Creative Minority Report blogger, Matthew Archbold mentioned Matthew McConaughey's acceptance speech for the Best Actor category last night, wherein he thanked God for the award. Matt mentioned that not too many people thank God on air and that the response is often half-hearted. Other writers have reacted to the McConaughey speech as well.
Acceptance speeches tend to ramble, people are excited and nervous - there's a teleprompter in front of them counting down time restraints, and so on. People say dumb things, often really funny stuff - and they can get a lot of attention. Now days, people tweet and re-tweet their reactions-comments-applause, since I'm not online, I have no idea what the responses were to McConaughey. No big deal. He isn't the first to thank God, and he wasn't alone doing so on Oscar night.
People often thank God for his gifts and graces - some publicly, some privately. But no one. No one does it better than African American actors and entertainers. Last night Darlene Love thanked and praised God for the Best Feature Documentary Award for her work in 20 Feet From Stardom. She not only thanked God, she praised him in sacred song, singing the first lines of the Gospel hymn: "His Eye is on the Sparrow." She brought the house down!
God was at the Oscars.
(The Pope didn't show up though.)
I noticed that there was a near-total absence of risque'/vulgar/sarcastic jokes by either the host, presenters or acceptances. It was rather clean.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by that as well.
DeleteI think it's the Francis effect, by the way. Rolling Stone and all of that.
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I didn't watch much of the awards (toggling back and forth between that and the season finale repeat of Downton) but I am so pleased I was able to catch Darlene Love's song!
ReplyDeleteGlad you saw it - if you can watch the documentary which took the award, you might like it. All the background singers started out in church and seem to have great faith - and tremendous love.
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