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Zachary Ostapchenko Dr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlin WR 13300 November 7, 2011 All Eyes on Her She closes her eyes, deeply impacted by the rush of emotion for the words that she just heard, And the winner is Sandra Bullock for the Blind Side, says Sean Penn (YouTube 2010). Remaining in her seat, Jesses James, her husband, leans over to Bullock and whispers something into her ear. She stands up in her elegant sparkled dress and graciously starts walking to the stage, eyeing Meryl Streep on the way up. Standing at the microphone Bullock waits for the standing and applauding audience to settle down. She begins, Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down (YouTube 2010), getting an easy chuckle from the audience. With humility and grace, Bullock begins to thank the special people that were a part of Blind Side and addresses her fellow nominees, adoring and praising their successes in a joking manner. She perfectly shows her kindness in thanking all the people she can think of, offering a slight joke here and there. Then she comes to the point of complete seriousness and importantly says so I would like to thank what this film was about for me which are the moms that take care of the babies and the children no matter where they come from (YouTube 2010). She pauses and allows the crowd to applaud this message. Bullock finishes her speech with class, thanking her motherly figure, acknowledging her husband Jesse James, accepting her Academy Award, and finally finishing with the comedy that she is

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most known for combined with class, I thank you so much for this opportunity that I share with these extraordinary women and my lover, Meryl Streep. Thank you (YouTube 2010). The Academy Awards define the previous years most notable films with the ceremony usually taking place in February. Also known as the Oscars, each January, the entertainment community and film fans around the world turn their attention to the Academy Awards (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), which means that the telecast attracts hundreds of millions of movie fans that all want to see the glamor of the event and learn about the highest honors of film for that previous year. The hype for this ceremony begins one month prior because thats when the list nominations are revealed. The nominees receive a lot of attention and are often seen during many interviews. In the beginning as Wiley and Boney explain in Inside Oscar, the Academy Awards ceremony was more like a private party than a big ceremony (9) and in time it grew to be one of the most watched ceremonies of all time with fans viewing across the world. It had small beginnings, but the various ideas associated with the ceremony attracted a lot of attention. The Academy is an association of 6,000 members that vote on secret ballets, and the secrecy is maintained until the moment that the envelope is opened and the winner is announced. An important detail as the Academy Awards website explains is that these hundreds of millions of movie lovers tune in to watch the glamorous ceremony (A. M. P. A. S.), which means that one of the big attractions is the fashion of the celebrities.

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In examination of actresses that play a huge part at the Academy Awards, the identity of actresses from film has now become very popular for fans and many magazines dedicate their ideas to the examination of the identity that is the celebrity. Julie Wilson in Star Testing: The Emerging Politics of Celebrity Gossip discusses how it is very popular for young girls to read these magazines as a way of having guidelines for their own development. As very popular readers, girls are not the only ones concerned with the identity of the female actresses. Many eyes look at the actress whether they be young children, faithful movie fans, or even the director for her next film. These magazines pull information from which is out of their control, so all the actress can do is manage what she can control and that is her image in front of the camera at an event such as the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards ritual may be silly, meaningless and humiliating, but no one denies that there is an aura of fantasy about the secret envelope as Wily and Bona put it. Theres so much attention and a lot of it is unnecessary as film artists put it, but the award itself represents so much honor that helps to define the capabilities of the artist. In other words, just in looking at actresses, they have to deal with the attention and should properly use it to define their identity. For the winners, who receive the most attention, they have so much to deal with that goes along with the award and it is important that they use this to their advantage. Identity is a crucial aspect that is maintained by the female actress that is honored by the Academy Award for Best Actress. The ceremony that is the Academy Awards defines the actress as the global fame it brings highlights certain aspects of the celebrity especially when it comes to the actress image and the words that she uses.

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Female actresses use the televised nature of the Academy Awards to construct the identity which is in their control, most specifically through their speeches and their sense of fashion. Her usage of this event brings many benefits to her career and helps to define the identity that the audience cant see through her films. A significant aspect of the identity created during the Academy Awards for a female actress is the acceptance speech for the Oscar. She is very much capable of controlling what she says to the audience, yet she is often in a state of emotion that she just says what feels right in the moment. For example in Kate Winslets speech she cries out in excitement when she acknowledges the thanks she gives for her parents (YouTube 25 February 2009). It is these moments, the actresses show the audience their true identities, the image not seen in their movies. This is very true as Kurana in Oscar Acceptance Speeches says when they listen to the Oscar acceptance speeches made by their favorite stars, they get a glimpse of reality. In Oscar Acceptance Speech: By and Large, Its a Lost Art, Sharon Waxman described the speech as forty-five seconds, your moment of glory. Waxman importantly brings up the options that it can be a haiku, a lyrical insight or a heartfelt flight of emotion, which means that the audience enjoys when it is something special, something memorable that they can admire or even relate to. There is an expectation from the audience that adores the movies this actress plays in and these movie fans expect celebrities to live up to their celluloid image (Kurana). This means that the actress has to show a side that is more favorable than the image created from her character on screen. Often times, actresses are stuck just reading a list of names with the audience having nothing

