall will be weddings, including, but not limited to, your own, or your sibling's, or your college roommate's, or your widowed parent's second go-round. And you're not going to remember a single Oscar telecast, not even the one at which Jack Palance did the push-ups on stage.

The Decision

Going into this, I would have said the Oscars -- that glorious pageant of absurdity and excess -- would easily beat out weddings, those glorious pageants of absurdity and excess. After all, one event is an excuse to dress up and get together with loved ones and drink and mock people's clothing a half-dozen times in a lifetime, while the other is the same thing, except every year, in the comfort of your home, with occasional appearances by Céline Dion. (And that said, I will remember her backwards tux on my death bed. Especially because it will be the outfit worn by all the angels in heaven, beckoning me home.)

But there are so many awards shows now that, I think, we could live without the Oscars. We could probably do quite nicely with just the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards. Maybe throw the BAFTAs on prime time.

Moreover, it's hard for me to look back on the three or four meaningful weddings I've been to in my life -- which range from my sister's lovely ceremony in a stone church in upstate New York to my brother's simple but elegant wedding to his partner at Toronto's City Hall, followed by a Godfather-esque feast with excellent wine -- and think that, all things considered, I'd chuck all that in favor of spending that last cold half-hour, as the clock creeps from 12:30 to 1 AM, watching Steve Martin plod toward Best Picture and praying for a merciful death.

Then again, Jon Stewart's hosting this year, so maybe ask again on March 6th.

The Winner

Weddings