Ask the Answer B!tch

Given the disaster this awards season is turning into, wouldn't it make more sense for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to just delay the Oscars until after the strike is over?
—Diane, New York 

The B!tch Replies:  One would think. Then again, four hours featuring 3:10 to Yuma in interpretive dance and Beyoncé parading about in catastrophe couture designed by her mom is its own disaster, is it not? Be careful what you wish for, young one.

As of this second, the Academy says it is producing a show as if it were any other year. The Writers Guild tells me it has not granted the Oscar people a waiver to work with writers, which means the union may very well picket. But it won't say much else. And people I contacted inside the Academy have said anything is still possible.

"Everyone is waiting to see what happens," my insider says. "But ideally, what's gonna happen is that the Directors Guild, which is working on its own new contract with producers, will announce a new agreement soon. And that agreement could serve as a template to the writers, the actors and everyone else, because the directors are wanting some of the same things that the writers want."

If all that can be done in time—the Oscars are supposed to happen Feb. 24—then we get the happiest scenario Hollywood could ever want: a red carpet full of actresses layered up to their concave chests in Spanx and Armani Privé.

Here are a few other possible scenarios, in case the directors fail to save the day:

• The writers picket the event. If that's the case, forget the actors. "I am a member of six unions, and I will not cross any picket lines...ever," George Clooney declared at the Critics' Choice Awards Jan. 7.

• Globes redux. The Oscar people decide to hold a sad little news conference like the Globes people did. In which case, lower the American flag—we are no longer a superpower.

• The Academy postpones the event. This would make the most sense to everybody, really. The designers would have extra time to throw their gowns in the dryer to get them down to a Hollywood size -2. Christina Aguilera could practice shattering glass with her lungs in preparation for whatever Oscar-nominated song they might need her to crucify. And Jon Stewart, if he's really smart, would still have time to run and hire Stephen Colbert to write all his jokes.

But if the Oscar people are planning a postponement, they aren't showing it. Yet.

"The Academy is moving forward with the plans for our show on Feb. 24," Academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger told me via email. "I can't really tell you much more than that, other than we are doing all of the things we would normally be doing at this time relative to our show, and we intend to open the envelopes in front of a live audience in the Kodak Theater."

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