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to enjoy. Waxman importantly complains, Please! Is it too much to ask? A little humor? A little pathos? Histrionics are fine, even hubris is welcome as long as its different. This is the moment to shine in front of billions of people and the identity of an actress could not be more focused under the spotlight. The real personality of the actress should not come off as more boring than their corresponding character personality. It all comes down to what words can be spoken that will remain memorable. A fan is attracted to the identity of a person that sees something special, whether an occasional moviegoer or even the director of the next big box office hit. A huge part of attraction is how someone dresses and the next important aspect of the identity created by successful actresses at the Academy Awards is their interpretation of fashion, meaning that the actresses come to the ceremony wearing an outfit that gets a lot of photos taken of it. Cosgrave, writer of Made For Each Other, importantly describes in the years of the Academy Awards actresses would push the boundaries of fashion and highlight the glamour that is the Academy Awards. It is actresses such as Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews, and Faye Dunaway that brought fashion at the ceremony to its peak and set a standard for ceremonies to come (86). It is difficult to think about the Academy Awards without thinking about fashion. A key actress to examine on her development of fashion is Kate Winslet. Kate Winslet has always been viewed as a very strong actress by film critics, but on a closer look at her fashion in the late nineties, it is apparent that there really wasnt any at all. It was her fashion revolution in recent years that has brought Kate Winslet a new sense of beauty that can be admired when she is off the camera. When Kate Winslet in a recent

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ceremony showed up to the Academy Awards in a sleek, tomato red, one-shouldered Ben De Lisi gown, style mavens did a double take (Gerston and Santiago). She changed the view fashion critics looked at her. As an actress nominated for many Academy Awards in the past, Kate Winslet redefined herself and brought a great sense of fashion during the year that she finally won her Best Actress award, wearing a beautifully sleek gown (YouTube 25 February 2009). Certain moments such as the ceremony define how people look at an actress with what she says and how she looks, but she has to maintain the positive view even after these moments. Another aspect to the identity created by the success of the Academy Awards is what there is that takes place after the ceremony, which are the interviews. Looking at her career as a whole, in an interview after the Academy Awards, Kate Winslet discusses how her roles in film have been getting stronger (YouTube 13 August 2009), which means that her previous successes finally led to her Oscar-winning performance. It also means that from this point on, she will just keep getting better. In more of a long term sense Kate Winslet is trying to achieve what Meryl Streep is doing now which is the longevity of acting success. Winslet earned her Academy Award around the same time as Streep and in looking at Streep, she has played numerous roles that each have exceeded the previous as she has aged while still obtaining Academy Award praise. Still focusing on Meryl Streep, she has been able to maintain this image as a successful and extraordinary actress. Her success and skills as an actress have just become a given. In an interview for The Devil Wears Prada on YouTube, Meryl Streep jokes about how she has the most losses in history taking away

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from her record setting number of nominations. She has a very admirable personality and it comes off in the interview, making her a very likable person. She is used to the praise and her seemingly constant nominations at the Academy Award ceremonies have regarded her as one of the greatest actresses of all time. She has garnered much respect and she continues to receive excellent roles in movies to come. The attention of being the Academy Award winner for Best Actress brings a new focus from the media that has a specific scope on what the female celebrity does in many aspects of her life and gossip magazines are huge contributors. A large attraction from the media is on the negative parts in an actress life that the media believes people want to read about. In People, the multiple authors describe how Sandra Bullock has always been fiercely protective of her private life (Dennis et al.). The new standard of lifestyle set by her achievements in acting in the Blind Side means that she loses even more of the little privacy that she already had. Sandra had always been a well-known celebrity, so the attention has been usual for her circumstances. Now, there has been an expansive change in attention on Sandra Bullock that the media has ignited, which has brought up some disastrous news about Sandra Bullocks personal life. Sandra Bullock was in what appeared to be a strong marriage with Jesse James, who was a father of three children, until as People authors describe that her divorce from embattled West Coast Choppers CEO Jesse, 41, was being finalized in Austin (Tauber et al.) This news was inspired by events that happened before that Jesse James was cheating on Sandra Bullock with Michelle McGee, 32, a San Diego-based tattoo model

