The year was 1986, the Oscars were coming up, and Cher had been snubbed for her role in the movie “Mask.”
She had not received the nomination for Best Actress, despite critical acclaim around her performance. Instead, she had been asked to present the award for Best Supporting Actor.... Mackie, in a 2008 interview... recalled telling Cher: “You can’t wear this to the Academy Awards. You’re giving an award — you’re going to upstage whoever you give it to.’”
But Cher, he said, insisted: “She said, “Oh, they won’t mind, it’ll be OK.’”
Here she is, in what was experienced as extremely outré at the time, giving the Oscar to Don Ameche, who performed his acceptance in a traditional and highly dignified style that the actorly audience ate up:
Cher went on to win the Best Actress Oscar in 1988, and here's how she looked, once again dressed by Bob Mackie (whom you see on screen right after Paul Newman announces Cher as the winner):
"... performers like Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Mitzi Gaynor, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, RuPaul and, most memorably and enduringly, Cher — as well as an 11½-inch model named Barbie — died on Monday in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 87."
In 1971, the TV producers didn't know what to do with Sonny and Cher "but Mr. Mackie did. (He noted that she was built just like Ms. Burnett, a perfect size 6 with no cleavage: a human clothes hanger.) Their collaboration, first on 'The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,' which ran from 1971 to 1974, delighted television audiences and confounded the network’s censors, as Mr. Mackie bared more and more of Cher’s extraordinary physique in ever more outlandish getups."
I'm the original Cher fan, so I don't need to link to anything. I remember the first time I heard Cher — "I Got You Babe" on a radio station that only came in late at night, before the song had made the playlist on the New York City stations that dominated the airways during the day. I wrote the song title down.
BONUS: Arianna Grande takes the Macauley Culkin role in a "Home Alone" takeoff... and really looks the part:
ADDED: I watched that second video after posting it, and I just want to add that I don't think they'd have gone through with it if they hadn't already put so much money and effort into producing it. The idea of beginning with a lovely Christmas celebration and descending into mayhem calls to mind the Conan O'Brien Christmas party and its horrible aftermath.
"And then all of a sudden, it all started coming back, because the children were looking on the internet and seeing pictures of people dressed like that, and all of us, we started getting phone calls. So I'm like, okay!... I love it."
Here's Cher's memorable slap (or, I should say, slaps):
Don't try that at home and don't try it in public either. Now, you might wonder, what if the man doing the slapping sincerely believed he was helping? (That makes me think of the episode of "Loudermilk" where the main character gives someone the Heimlich maneuver and gets sued.)
Here's Grok's answer, if you are curious. Excerpt: "The 'hysterical slap' is a common cinematic device rooted in early 20th-century ideas about treating emotional distress (once labeled 'hysteria,' now recognized as conditions like panic attacks, anxiety, or dissociation). Physiologically, a slap might theoretically trigger a fight-or-flight response by activating the sympathetic nervous system, increasing alertness through hormone release (like adrenaline) and potentially interrupting a panic loop via surprise. However, this is unreliable and short-lived at best, often depicted in media for dramatic effect rather than accuracy. In practice, it can backfire by provoking aggression, deepening trauma, or shifting the person from emotional distress to physical pain or anger, making de-escalation harder."
ADDED: What are some other ways to deal with emotion that the movies might make you think are a good idea? Grok's answers: 1. Throw a drink in somebody's face to express anger, 2. Kiss someone suddenly to interrupt their verbal argument, 3. Keep pursuing your love object after she/he has turned you down, 4. Grab someone by the shoulders and shake them hard while yelling "Get a grip!" right in their face.
Basically, the movies are full of bad ideas!
IN THE COMMENTS: I'm being savaged for my failure to acknowledge "Airplane!"
Don't get me started on the topic of egg sandwich.
I was going to discuss Cher's use of the semicolon, but the quote is not from Cher's book. It's from an interview originally published in The London Times, so it's a British approach to punctuation, about which I've got nothing to say.
Did Cher dump on Bogdanovich before he died? Even if she didn't, I can't help siding with her against a man who would eat an egg sandwich in front of people who don't have the option to walk away. And the screaming... Have you ever seen anyone scream with egg in their mouth?
"She was 16 when she met the 11-years-older, mid-divorce Salvatore Phillip 'Sonny' Bono, who lied to her about being a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, and she moved into his apartment in exchange for cooking and cleaning — not sex, at first."
"... a trumpet, camera lenses, an upright piano, paints, a metronome, a clay maquette, a wooden anatomical reference model, vinyl albums, a framed photo, and most disturbingly (because they suggest destructive violence against children's toys, and against the child in all of us) a ceramic Angry Birds figure and a stack of rubber emoji balls" (from rogerebert.com):
Go to the link if you want to see the names of all those #1s in all the relevant decades.
I've always loved Cher, but for me that means the Cher of 1965 (and the Cher of "Moonstruck"). But if she wants to do a Christmas recording, it's pretty much the way I feel about Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album. Go ahead. Do what you want. You've earned it. And I will continue to avoid the annual avalanche of Christmas music.
Anyway, click if you like. It's Cher's #1 Christmas song:
"But you understand them as geometrical bodies, with solid angles and planes, and you know how to make them see wonderful things, and you can make music that drives them mad. You’ve got the character of Saturn and the spirit of Venus. Passion and desire, you give it to them under the counter. Your guidelines are simple, and you rule nothing out. Strip yourself bare and dance the sword dance, buck naked inside of a canvas tent, fenced in, where the town royalty, the top brass and leading citizens, bald as eggs throw their money down, sometimes their entire bankroll."
That's Bob, talking about — what songs did you think he was going to talk about? — "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves."
