Oscar the Grinch

My Constant Reader (Hello!) knows that I have consistently derided the Oscar Awards as meaningless. Today the Oscar nominations for 2007 were announced, and once again, their meaninglessness was driven home by the simple fact that I, the most-beloved of all film actresses, was not nominated for anything.

Now I know that some people will cavil that I was not nominated simply because I was not in a movie last year, and indeed, have not appeared in a movie since 1969. Long, long ago, I might have accepted this argument, but the fact is that between the creation of the Oscars in 1928 and my retirement in 1969, I appeared in dozens of movies, and was never nominated for my work in any of them. The pattern is clear: the jealousy of today's Academy voters is as vicious as it was 79 years ago. I am being snubbed, like Dreamgirls. In fact, I am the original Dreamgirl. Am I supposed to believe that Helen Mirrin and Sir Judi Dench are better actresses than I simply because they can act?

(Actually, since I have Robert Altman's former heart beating beneath my breasts, and as he was generally believed to have directed from his heart, it could be argued that my heart has an honorary Oscar. However, the Altman Family have so far refused to hand it over to me, despite my heart being the sole part of Bobby that is still living. They even claim that, since his heart transplant was before the Academy gave him his award, that it was his new heart that won. This is clearly insane. Bob Newhart, genius though he is, has never even been nominated for an Oscar. Litigation is pending. I will not have my organs slighted, even my second-hand ones.)

And you quality freaks, who claim that my record of 79 consecutive years without a nomination reflects the lack of quality in my work, puh-lease. Wake up and smell the moonshine. Quality and Oscars, if not mutually exclusive, are certainly unrelated. Let's look at the record.

John Wayne won an Oscar.

Charleton Heston won an Oscar.

Joan Crawford won an Oscar.

Jane Wyman won an Oscar for a role for which she never even bothered to learn her lines. (That untalented hag Delores Delgado almost won this Oscar, but fortunately, I was presenting the award, and I had sense enough to rip up the card with the winner's name on it, and give the award to Miss Wyman instead. And that Wyman bitch has never even thanked me! The least she could have done would have been to invite me to the White House once or twice during her 8 years as First Lady. It would have been a refreshing change to have slept on Lincoln's bed. Abe always rendezvoused with me in my dressing room at Ford's Theater, though he stood me up the last time. Anyone know why? Barring a White House soiree, she could have given me a recurring guest role on Falcon Crest. Every other has-been she knew got guest roles. She even had Cesar Romero play one of her husbands. Now that took some acting! Was I ever married to Cesar, or did he just have an affair with one or more of my husbands? I can't recall.)

Steve Reeves was never even nominated for an Oscar.

In 1985, they didn't even bother giving Best Supporting actor to an actor. They gave it to one Haing S. Ngor, who was some kind of doctor, a chiropodist or podiatrist or something. They don't call the award "Best Supporting Proctologist," although many of it's winners have done some dilettante dabbling in the area, and all of them have worked under assholes.

Back during World War II, they gave Best Supporting Actor to my Japanese houseboy, Hisato. For Heaven's sake, he wasn't an actor; he was help!

The Greatest Show on Earth won Best Picture.

Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture.

Alfred Hitchcock never won Best Director.

Ray Harryhausen never won Best Special Effects.

In 1976, Logan's Run & the Dino Delaurentiis version of King Kong both won Best Special Effects.

In 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind did not.

The original King Kong did not.

Let's look at this year:

As everyone has pointed out, Dreamgirls was not nominated for Best Picture, despite having more nominations than any other movie.

Letters From Iwo Jima was nominated for Best Picture, the first foreign-language film so nominated since Olivier's Hamlet.

Clint Eastwood was nominated for Best Director for Letters From Iwo Jima. In 1944, we'd have shot him as a traitor.

Eddie Murphy was nominated for his work in Dreamgirls only to make up for being snubbed for The Nutty Professor.

Mark Wahlberg was nominated. The most impressive acting he's ever done turned out to be a prosthetic, back in Boogie Nights. Now that prosthetic was my idea of a Best Actor!

Jennifer Hudson was nominated for Best Actress. I thought America voted her off that movie. I think the TV movie of Fantasia Burrito's life showed us all who the True acting talent is.

Borat was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Excuse me? I loved Michael Richards's little home movie as much as I would any movie with giant close-ups of testicles, but the movie was improvised! Did those college boys sue him for showing them reading prewritten dialogue advocating slavery? Why didn't they just follow Bette Davis's example, and demand a rewrite? and just what the hell was it adapted from? The Borat novel? The Borat stageplay? The Borat T-shirt?

Further, writing nominations were given to Letters From Iwo Jima & Notes on a Scandal. Come on, letters, notes, and improv? How about screenplays? Admittedly, writing is The Least Important Aspect of a movie, but if you're going to have a nomination for "Best Screenplay," it should go to movies that have screenplays. I'd like to read the Borat screenplay.

The Most Important Aspect of a Movie is, obviously, Glamour! But are there Oscars for Best Glamour? No! If there were, I'd have more Oscars than Walt Disney.

Borat was not nominated for Best Documentary Feature. Talk about "Inconvenient Truths"! Maybe if Borat had been cheated out of his rightfully-elected Presidency by Republican Criminals on the Supreme Court (Talk about irony!) and blatant corruption and nepotism at the highest levels of the Florida State Government, the academy would show him some respect too.

Click & Apocalypto are both nominated for an Oscar. Does anyone on earth besides Mel Gibson and Adam Sandler want to see these movies advertised as "Oscar Winners"? Is Click anyone's idea of quality movie making?

Oscars! Feh! I spit on the Oscars.

Unless they ask me to present, of course.

Cheers darlings.