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who works as a stripper, poses on an adult website and goes by the nickname Bombshell (Chiu et al.). Celebrity magazine readers are usually focused on key celebrities and some of the very important ones are the successful actors and actresses that have achieved success at the Academy Awards. The struggles that Sandra Bullock dealt with were from the fact that she acknowledged Jesse James as the only person that had her back. She publicly expressed her love to him and the relationship came crashing down in the media. It is the idea of the personal vulnerability of the celebrity identity that is on display for everyone to see and Sandra Bullock had to deal with the media on sharing embarrassing news about love that actually wasnt there. There is a long list of Academy Award winning actresses that have to deal with this type of media after an end to a marriage. The award is huge praise for the actress and it brings up possibilities of jealousy of the spouse. The spouse cant deal with the fact that the wife is more successful. These are struggles that the actress has to deal with under the public eye and she has to figure out how to properly manage her identity even when she comes across negative periods in her life. There are many aspects that go into the identity of an actress that is defined by the success of her Academy Award for Best Actress. For the most part this identity that is created is fairly positive and beneficial to the actress. The idea is that the actress has reached a point in her career where she is at her very top, being the best female actress for the previous year. With this success, she is honored by the Academy Awards as well with many other acting award ceremonies. The purpose is to create universal

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recognition for the actress, leading her to receive better acting opportunities throughout her career. The popularity and greater fame that is established guides the actress through the rest of her career. The success and image that she has created for herself further creates a career that is filled with many more opportunities and in the end she knows that she has accomplished the greatest achievement there is in acting. The very recognition by this award creates further fame especially for foreign actresses that might not even be known in the United States. She is able to establish an identity that is recognizable by the world as well as her peers. In the moment of success when her name is announced, she shares words with the audience that shapes her image, and the world sees how she looks from what she wears and she tries to maintain what she has created with the further attention she receives afterwards. Celebrity identity brings a lot of attention on negative aspects of the life of an actress, but this identity is important for the success of her career. It all comes down to the simple idea that if she is an extraordinary actress and, equally important, that she is a likable person, then people will want to see her movies.

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Work Cited Chiu, Alexis, Michelle Tauber, Oliver Jones, Elizabeth Leonard, Jennifer Garcia, Ken Lee, Mary Green, Sara Hammel, Liz McNeil, and Alicia Dennis. SANDRA'S MARRIAGE IN CRISIS: BETRAYED. New York: Time Inc. 2010. Web. 7 Nov. 2010 Coconutmilk83. Meryl Streep-Interview For The Devil Wears Prada. YouTube. Access Hollywood. 8 April 2009. Web. 7 Nov. 2011 Cosgrave, Bronwyn. Made For Each Other. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print Dennis, Alicia, Reagan Alexander, Jennifer Garcia, Mary Green, and Lesley Messer. Happier Than Ever. New York: Time Inc. 2011. Web. 7 Nov. 2011 Gerston, Jill and Carey Santiago. Fashion Focus: Kate Winslet. Stamford: A&E Television Networks. 2003. Web. 7 Nov. 2011 Helen James Production. Kate Winslet Interview. YouTube. Helen James Production Ltd. 13 August 2009. Web. 7 Nov. 2011 Khurana, Simran. Oscar Acceptance Speeches. About.com Quotations. Web. 27 Oct. 2011 Oscars. Kate Winslet Winning Best Actress For The Reader. YouTube. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 25 February 2009 Web. 7 Nov. 2011 Oscars. Sandra Bullock Winning Best Actress. YouTube. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2010 Web. 7 Nov. 2011

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Tauber, Michelle, Alexis Chiu, Elizabeth Leonard, Pernilla Cedenheim, Ken Lee, Wendy Grossman, and Steve Helling. Its Over. New York: Time Inc. 2010. Web. 7 Nov. 2011 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2011. A. M. P. A. S. Web. 27 Oct 2011 <http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/index.html> Waxman, Sharon. The Oscar Acceptance Speech: By and Large, Its a Lost Art. The Washington Post. 21 Mar. 1999. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. Wiley, Mason, and Damien Bona. Inside Oscar. New York: Ballantine Books, 1993. Print Wilson, Julie. Star Testing: The Emerging Politics of Celebrity Gossip. Austin: University of Texas Press. 2010. Web. Nov. 7 2011