Jack Valenti: Critics Just Don’t Get It

To read the critics’ assessment of the 67th annual Academy Awards show is to be besieged by the whines and grumbles of otherwise literate human beings who just don’t get it. Alas, most critics just don’t understand why there is an awards show.

The academy members, professionals all, vote a consensus of the best of creative explorations whose aim is to reach toward the highest point to which the creative spirit can soar, and then collide in a darkened theater with an audience so that sparks fly up.

The awards celebrate not just the globally famous but also the craftsmen and artisans whose names are not readily recognizable but without whose collaborative skills there would be no movies. Which is why the awards will never, ever, be stripped down to sitcom length. Every TV viewer knows with lapidary certainty the awards will be more than three hours. Why, then, with a tiresome repetitive blight, do the critics always grouse about length as if they alone have located the smoking impeachment gun?

What David Letterman brought to the awards was a “presence.” He was unlike previous hosts. He was different, a generational exemplar whose lines, I’ll wager, found far more rapport with the audience than with some critic whose prism was slightly out of focus. I admired his performance.

And, finally, the audience. In the United States more than half of all who watched TV were tuned to the show, 100 million or more Americans! Add in more than 80 other countries and the estimate is more than a billion viewers, the largest assemblage of TV watchers for a single program ever.

Some critics are resentful of audiences, those inept dolts and rubes, who have no connection to or appreciation of the grace of “superior judgments.” It is accepted gospel among “the superior” that if audiences like a creative work, it is usually by immediate definition incapable of merit. Critics are well counseled not to treat audiences casually, even as public officials at their peril ignore voters.

Next year, like a rash that reappears, the critics will inform us that the awards were dismally lengthy, presenters missed their cues, the host was not up to par and, well, you know the drill. Meanwhile, the unlettered rabble will tune in and enjoy by the billion.

JACK VALENTI

President, CEO

Motion Picture Assn. of America Inc.

Washington

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What in the world was the academy thinking about? David Letterman? He just put the awards back about 30 years. Where is Johnny when we really need him?

RICHARD ADAMS

Santa Barbara

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Who better to host Hollywood’s biggest tribute to ego than an outsider? From the N.Y.C. cab drivers to the lineup of would-be monkey salesmen to (our personal favorite) the spinning dog, David Letterman irreverently mocked a group of people who--and an institution that--take themselves far too seriously.

The winner in our envelope for hosting the 67th annual Academy Awards? It’s got to be Dave.

THOMAS R. KIMBER

SUSAN C. KIMBER

Brea