Writer Vixen Explains It All

Twittering the Oscars: Keeping It Real

Kathryn Bigelow and team collecting well-deserved awards for "The Hurt Locker." [Photo: Monica Almeda/The New York Times]

There may have been few surprises in the awards, but there was loads of heart.

Kathryn Bigelow was the dark horse favorite, with The Hurt Locker taking home awards for Best Picture and her award as the first woman ever to win for Best Director. 

She finally (finally!) got to trade in ex-husband James Cameron—who was himself the odds-on favorite for both awards—for an even smaller, far more powerful man with whom her name will now forever be associated. And one who doesn't talk to her. Which made her the big winner of the evening in every conceivable way. 

Presenting the Best Director award in a moment destined for Oscar clip history, Barbra Streisand prefaced the announcement with, "Well, the time has come." Babs is the queen of drama—not to be confused with the mere drama-queendom of lesser mortals.

Serving up a boring telecast even by Oscar standards, the real action—and most of the fun—was online where Twitter livened up the show with snarky and insightful commentary:

@kellyoxford So many ex wives feel good right now.

@BorowitzReport Kathryn Bigelow says she got the title "The Hurt Locker" from her marriage to James Cameron.

@rejects "I'm Queen of the World." - The only way Kathryn Bigelow's speech can end.

@jedgarlopez Poor James Cameron, he'll have to cry himself to sleep tonight in his bedsheets made of gold-plated hundred dollar bills.

The best headline came from @newyorkpost: 'Hurt Locker' leaves 'Avatar' Blue; Wins Best Picture.

Seizing the moment, The Women's Media Center—a nonprofit founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem ("Amplifying women's voices. Changing the conversation.")—leveraged Twitter-power for its fundraising. After congratulating Kathryn Bigelow, the organization tweeted:

@womensmediacntr Voice your support for women in film - text WOMEN to 50555 to donate $10 to Women's Media Center

Their message was retweeted by @Janefonda (natch) and dozens of other influencers, reaching hundreds of thousands of potential donors.

From left: Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Kathryn Bigelow, Elizabeth Banks [Photos: The New York Times]

In fashion, the classiest ladies wore silver. Except for the always-appropriate Sandra Bullock, who wore gold to match the guy she took home at the end of the evening. 

A long-time romcom favorite—and clearly an auditorium favorite—who's never before been nominated, Sandy accepted her Best Actress award for The Blind Side asking, "Did I really earn this, or did I just wear you all down?"

The Twitterverse had its own spin on this heartfelt moment:

@weareyourfek Come to think of it, bittersweet night for Keanu Reeves. His Speed co-star and Point Break director reminded him ... he'll never win an Oscar.

Jeff Bridges, Hollywood's hometown boy and the sentimental favorite to win Best Actor for Crazy Heart after a career filled with nominations and near-misses, didn't disappoint. His award brought the Academy to its feet for a raucous standing-O, and his tribute to his parents, whom he thanked for turning him on to a "groovy profession," had everyone reaching for Kleenex.

Except on Twitter:

@popcornreel This just in: Jeff Bridges has officially broken the record for saying "man" the most times in an Oscar acceptance speech.

@JamieKennedy How many people think jeff bridges smoked a lil medical before his speech...anyone?

@thecarpetbagger Jeff Bridges in press room, reflecting on career, immed makes a Lebowski ref: "Well, ups and downs - as the Dude says, strikes & gutters."

@aliarikan Please say "The Dude Abides." Please say "The Dude Abides." Please say "The Dude Abides."

@ebertchicago The Dude Aboded.

A big #OscarFail goes to the Academy for inexplicably omitting Farrah Fawcett from its memorial tribute. As Roger Ebert tweeted, "They have a whole lot of 'splaining to do."

Vanity Fair's Twitter reporters lent some unexpected perspective to the evening's glamour, a point-of-view usually absent from the pandering print pub:

@vanityfairmag The glamorous red-carpet interviewers spend the broadcast wearing overcoats, watching the show on flat-screens.

@vanityfairmag Shirley MacLaine jokingly asked the doorman, "What are we here for, the Writer's Guild Awards?" Close!

Summing up the awards, Twitterers irreverently nailed the zeigeist:

@tinadupuy The Academy Awards should not hand out Oscars for editing until they learn how to edit the Academy Awards.

