Why I Don’t Worship the Oscars

You know something’s wrong with our culture when a young mother living in a posh town in Los Angeles County is ostracized on Oscar day just for living her life.

That mom was me. I had relocated, in 2000, to southern California from northern New Jersey with my young deaf son because of the area’s outstanding services for special needs kids. We loved the weather and the warm welcoming neighbors. They assured us we would not be treated differently from so-called native Californians.

“Virtually everyone in California is from somewhere else,” people told us. Whether or not that assurance was true became irrelevant for me on the day and night of the Oscars that year.

I never expected to be admonished for doing what Hollywood devotees considered a breach of all that was “holy.”

My 12-year-old son had no interest in watching the Academy Awards or following the progress of films or actors in which he had no interest. Since the Oscars were on a Sunday, he wanted to attend Mass as usual that day, followed by participating in a bake sale scheduled for late afternoon at our parish.

I still had to shop at a variety of stores to get what we needed to make scones and a loaf of sourdough bread. Yes, I was tardy that day! I was juggling so much — trying to meet my child’s needs, remaining faithful to my Roman Catholicism, working for a publisher on a deadline, running a household.

But I never expected to be admonished in public for doing what California’s Hollywood devotees considered a breach of all that was “holy.”

As I entered my first shop at about 10 a.m. that day for the baking ingredients I needed, there was just one cashier behind the counter — and no one else in the store. When I selected my items and went to pay for them, the young woman shook her head at me.

She fixed her eyes on me and said, “Have you lost your mind? Do you know what day this is?”

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Startled, I thought: It’s a holy day for me, but it must be an unholy one for you to be treating anyone this way.

I finished the transaction without saying anything. I just wanted to exit the place as soon as possible.

But this young cashier needed to instruct me further, apparently. She pointed at me with a perfectly manicured and polished index finger and said, “It’s the Oscars! You should be home getting ready. Everyone is already watching the festivities and supporting our heroes and heroines and role models for all of us and our children.”

I wish I could say this encounter was a solitary event. I was essentially hit with the same lecture at the next two stores.

The Oscars, for me, would never be the same. Growing up in New Jersey, my mother, sister and I had loved watching the awards each year, not for the personalities and films involved but for the fashions. My mom, as a seamstress, had loved to try to imitate the patterns and designs worn by the stars that she would see at each awards ceremony. We were always proud of her work and her efforts. The whole idea of it now soured for me.

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I dealt with what I had encountered by reminding myself of the following:

1.) There is no substitute for independent thinking. Some people may revere the Oscars for their glitz and glamour as one the most important events of the year. Not so for me. My son and I went our own way. I choose to be who I am rather than live vicariously through others, no matter their success or fame. And that day, the bake sale was a resounding success for the parish — and my son, whose scones got a blue ribbon.

2.) We need to burst the bubble of illusion. When “the party’s over” for the rich and famous — even for those who don’t take home an Oscar — these people are not left alone facing worries like the rest of us. They have money, possessions and “people” to take care of things for them. The rest of us have our lives to live with a fraction of the resources those people have. Yet we do so with dignity and with self-respect — and face our challenges head-on. My son and I were becoming experts by this time in facing challenges without any rationalizations to make us feel good. If my son came home from school bereft because his artwork had not been displayed as promised by an administrator, he took it on the chin — and we hung his paintings all over the house.

3.) Keep the meaning of “religion” very clear. My son defined it for me that day of the Oscars. He signed to me in ASL (American Sign Language), “I don’t get it, Mom. Jesus is the statue I would want to take home — not some naked-looking guy in gold.”

Out of the mouth of babes! His comments that day made me smile — and they still do.

The author, a retired attorney, is a published poet, writer, and columnist based in Arizona.