I been checking out some blogosphere reactions to last night’s Academy Awards. It seems the reactions have basically followed the same as years past – blah. I have to disagree though. I think last nights awards were surprisingly fresh. The format was pretty much the same, but it had changes in all the right places. It also appeared to be geared towards a wider audience than previous shows.

I also need to disagree with BarbinMD from DKos on this issue:

Barely 15 minutes in and I think we can all agree that Hugh Jackman is a disaster. Please, bring back Jon Stewart!

Sorry, but I can’t. I actually think Jackman was a brilliant choice on many levels, but mostly due to his versatility.

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The musical is making a comeback, despite a lot of homophobic individuals who think watching anything involving singing is gay. So what better way to squash this phobia then to take a big action star like Jackman and show that he also sings and dances? So many younger people see Jackman as Wolverine, killing the bad guys with his metal skeletal features, but last night they got to see Jackman as someone who can do much more than just slay the bad mutant, or the evil vampire.

On the flip side of things, we can see Jon Stewart 4 nights a week. This doesn’t diminish Stewart in any way, but I would much rather see him unrestrained on the Daily Show than in a controlled environment like the Academy Awards.

Despite all this, there was a feeling of sadness I felt last night. That sadness was the death of America’s culture. We used to be able to taunt Hollywood as the crown jewel in our cultural crown, but that jewel is shrinking ever so fast. We even see it on television, as more foreigners portray American people.

This isn’t an attempt to insult those foreign actors, but rather pointing out a simple fact. America seems to be losing her luster when it comes to big screen names. Perhaps this speaks to our larger cultural problems though. I mean if some young guy wants to act, he must be gay – right?

Maybe America should start looking more at the culture that defines our people. We are in a cultural depression, and we need some real stimulus now. Culture is what defines a people, and I don’t want our remaining definition to become television evangelists and mega churches.