Women and Oscars

The Academy Awards show is already old news, but I've been busy and I needed a rainy day to find the time to fiddle away on the frivolous. 

Because we had a soccer game Sunday afternoon, I recorded the Oscars and watched it delayed, fast forwarding through the commercials and some of the musical numbers. Most of the nominated songs seemed unlistenable to me. 

Of course the big awards are for best picture and actor and actress. Before we were interrupted by the Olympics, Tom and I saw six of the nine nominated movies. My favorites were Darkest Hour, The Post, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. We didn't like the winner, The Shape of Water, at all. What a strange, mixed up movie, but then that seems to be the trend for Best Picture these days.  Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill (Darkest Hour) and Frances McDormand as a cantankerous, grief stricken mother seeking justice (Three Billboards) certainly deserved to win. 

I guess the viewership for the Oscars show is way down again this year. I am hearing it billed as a self-congratulatory event for Hollywood, which I guess it is. The nominated  movies are hardly the big box offices hits, but then, like good literature, quality and popularity don't often go hand in hand. 

Many of us watch the show for the fashions, and here is where I have an issue. This year is supposedly all about the women.  Time's Up and Me Too campaigns have brought much needed attention to gender harassment and abuse. Women are speaking up and acting out and demanding changes. It's a good thing. So then why are women dressing like this?

 "Plunging necklines" were the trend. This was an example of Best Dressed! I thought she left off the front of her dress. 

With some you just worried that something was going to pop out and get loose. 

Between the neckline to the waist and the slit almost to the crotch, I guess it's nice that her arms are covered. 

I guess if the Greeks did it, we can too. 

And then there is This! OMG!

Women have breasts. That's not news. Men are attracted to women's breasts. That's not news either. If women don't want to be treated merely as sex objects, why do they act as if they do? Especially when every other speech was about not treating women that way. 

There were examples of decolletage with class. 

Facebook told me that today is International Women's Day. First of all I wonder that we still need a day? I personally claim every day. But then I am old and wise and, like Frances McDormand, a bit cantankerous, and I am no longer competing on the stage of life, trying to attract attention with my body. I have always preferred using my brain anyway.