Just in time for Sunday's show, National Public Radio presents its . Listeners were asked to write a speech for a best-acting nominee in character. So we have Meryl Streep accepting as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada (winner in the Best Devil-May-Care Attitude category), Judi Dench as Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal (Least Diplomatic), Mark Wahlberg as Dignan in Departed (Best Clean Departed Speech--and the lengths to which it goes to be clean are truly prodigious), and Jennifer Hudson singing her acceptance as Effie in Dreamgirls.
(Be sure to listen to winning speechwriter Cleola Ratliff belting it out.)
And then there's Helen Mirren as QE2, winner in the Most Diplomatic category, as channeled so very regally by Kim Stanford of York, PA:
To those of you who selected me, your Queen, as the recipient of this honour, I offer my gratitude. I should never have expected to be so honoured in my lifetime.There's nothing like hearing your favorite film or television actor attempt to improvise an award-acceptance speech to make you appreciate the scriptwriter's art.Indeed, it is an honour that I could have easily forgone. I would have preferred that my performance during that disastrous week be forgotten, but to my surprise, someone believed a film should be made about it.
If only a certain person had not been so impetuous, none of this would have been necessary.Still, what's done is done and we must move on. I would like to dedicate this award to my family, my Corgis, my devoted servants, and, of course, you, my people. Without your concern, your sound bites on the telly, your holding up a mirror to myself, none of this would have been possible.
Thank you. I will keep this with my most treasured possessions
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On screen, all actors are stunningly articulate (except when they're charmingly inarticulate); on the awards podium, nearly all of them are boring, banal, and repetitive. (Exceptions: Meryl Streep and most traditionally schooled British actors.) This year, writes Caryn James , the problem is even more .
.. well, dramatic: in the three awards shows televised so far this season, the same four actors have won in their respective acting categories and have given more or less the same bad acceptance speech every time.
James writes:
As the awards season lumbers toward the Oscars, you can almost envision what might happen when the Academy Awards are finally given out on Feb. 25. will fumble for words and mumble; will robotically deliver his list of industry thanks; will work in a hokey use of the word “dream”; and will pay tribute to the actual queen.Whoa! Cut! If you've ever thought, I could write a better acceptance speech than that, here's your opportunity.
Enter National Public Radio's and show 'em how it ought to be done. The rules are simple: Write a 200-word speech in character (and in good taste) for any of the nominees for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, or Best Supporting Actress. Deadline: 11:59 p.
m. PST, February 17, 2007. As is the quaint custom in public-radio land, there will be no prizes, but the winners (as judged by NPR's digital media staff) will record their speeches over the phone; the best ones will be posted online.
Here's a sample to get you motivated; the speaker (as if you needed to be told), is Sacha Baron Cohen in character as Borat:
Jagshemash! Wa wa oi oi. I kiss all of you.| You could do worse this Election Day than spend some time with this , a weighted visual representation of the frequency of certain keywords, or tags, uttered in U.S.Especially you. (Points to sister.) She is No.
3 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan? Only four people in Kazakhstan watch ceremony right now, and 18 stand on top of roof with foil taped to groin to get signal. But this is glorious day for people of Kazakhstan.
Only two from my country does America honor in this respect — I, Borat, and the how-you-say audio engineer from the 1987 silent film Kazakh Potassium Company Employee Training Guide Part Eleven.
presidents' speeches (State of the Union, inaugural, and others). The larger the word, the more frequently it was used. Use the slider above the president's name to navigate back through time.
I was interested in one particular word: god. In recent years, U.S.
chief executives have referred so frequently and publicly to a supreme being that they sometimes sound like circuit preachers. But it wasn't always so. In an 1815 speech about the sphere of religion, Thomas Jefferson never once used the word god.
Indeed, the first presidential mention of god I found was in Abraham Lincoln's 1862 Plea for Compensated Emancipation, and it appears in the smallest type size. (Disclaimer: reviewing each speech's tag cloud requires exquisite mouse control; I may have missed one or two speeches. But it's pretty clear that Washington, Adams, and Jefferson saw little need to bring the deity into their public oratory.
) Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant referred occasionally to a god, but then the supreme being took a leave of absence for several decades, not to reappear until Woodrow Wilson's 1917 War Message. The Twenties and Thirties were relatively godless, presidential-speechwise, until FDR.
And ever since Ronald Reagan, mentioning god has been obligatory for presidents and presidential candidates (not to mention senators, county supervisors, and dogcatchers). Indeed, a few years ago, the national sign-off has become God bless you, and God bless America (in Kinsley's shorthand, GBY/GBA. )
Don't forget to vote.
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