The absolute highlight of the entire broadcast was when Jared Leto, winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as a transsexual in Dallas Buyers Club, (which I haven't seen, of course) delivered the most beautiful and eloquent acceptance speech I have ever heard. Complete with a beautiful tribute to his mother, who was his proud and emotional date, it moved me to tears.
Ellen was a zany and lovable host, taking selfies with and passing out pizza to the celebs in the audience. I have to admit I worried that someone might spill some pizza on a million-dollar gown, and I didn't see anyone tuck their napkins into their necks before eating. See why I think we need a Save-the-Clothes Campaign?
I particularly liked the musical performances- Pharrell Williams' joyous Happy, U2 and Bono's soulful Ordinary Love, and Bette Midler's lovely Wind Beneath My Wings in memoriam to those who left us this year. In honor of the anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, Pink delivered a powerful performance of Over the Rainbow wearing perhaps the most spectacular red ruby dress I have ever seen, complete with a backdrop of scenes from the film and Judy Garland’s kids in the audience. I would say it was perfect but I hang out with a lot of Serious Musical Types who insist upon pointing out that she breathed in the middle of words and phrases while singing, a grave offense in Vocal Performance Land. Well, okay, but did you see that dress???
After all that, the thing that everyone keeps talking about is the fact that John Travolta called Idina Menzel "Adele Dazeem" when introducing her performance of "Let It Go" from Frozen, which went on to win Best Song. For a minute I thought that Idina cancelled at the last minute, and that pop sensation Adele was filling in for her. Was Adele's last name "Dazeem?" I wondered.
Now, I don’t know what happened. Maybe John didn’t want to wear his glasses on stage at the Oscars so he misread the teleprompter. Maybe the script on the teleprompter was created with an Apple product and that troublesome Autocorrect changed "Idina Menzel" to "Adele Dazeem" and John just read what was given to him.
Or maybe "Idina Menzel" is an unusual name and people mess it up all the time. Because that’s how it is when you have an unusual name. Trust me, with a maiden name like "Ciraulo" I know. People can’t spell it or pronounce it, and after a while you just become accustomed to having your name mispronounced or spelled incorrectly all the time.
But really a name doesn't not have be unusual to be mangled. People have called me "Shari" or "Cheryl" in place of my fairly common first name of "Sharon." I had a friendly acquaintance for a few years who routinely called me "Cindy." I was jubilant at the thought of having a simple last name like "Wolf" – but Mr. Rip warned me that people would want to put an "e" on the end of it, and they do. All the time.
Just like anyone with unusual names, and most professional performers used to working on stage in live theater, Idina came on and sang the song just as though John had introduced her by her actual name. I haven’t heard that Idina herself has made any comment on the incident, so I am guessing that she’s used to it.
As for me, my Travoltified name (courtesy of Facebook) is Shannon Cunningwham, which I actually like a lot more than "Cindy Cirulla Wolfe." That might just be my new pen name.
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