The Oscars: Best Music (Song). This category has been PATHETIC lately. In fact, this category has had many shameful momets. “As Time Goes By” didn’t even get a nod in 1942. That’s ’cause it had been previously used in a 1931 Broadway Musical “Everybody’s Welcome”. (I’m sure you’re all familiar with that classic show that ran for a whopping 4 months). So, instead of that song, TEN other songs got nominations and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” took home the prize. “White Christmas” is a good song, but isn’t “As Time Goes By” the actual definition of a song that is indispensable to a movie, a song that changes the entire landscape of a film, a song that is so thoroughly part of the lives of the characters in the film, and so thoroughly part of the audience’s experience of the film that “Casablanca” wouldn’t really be “Casablanca” without it? Can anyone name a song that is more important to a film than “As Time Goes By”? I doubt it. And yet, we are supposed to believe that “White Christmas” is indispensable to what movie? Oh right, “Holiday Inn”. And, yes, that’s the actual name of the movie, not just the hotel chain it’s played in every Christmas. I know, the award is supposed to go to the best Original song. But, look what nonsense that has lead to… does anyone remember the integral role “Into the West” played in “The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King” (I have to confess that without that song, all of that walking, and fighting, and walking some more, really might have suffered– and people might have forgotten why everybody was walking). Or how about everybody’s favorite: “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” (that song gave me a whole new understanding of the layers of meaning that comprise “Hustle and Flow”, and it had a moral).

My point is that most years nobody has written a “Best Original Song”, they’ve written a “Worst Original Song”, and we really shouldn’t go giving them awards for their efforts. Of course it’s not entirely the songwriters’ fault that we suffer through five or more blood curdling songs a year on every Oscar broadcast (their just trying to make a dime); it’s mostly the thick directors who put these original songs in their films, despite having listened to the songs and presumably having listened to actual good music as well. “But it’s all objective” you might say, “Art is interpretive and it IS hard out here for a pimp.” First, thank you for allowing me to put those words in your mouth; and second, sometimes it IS objective and sometimes you just SUCK. I mean, if you are performing your song for the most self-congratulatory group of human beings on the planet, a group that would like nothing better than to stand up and cheer so that the camera will pan to them and over one billion less attractive people will see that botox, spray-on tan, and capped teeth really can look that good, and they don’t cry out for attention, then you, my friend, suck. You have managed to embarrass a group of people who have no shame– an award-worthy accomplishment, but not for the reasons one should be included in the category “Best Original Song”. So what’s the solution?

How about awarding the song that was best used within the cinematic language of the film, regardless of originality, but with an implied advantage towards original music. Academy members could be asked to first consider original songs and then consider commendable uses of non-original songs. That way if all the original songs stink, we aren’t forced to listen to terrible music at the Oscars. In case that idea is a “no-go”, my second suggestion is that the Marcel Marceau Mime Troup performs the songs of all future nominations. I hope the Academy is listening (clearly they’ve had cotton stuffed in their ears up until now)! ‘Till next time… peace!