Several days after the Oscar ceremony, it seems unnecessary to relitigate “the slap” and Will Smith’s squirm-inducing acceptance speech after winning Best Actor for “King Richard.”

Even if you ignore all that nonsense, the Oscars found plenty of ways to further cripple its own cultural relevance.

The ratings went up from last year… but were still terrible.

Show producers and executives at ABC celebrated the jolt in ratings from last year’s historic lows. Big deal. Nobody went to the movies in 2020, so it makes sense that viewership for the movie awards for that year would also be way down.

This year’s ratings still rank near the bottom of the list in terms of overall Oscar viewership, a trend that has little to do with a host or the length of the telecast. Outside from football, people don’t watch much network television anymore (too many other streaming options), and the movie industry continues to widen the gap between niche “art” films and the blockbusters that still manage to fill theater auditoriums. People who liked “Spider-Man” don’t care about the Oscars. Not really.

As someone who prefers movies like “The Power of the Dog” over “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” I’m fine with an Oscar ceremony that doesn’t need to pander to the wide audience. Move it to cable channel or stream it for all I care. I don’t need a DJ Khaled intro to the Oscar telecast, and DJ Khaled fans don’t want to watch the Oscars.

The “long speeches” are never the problem

Lost in the shuffle of Slap controversy were several heartfelt and compelling speeches from the night’s Oscar winners, including memorable moments from the likes of Ariana DeBose, Troy Kotsur and Riz Ahmed (though his speech after winning “Live Action Short” was tinkered with in the editing room — more on that later).

Sure, some speeches can become tedious, especially when they center on naming various agents, assistants and executives. But we endure those moments to catch the spontaneous, “off-the-cuff” material, and the audience who likes the Oscars, want to hear from the craftspeople who make the movies!

(Also, I want to be clear: I saw nothing “spontaneous” about Smith’s tearful acceptance speech. He huddled with his publicist for several minutes after the slap.).

Consider this: On the Friday evening before the Oscars, Denzel Washington presented Samuel L. Jackson with a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award at the Oscar Governors Awards. It wasn’t televised, and Sunday’s show only acknowledged Jackson and the other honorary Oscar winners in a 15-second shout out near the end of the show.

A few media members at the Governors Ball posted some brief video clips of the ceremony on Twitter, including wonderful moments like a joyous Denzel-Samuel L. bear hug, and Bill Murray being Bill Murray as he discussed another honorary Oscar winner, Elaine May. This is the stuff that belongs on the Oscar telecast! But, hey, look, instead we get Tony Hawk introducing a perfunctory montage of James Bond clips.

The telecast trims eight categories… and the show runs even longer

Much was made about the decision to hand out eight of the 23 awards in a brief ceremony prior to the start of the telecast. The show then “reintegrated” the acceptance speeches into the show in an effort to speed up the program. Producers cited ABC’s insistence on a three-hour telecast as the reason.

Well… the show ran more than three and a half hours, longer than last year’s show, which allowed every winner to give an uninterrupted acceptance speech. Oops.

Several problems here: 1) The craftspeople in those pre-show categories felt understandably slighted. 2) The Academy announced the winners online, which deflated the suspense of those categories once they were reintegrated into the program. 3) The way the show inserted the categories and speeches were stilted and awkward. 4) They edited some of these speeches down, despite saying they wouldn’t do so.

Because of the (slight) ratings increase, ABC will likely consider this strategy a success and ask to do it again next year. But all the show’s bloat came from unnecessary additions: Why did Kevin Costner talk for five minutes before handing out Best Director? How do you go from no host to THREE hosts, essentially tripling down on comedy bits that always tend to be more miss than hit? Why perform an unnominated song (“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”) then change the lyrics so it excludes all the bits people like about the song in the first place?

Snyder Bros troll the Oscars

Another unnecessary time-filler was the ballyhooed addition of the “Audience Fan Favorite” shout-outs. Basically, the Academy released a Twitter poll asking movie fans to pick their favorite movie from last year, as well as the best “stand up and cheer” moment in all of film. LOL. Never count on Twitter to take anything seriously.

Honestly, I must credit the show’s producers for following through on the segment after trolls and uber-fans of “Justice League” director Zack Snyder bombarded the Twitter poll. The filmmaker’s lousy zombie movie, “Army of the Dead” took the No. 1 spot for Favorite Movie, ahead of box office champ “Spider-Man” (No. 4), as well as Amazon’s woeful “Cinderella” production and a little-seen Johnny Depp drama. For all-time “Stand up and cheer” moment, three of the five slots went to recent superhero movies, including No. 1 — a scene from Snyder’s director’s cut of “Justice League,” which didn’t even play in theaters. Embarrassing, but hilarious.

What about the winners?

Another disappointing element of this year’s Oscars: No surprises. When a Coeur d’Alene Press columnist correctly predicts 21 of the 23 categories, you know it was a boring night. I feel bad that “CODA,” a very good movie, will likely be regarded as one of “lesser” winners of Best Picture because it beat out more cinematic pieces of work like “The Power of the Dog” and “West Side Story.” It isn’t really the Best Picture in my opinion, but it also won’t deserve the hate it’ll receive as more time passes.

On second thought, Will Smith might’ve done “CODA” a favor in the long run. The worst criticism it’ll get is “‘CODA’ didn’t deserve Best Picture, but oooh, remember when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock!?”

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Tyler Wilson is a member of the International Press Academy and has been writing about movies for Inland Northwest publications since 2000, including a regular column in The Press since 2006. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.”