Eubanks excercise #4

In an article from The New York Times on Wednesday, David Carr reported on the Oscar nominations that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released Tuesday morning. In the article, he constantly refers to the Oscar’s as something of a fight or a race. By doing this, Carr highlights the nature of competition that is so prevalent at the Academy Awards. In the first paragraph, he refers to one of the awards as “the best-picture throwdown.” From the author’s use of metaphor in the article, the awards are referred to as a fight, emphasizing the cutthroat nature of the Oscars. The use of “throwdown” to describe the awards makes it seem almost like a physical fight, in which the winner is crowned best picture.
Carr uses other metaphors to demonstrate a seemingly violent undertone of the Oscars. In discussing which producers should be up for the awards, Carr mentions the ensuing “battle for credits.” In addition, when referring to the lack of nominations for Dreamgirls, Carr states that the picture “will not be around for the war.” Using these metaphors, Carr is playing with our traditional understanding of the awards show, and highlighting the competition. By using these metaphors, the author shapes the awards as something of a fight in the readers mind. It sounds violent and extremely physical. The image the reader gets from these words is that the nominees for best picture, or perhaps the producers, will be literally fighting each other, with the winner claiming the prize. Instead of the Oscars being portrayed as a high class and prestigious awards show, the Academy Awards are described as war-like, competitive, aggressive, and brutal.