“The [Oscar telecast] ratings are going to drop a bit more each year because the Oscar show reflects the cares and passions of industry-ites (filmmakers, distributors, academy members, press, web savants) who at least pretend to care about movies that emotionally engage or arouse or deliver insights about the human experience.
“Unfortunately, this is pretty much what the Gorilla Nation people in the malls — the ones who just want to watch stuff like Transformers or the Hannah Montana concert movie and who basically prefer films that provide surface thrills or happy-pill highs — do not want to see as a rule. (Although they will occasionally.)
“The only way a big audience will come back is if some movie version of a Barack Obama comes along, and that’s not very likely. The phenomenon of Titanic was the last time this happened. The Oscars can’t go home again because the homogenous America of the 20th century is pretty much gone. Except when something magical happens, and it returns.” — HE’s response to a query from L.A. Times staffer Deborah Netburn in a 2.27 article called “Can This Show Be Saved?”