In many ways, all you need to know about any awards ever is that the Oscars telecast holds the record for most Emmy wins in history, having won 47 times and been nominated 195. As a reminder of the cap on human achievement, its up there with the ineluctable logic decreeing that ultimately Own Goal will end up being Englands top scorer. (Having previously topped the rankings, Own Goal is currently just behind Wayne Rooney. But dont worry itll have the top spot all to itself soon enough. No man can keep it down.)

Alas, though, no matter how garlanded the Oscars are, the Academy is always seeking out new affectations and ways to congratulate itself. It remains extremely unclear why certainly to viewers, who watch the event in smaller and smaller numbers each year. Last year, the Oscars telecast peaked at 29.6 million US viewers, although the zombie statistic that it is watched by a billion people around the globe staggers on. Indeed, it presumably accounts for all the winners attempts to contemplate Big Themes in their humble speeches, which serve as thankful outreach to all the citizens of the world who make them possible. The Congolese children, for instance, who watch the Oscars to unwind after a day down the cobalt mine surfacing the materials necessary for people to make memes on their phones about the red-carpet outfits. As a previous Oscars slogan ran: we ALL dream in gold.

So, yes, the main reason the Academy has never really got comedy down the years is that it simply cant afford to. Its vulnerability is just too great. It is much less personally exposing to stick to a metric where massive weight gain or weight loss is regarded as the highest form of acting. After all, this is an awards ceremony that wanks on annually about being audited by a top international accountancy firm, but which, in 2017, still somehow contrived to award its biggest prize to the wrong movie in an envelope snafu that even Shirley MacLaine was still processing the horror of three weeks later. Shirleys processed about 47 past lives, to put that into the terrifying perspective it deserves.

Anyway, here we all are, just over a week out from the next Oscars ceremony, with the Academy digging deep to make the usual rows about snubbing black nominees look gorgeous. And, arguably, it has alighted on the perfect way to defuse yet another Oscars so white row. Say hello to what we might call Oscars so green, a series of toweringly minuscule commitments to an embattled planet the same planet that at least 50% of the industrys time is effectively devoted to destroying in the cause of finding work for Ben Affleck or whoever. Or, as its much-heralded press release put it this week: The Academy is an organisation of storytellers from around the world, and we owe our global membership a commitment to supporting the planet.

To quote Steven Seagal in Under Siege (1992, snubbed in all categories bar sound): what is this babbling bullshit? You dont even think you owe your global membership the right to have their movies considered anywhere else than the ghetto of best international feature film. It feels fairly unlikely that youre going to care about drowning their countries in order to produce enough energy to power the essential work of rebooting the Transformers franchise a few more times.

But even if we take the Academy at its own extraordinarily moving word, you might be wondering how this commitment to supporting the planet will manifest itself. In which case, let me tell you that the Academy was thrilled to clarify by announcing that the Oscar nominees luncheon would be serving AN ENTIRELY PLANT-BASED MENU. I know! Furthermore, if a furthermore there need be, the Governors Ball afterparty would be offering a 70% plant-based menu, having served a 50% plant-based menu since 2013.

So have we finally found it? Have we found the smallest commitment to doing anything other than jack shit that an organisation will publicly congratulate itself for? Did the Academy literally press release the fact that a single Oscar afterparty will be trimming the volume of meat that is served to people who are largely contractually mandated not to eat anything other than herb garnishes? It would seem so.

Ideally, then, the notion of meat-based starters will be commemorated in the In Memoriam section of the interminable Oscars show, with a photo of Doris Day fading graciously into a picture of a doubtless witty take on lobster remoulade. We have lost so much. So much.

Needless to say, this quarter-arsed gesture has been reported with admiration bordering on the clinical. Many publications have taken the time to point out that the Academys plan is likely to have been inspired by the Golden Globes own last-minute decision to go vegan earlier this month. That menu, we learn in remorseless detail, originally featured a Chilean sea bass dish, but was changed to king oyster mushroom scallops with wild mushroom risotto and vegetables. Right. Is there an awful lot more of this? Oh, I see. There is. Globes offerings also included a chilled golden beet soup appetizer, one report elaborated. A so-called vegan opera dome by pastry chef Thomas Henzi was served as dessert

Please dont regard this as a so-called opera dome of bullshit. Its quite the gesture-politics trend. In fact, the leading talent agency WME announced that its own pre-Oscars party would be plant-based in honour of its client Joaquin Phoenix. He stars in Joker, whose commitment to recycling other directors work was almost total.

Indeed, Phoenix garnered headlines a few weeks ago when it was proudly revealed that he would be wearing the same dinner jacket for the whole awards season, a move that hugely endeared him to Stella McCartney, by chance also the designer of that dinner jacket. This man is a winner, explained McCartney on Twitter. Wearing custom Stella because he chooses to make choices for the future of the planet. He has also chosen to wear the same Tux for the entire award season to reduce waste. I am proud to join forces with you. When you say join forces are there other forces? Stronger forces? Better strategised forces? I just feel like we need better forces on this stuff than people who capitalise Tux, or commit to wearing couture menswear more than once.

It certainly wasnt clear from Phoenixs Globes acceptance speech, which began: First, I would like to thank the Hollywood foreign press for recognising and acknowledging the link between animal agriculture and climate change, he said. Its a very bold move, making tonight plant-based. Its not the boldest, all told, but anyway. We dont have to take private jets to Palm Springs sometimes, continued Phoenix, or back, please. Coupled with the historic announcement that the Golden Globes was going to reuse its red carpet rather than bin it as usual, this was a huge credit to an industry where, at any given moment, scores of luxury vehicles are ticking into the fourth hour of waiting with the air con on because a pretend superhero cant get out of bed that day.

So do lets hope the Oscars goes several steps further and serves up another Hollywood night to make u think. Even if what you increasingly end up thinking is: I refuse to believe these people arent actually double agents for Exxon.

More:

How do you know when the Oscars have gone vegan? Answer: they keep telling you - The Guardian