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Heath Ledger And The Oscar: It's Just A Bad Joke

From the moment news of Heath Ledger's death first began to spread across the globe, people have talked up his performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Even though the film was still in post-production people were exalting him as the celluloid messiah; an actor of such magnificence no one would ever come close to him. The Academy never stood a chance.

Let's be clear. It's a good performance, no doubt about it, but is it really award worthy? No, it's not. However, such was the frenzy surrounding Ledger, that even if his Joker was the worst piece of acting since Mariah Carey in Glitter (a performance so bad it makes Russell Brand look like a 21st century Brando) there was no way in hell anyone would admit it.

Before his corpse was even cold, the media were naming him as an Oscar-hopeful. Scream 'Heath Ledger' and 'Oscar' at anyone for long enough and the two are going to become intrinsically linked, so it's little wonder that the public at large began to believe that he was our generation's James Dean. Putting 'Heath Ledger' and 'Oscar' into Google throws out more results than 'Heath Ledger' and 'dead' which is pretty weird considering the guy is most definitely dead, and the Oscar nomination has (until this week) been pure speculation.

But if the Academy didn't give him a nomination (at the very least), their relevance and integrity would have been called into question by the slow-witted drooling relentlessly-consuming masses who have been spoon fed the opinion that The Dark Knight is THE GREATEST FILM EVER and Heath is THE BEST ACTOR WHO EVER LIVED by a lazy media looking for an easy story. The whole circus boils down to little more than peer pressure - the thing that got Heath Ledger into the position he is in now.

If we're giving an Oscar nomination to Ledger in Batman, then why not Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man? Both are comic book characters (not something usually favoured by the notoriously snobby Academy) and both are largely unsympathetic caricatures, but Downey Jr's performance (unlike Ledger's) is filled with light and dark. No one-note trickle of impotent menace for him - as Iron Man/Tony Stark, Downey Jr had to be funny,aggressive, powerful, charming, threatening and a million other things in between. Realistically, neither deserves any plaudits, but here in 2009 that's just a moot point because Robert Downey Jr has a pulse and Heath Ledger hasn't.

The other argument for why Ledger should get a posthumous Oscar is on shakier ground than a Japanese Jenga factory too. "He might have done something to deserve an Academy Award one day," say the idiots, "so we should honour that now."

Which would make perfect sense, if it wasn't for the fact that it makes no sense. Look out the window - see that man in a car? He might cure cancer one day, so let's give him a Nobel prize now.
No? But I thought awards could be given based purely on potential? And while we're at it, where's my World Cup winner's medal?

It's a nonsense. We all know it. The media knows it, the Academy knows it, you know it and I know it. However, what are people supposed to do when an underwhelming film is overhyped to such a breathtaking degree? Ledger's performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight has been mystified to such a degree, it's impossible to view the film from an unbiased position and without the rose-tinted glow a Hollywood death casts over everything in its wake.

All this sets a dangerous precedent - 'kill yourself and win awards.'

Ben Stiller is loading his gun already.

Seed Newsvine

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