Is It Rational to Watch the Oscars?

Last night, my wife and many other people I know spent hours and hours watching the Oscars and getting worked up about Seth MacFarlane’s off-color jokes. Why didn’t I? I don’t have anything against the ceremony, which is a useful marketing device for one of our biggest export industries. This year, though, I hadn’t seen many of the nominated movies—too busy banging out blog posts!—and there isn’t much of a point in watching a bunch of people receive awards for performances you haven’t witnessed.

Or is there? In viewing events such as the Oscars, the Super Bowl, and the quadrennial Presidential debates, the actual outcome—San Francisco fluffs a last-minute drive; Daniel Day-Lewis wins best actor for a third time; Obama comes back strong against Romney—is secondary to the process of taking part in a carefully orchestrated public ritual, which you can chew over subsequently (or simultaneously, via Twitter and Facebook) with your friends and acquaintances. Indeed, given the certainty that so many other people will be watching, it can be perfectly rational to tune in even if you don’t give a hoot about what film wins best picture.

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