A far cry from the barely ten million viewers tallied for the 93rd Academy Awards this year, the 63rd Academy Awards, in contrast, fetched forty-three million people willing to soak up as much as possible from one of the last decades for glamor, particularly as it was 1991 and the internet wasn’t yet a thought in the masses’ minds. And even though The Gulf War had just ramped up with Operation Desert Storm in January, no one in Hollywood felt it was in poor taste to drip with diamonds for the event. Least of all Madonna, who would perform the Stephen Sondheim-penned “Sooner or Later” from I’m Breathless: Music from and inspired by the Film Dick Tracy.
The Gulf War was the Americans’ favorite kind of war. It was something to talk about but didn’t really affect anyone’s day-to-day lives in the way that, say, donating a tiara for scrap metal or being drafted for WWII might. For Madonna, it also provided a brief moment to get political during what amounted to her five-plus minute sendup of Marilyn Monroe. For no Madonna performance was complete by this time without some mention of politics, however minute.
Thus, as she writhed and wriggled in her form-fitting white gown (which probably made the Academy regret giving “Sooner or Later” the award for Best Original Song), she found the time to imitate Monroe’s classic line from “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” by instead declaring, “Talk to me General Schwarzkopf, tell me all about it!” in lieu of invoking Harry Winston’s name.
In another twist of irony, the Kevin Costner-starring Dances With Wolves would prove to be the “star” of the evening, only for Madonna to remind everyone how cheesy Costner was in Truth or Dare, the documentary subsequently released in May of that year, by pantomiming the universal gesture for gagging after he called her show “neat.” “A girl can get awfully…awful in the spotlight,” after all. If by “awful” what is meant is no holds barred soothsaying. Madonna’s drug of choice. And as she wraps her fur once more over her shoulders and calls out sardonically to the man in charge of leading the coalition forces in the Gulf War, we sense less a form of topical reverence and more a question of ethicality in war (all with just a line—a versatile actress indeed). One that would rise more prominently to the forefront with Bush II’s Gulf War II. When Madonna minced no words regarding her opinion on the matter with the video for “American Life” in 2003.
While there were several other mentions of the Gulf War that evening, it was Madonna’s—while dressed in her eye-catching pinup number—that would become the most memorable and iconic… along with the simple fact that she showed up to the awards ceremony with Michael Jackson as her date. Still, the presence of Madonna and Michael alone wasn’t enough to cast out the stink of war and recession. At the time, The Washington Post review noted, “There were many many references to the Persian Gulf War throughout the evening. Maybe the Oscars seemed more of a fizzle than usual this year because we all have just come through a war, a television event whose outcome was obviously of much more consequence than whether smug, smirky-faced Kevin Costner would win a stupid old Oscar.”
In this sense, while viewership of the Oscars has changed, one thing that hasn’t is the award ceremony’s tendency to gloss over, as best and as levity-laden as it can, the real issues in the world. What’s more, despite the then remaining glamor (which at the time was commented on as not being glamorous enough—more proof still of how everything is relative), the same Washington Post reviewer couldn’t help but comment, “It was all somehow very very recessionary. Through a glass, weakly.” He couldn’t have known how timely those words would become even later.
As for those real issues not seriously acknowledged, it applies even to the ones that directly affect Hollywood—like the fact that nobody (outside of NY and LA) seems that interested in going to movie theaters again. They’ve all grown accustomed to their at-home setups and not paying twenty dollars to watch something when they can stream instead. And so, if Madonna performed the song now, perhaps she would instead say, “Talk to me coronavirus, tell me all about it!” And what corona would tell you is, “I killed the movie industry, too.” Or, at least the kind of movies once known for serving as Academy kryptonite.
