If you were asked to imagine a totem that represents the purest form of irrelevance, you might very well picture a little golden, bald statuette. Especially around this time of year. That overwhelming sense of indifference tinged with dread that you're feeling can only be one thing -- Oscar fever, baby!

Although, it must be said, the accepted wisdom is that the Oscar's are nothing more than an opportunity for pointless Hollywood back-slapping. The common man really couldn't care less about them; regardless of where you live, Hollywood might as well be a million miles away. Sure, we all love movies, but they really are just the primary tool of escapism. They don't improve your life, they don't make any difference at all. They're sort of like books.

Surely, you've heard someone mention a book that changed his or her life. But, unless that person is talking about the Bible, Koran, or Upanishads, we know that they're lying (or at least exaggerating). After all, if we believed the great things that these book-boosters said about them, we'd probably wind up reading the damn things. If you've ever actually read a book that someone claims moved them so profoundly, the first thing you noticed was an overwhelming sense of disappointment forcing its way into your brain.

Movies are the same way. How many times have you been brow-beaten into watching someone else's favorite movie? If you're really unlucky, your tormentor will watch the movie with you and immediately demand a response when the credits start rolling -- leaving you precious little time to prepare an appropriately noncommittal statement. Sure, if you had a lawyer present, he could run interference for you, putting his arm around you while saying, "You don't have to answer that. Can I have a few words with my client alone?" But, alas, you're on your own and you have to lie. It's also a good idea to change the subject. The best phrase for this situation is, "Yeah it was good -- say, I'm gonna run to the store for some beer, you want anything?" Works every time.

Word of mouth plays a far more important role in which movies we choose to watch than the Academy Awards. This is perfectly natural; when celebrities spout off on any given subject, we never take them seriously. If we did, we'd all be saving the rain forest, forswearing meat, doing yoga, driving electric cars, and thanking our agents for our every accomplishment -- all while throwing shit at our PA's. Thank god we realize that celebrities are just people who's only talent is successfully parlaying their "let's pretend" skills into a career. Why should we expect them (under the pseudonym, "The Academy") to have any real knack for telling us what the best movies are? In the end, the Oscar's are nothing more than Hollywood asserting its agenda. Think about it: What are the Oscar's for? To reward the best film-makers for their work. Why? We live in a capitalist economy, in which the last, best, and only reward is money. This isn't just knee-jerk cynicism, this is a powerful statement -- all the money that's in Hollywood came from us, the people. You and I can't just go around handing out Oscar's to the films that we like, but we can surely spend $10.50 on them. Films that win Oscar's aren't always the same ones that rake in the cash, which is why the stars remind us that it's not all about money anyway. I resent Hollywood big shots invalidating our choices with their self-indulgent award shows.

People who seek fame are not generally paragons of high self-esteem, so I suppose they need the validation of their peers when the public fails to reward them with cash. Still, couldn't they have their masturbatory little party on their own time? Why put it on television? They might be preempting a show that could someday win an Emmy. How silly of me to forget; nothing in Hollywood is real unless it happens on camera. Just ask Rob Lowe.

-B. C. Silvia