In the song the men of the town would lay their money down. But for Bob, they throw it down, those bastards. And they're all bald. As eggs. But they are understood as geometrical bodies, with solid angles and planes. You try doing that with an egg. Bob, he's a genius. He's like Picasso. He sees the angles and planes in what, for you, is ovoid.
Here's Rock making the joke, Will chuckling, and Jada not amused, and then Will striding onto the stage and hitting/"hitting" Rock:
At 0:42, I felt sure what I'd seen was a fake "Hollywood" punch. Rock stood planted in position and even leaned his face forward, then — it seemed — threw his head back after the seeming contact.
And Rock recovered so quickly, still smiling, and chattered out "Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me." But if it was scripted, would he have said "shit"? I haven't been watching the Oscars in recent years, but back in the days when I used to care enough to live-blog the hours-long show, I had the tag "fleeting expletives" to keep track of the litigation that arose after Cher's saying "fuck" at the 2002 Billboard awards activated the FCC. Who can even remember what the Supreme Court ultimately did about that threat to free speech?
But when Will Smith got back to his seat and proceeded to yell "Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth! Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth!" it was hard to believe it was scripted. But, as I said, I don't know where we are with fleeting expletives these days, and maybe we are right where it would be scripted precisely because it would create the illusion that it was unscripted.
Then Smith wins the best actor Oscar, and we get to listen to his speech, which give us another chance to assess the real-or-fakeness of the punch/"punch"/slap/"slap":
But if he's such a great actor — do we really still believe the stars who get the statuette are "great actors"? — he should be able to sell a scripted acceptance speech with faux-sincere lines about his being a "river of love" or some such nonsense and to cry seemingly real tears of apology.
What makes me think it was real is that it makes Smith look bad. He looked ugly yelling "Keep my wife's name out ya fucking mouth!" And he overshadowed his own winning of the Oscar. Why would anyone do that? The best explanation is that he lost his temper. But exactly why did he lose his temper? I think we'd need to know more about his relationship with his wife. Remember he was laughing at the joke, and she was looking grim. The camera wasn't on them continuously, but I imagine she said something to him or gave him a look that meant you'd better act now or you are not a man.
Finally, it's sad that the Smiths aren't proud of Jada's hair. She boldly shaves it down to almost nothing and that's a way of expressing great confidence in one's own beauty. I'm seeing some articles talking about her alopecia, but if you go to that link, you'll see she has a thin line of baldness across the top, and it's something that would be hidden if she didn't shave her head. She's highlighting the beauty of her face and the elegant structure of her head. She's not like those women in Chris Rock's movie who spend so much time at the hairdressers, use harsh chemicals, and cause so much importation of human hair from India.
Jada Pinkett Smith could have had any wig she wanted. To go to the Oscars with a shaved head is to make a strong statement that you think this is your best look. Chris Rock said she could play in a sequel to "G.I. Jane," which means she could play Demi Moore's iconic role. Demi Moore is famously beautiful.
The best response to the joke would have been an imperious smile that meant: Yes, I know I am beautiful. Not: My husband will now punch you in the nose!
When we were coming out of movie I saw beautiful Couple.He Was taking Her pic….She had flowers I said … can I take your Pic….Had my mask on so they didn’t Know Who I was. MAYBE Just a crazy woman.. THAT ME pic.twitter.com/M02p8I3tCk
"Pop music icon Cher was in Pakistan over the weekend to join a lonely elephant on his long-awaited journey to salvation. Kaavan, dubbed the world's loneliest elephant, finally escaped the meager confines of a zoo in Islamabad and was well on his way to a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia on Monday" (CBS News).
What is the carbon footprint of Cher's showy elephantarianism? There isn't one word about global warming in this lengthy article (which reads like a PR release from Cher's team).
And the only reference to the pandemic — which keeps you from galavanting around the globe — is to laud Cher for "Pulling it all off during a global pandemic." There were "unique challenges, but fortunately Kaavan's pre-flight COVID-19 test came back negative, and arrangements for a 30-day quarantine in Cambodia were in place."
Cher weighs in — that's all you need to know — at the 2020 I Will Vote Concert last night.
As New York Magazine explains, "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe" is an old song — Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg song from the 1943 film musical "Cabin in the Sky." Here's its original context — question whether there's a problem of racial appropriation — with the devastatingly sweet Ethel Waters:
Original lyrics: "It seems like/Happiness is just a thing called Joe/He's got a smile that makes the lilacs want to grow/He's got a way that makes the angels heave a sigh/When they see little Joe passing by..."
ADDED: The all-time greatest political rewrite of a song was Frank Sinatra's "High Hopes" for JFK:
Here's the original version, from Sinatra's own movie, "A Hole in the Head":
Cher and the Limits of Social Resources.FELT LIKE COWARD SINCE BACKING DOWN FROM BELIEFS.I DESPISE trump,&HIS LOATHSOME’SYCOPHANTS’.🔥2 GOOD 4 THEM,BUT CANT SAY MY CITY DOESNT STRUGGLE CAUSE IT DOES.’BOTH SIDES’ RIP U 2 SHREDS IF U DONT TOW
THEIR LINE.🙏🏻 https://t.co/5vKSp5WiZC
Ok,Last nite in 1st 2 songs, thing 1 fears”HAPPENED”😱.My Huge Headpiece Started Falling off🤯Felt it slipping BUT…The Show Must Go 🙄.THEN In my in-ears came Choppers voice”CHER RETURN 2DRESSING RM. EVERY1 WAS PANICKED.I 🤣. I LOOKED SO RIDICULOUS.😭IT WAS LIKE I❤️LUCY
That's from "Lucy Gets Into Pictures" (Season 4, Episode 18 of "I Love Lucy," where "Lucy gets a bit part in a movie, but has a problem with the costume").
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