Ronald WanFrom the eye candy hosts to live updates and pictures available on the social networking tools, the Oscars is desperately finding ways for you to “like” them!
We have to love James Franco and Anne Hathaway (or Franaway, if you ask me) when they appear on television to billions of viewers worldwide at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards tomorrow. Judging from their constant stream of self-deprecating video spoofs and non-sequitur tweets, it’s clear they are hamming it up to attract younger viewers, who probably can’t tell the difference between Jacki Weaver and Annette Bening (hint: look at their hair and listen to their accents).
Just check out the newly released pre-Oscars video where Franaway go on an Oscars boot camp lifting Oscars trophies as weights, dashing from toilet breaks to stage, and speed reading from the teleprompters. Obviously, the duo is taking their hosting gigs very seriously.
In another comedic spot, Hathaway is seen singing ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’, mixing it up with the ‘Rump-Shaker’ rap. This is Hathaway at her Saturday Night Live best, a clear indication that the telecast is geared towards viewers weaned on TV shows like aforementioned SNL, Conan O’ Brien, 30 Rock, Tina Fey et al. In other words, the young adults in their 20s and 30s who are most pop culture savvy and the smartest armchair critics today.
Kudos to comedians Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin putting on a good show last year dressed in their suave tuxedos but the Oscars this year is doing its best to be more personal. The show’s campaign tagline ‘You’re Invited‘ appeals to every viewer that the awards is no longer stuffy and exclusive but open and embracing to all.
On its official website Oscar.com, viewers will get to watch additional footage of the awards show with cameras backstage and already given exclusive access to catch the pre-awards parties and listen in to the latest buzz. In addition, there will be Twitter and Facebook updates during the telecast (including our very own live tweets @theurbanwire).
It feels just like you’re in the party.
And having movie stars like Franaway to host the telecast is indeed a smart and calculated move to be all-inclusive, more personal (Franco is nominated for Best Actor and Hathaway has been a constant Oscars fixture) and draw in the crowd. You see, the stars will be compelled to make fun of their own colleagues sitting in the front row and seduce the audiences with their telegenic pouts and winks.
As the show producers suggest, this might just be the winning formula for the Oscars telecast to prosper. Mr Don Mischer, co-producer of the telecast, comments on the choice of hosts in The New York Times, “It was not as much about the drawing power as it was about this whole idea of passing the torch.”
Coupled with the star wattage of the hosts, including a recent revamp of the Best Picture category to include more crowd pleasers (Inception, Toy Story 3), the awards show might just pull in the headlines and ratings sorely missed in the past decade.
If not, we can always count on a Franaway wardrobe malfunction (either actor is fine).
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