Oscars will grudgingly allow people to call in from Europe, they guess
After a year that’s seen the Hollywood Awards Machine struggle desperately to portray its participants as Glittering Gods, even as our collective desire to be Sweatpants Trolls has swept through film and television elites, one group has seemed most bullheadedly dedicated to keeping up the lie: The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences. Earlier this month, we reported on the Oscar-granting body’s efforts to keep up so-called “standards” by requiring attendees to this year’s show to show up in person, dress like fancy people, and talk about themselves in terms beyond their latest ideas for which snack chips to dip into what flavor goo to stave off existential ennui. Now, though, the Oscars producers—including director Steven Soderbergh—have relented on at least one of the realities of COVID-world, acknowledging that international attendees might not necessarily want to load themselves into metal tubes filled with aspirated spit in order to fly to Los Angeles to pick up a statue.