@phil_rosenthal How come they don't rush through the Oscar credits like they do on every single movie that ever airs on TV?

@weareyourfek Oprah's about to tell everyone in the audience there's an Oscar under their seat.

Live-blogging Oscar, the biggest Oscar winner was clearly Roger Ebert, who graciously thanked the Academy and also remembered the little people:

@ebertchicago http://twitpic.com/17b5ry - I would like to thank the Academy for getting me 6,575 new followers on twitter. And my drama coach, of course.

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Twittering vixenish things @WriterVixen

The Updating Game

Best of Writer Vixen

By Gail Collins

This entertaining piece by the fabulous Op-Ed columnist Gail Collins ran in The New York Times on 8/28/09.

There was a time when people in search of a full and meaningful life were advised to start off each morning by telling themselves: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”

Now, we get up and hear: “Updates are ready for your computer.”

It’s depressing to realize that my computer is more bent on self-improvement than I am. At home, my laptop is so ready to update that it can barely be constrained. The other day, I found three different pleas floating around on the screen.

The “Dell Support Center Automatic Upgrade” was the most tempting since it sounded as if the computer wanted to give me a really good seat on a plane.

“Effective now,” the announcement continued, “these valuable messages are part of the new Dell Support Center. Dell needs to upgrade Dell Support without impeding system performance so that messages continue to be received.”

In other words, I need an upgrade so that I will better be able to receive more upgrade requests in the future. This is extremely important to my laptop, which is only offering me the response options of: More Details, Start Upgrade or Remind Me Later.

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Creativity & Dobby the House Elf

Best of Writer Vixen

Are you struggling for a scrap of inspiration? Feeling like you couldn’t write a grocery list, much less knock out a brief for that new campaign? Wondering why your creativity seems to have departed for sunnier climes without so much as a postcard? Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love has a theory about where you can find it.

In her funny and thought-provoking talk at the February TED conference in Santa Barbara, Gilbert takes us back to the ancient Greek and Roman idea of the artist’s muse—his “genius”—as something external to the artist himself. She explains, “They believed that a genius was a sort of magical divine entity who literally lived in the walls of an artist’s studio—kind of like Dobby the house elf—who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work and would shape the outcome of that work.”

And the artist’s role in the process was simply to show up, to be present for their work, and give it a chance to express itself.

The WaterStories Project

I don’t normally follow the legislative dance on Capitol Hill, but from the beginning I was riveted by Obama’s stimulus bill. Oh, not the ins and outs of economic recovery, mind you. Econ 101 is the only class I’ve ever failed, and my boyfriend was even the teaching assistant.  

Nope, it was the commitment to infrastructure. The minute I heard the phrase “infrastructure reinvestment” I perked right up.  Here’s something that even my closest friends probably don’t know about me: I’m a huge fan of infrastructure. Huge! Why? Because if you really want to create a better world, infrastructure is where you start.

Infrastructure’s not sexy. It’s not cuddly. No one’s ever going to hold a telethon for it. But infrastructure’s the key to everything else you may hope to accomplish in making the impoverished parts of the world better for those who live there. First you provide clean water and sanitation. Then you build roads, railways and air strips to provide access for personnel and supplies. Then you set up electricity and communications.

But it all starts with clean water. Water to drink, water to wash away sewage and disease, water to live.

(Macintosh) Apples Fall from the Cool Tree

Best of Writer Vixen: Originally posted July 2007

My friend Jennifer and I were recently dishing about our computers (Macintosh laptops and displays, of course) and our music players (various sizes and generations of iPods and ViPods, of course) when she suddenly lowered her voice and leaned in close as if revealing a deeply personal secret.

“You know what? I actually feel like the fact that I use Apple products makes me, well . . .”—she silently mouthed the word—better. She looked worried. “Do you think that’s wrong?”

She didn’t mean, of course, that they improve her character or uplift her spiritually. She meant that choosing Apple demonstrates her inherent superiority to those who choose other—let’s be honest, lesser—brands. And no, she’s not wrong.

There are Republicans and Democrats, right-to-lifers and pro-choicers, and, of course, the great blonds versus brunettes debate. But the real cultural divide of our time is between Apple devotees and all the other guys.