WASHINGTON - Though the legions of nominees are anxiously waiting to hear the fateful words "And the Oscar goes to..." at Sunday's Academy Awards, one big winner has been certain all along: infidelity.
To hear Hollywood tell it, the world is full of lecherous, weak, two-timing people who simply cannot commit to one person, for better or for worse, until death do them part. And Oscar seemed particularly enchanted by them in 2004, with "Sideways," "Closer," "Ray" and "The Aviator" scoring multiple nominations.
"According to the press and the talk shows and just conversations around the bar, everybody's doing it," said Russell Williams, a voting member of the academy who teaches at American University's School of Communications. "It's like if it weren't for infidelity, there wouldn't be any talk-show circuit."
Taylor Hackford's biopic "Ray," which explores the life of the late soul legend Ray Charles, and Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," about notorious womanizing billionaire Howard Hughes, showed that even the world's most brilliant and affable people can fall prey to the lure of infidelity.
"What it does show, as far back in history as you want to go, ... is that nobody's perfect, and even though a lot of these figures have been held up to us on one level as icons and heroes, they're still human and there are always flaws and warts," Williams said.
"It used to be, you were a good person or a bad person. And now, we're beginning to have these images of people who are both, which is the way human beings are. So maybe this is in some ways a growing experience," said Sheri Parks, an American studies professor at the University of Maryland.
Still, Parks said it is adultery -- the most forbidden of all forms of infidelity -- that audiences seem to find most exciting.
Since there has been a shift of "taboo behavior into the suburbs -- and marriage is kind of the suburbs of adult relationship discourse" -- she said "it's much more titillating to American audiences to see sexuality among married people than among unmarried people."
But for some, the theme was not titillating as much as it was depressing.
The magazine LA Splash panned Mike Nichols's "Closer," which explores the twisted romantic entanglements of two couples who just can't seem to stay faithful, saying: "One leaves this movie having little faith in relationships or in the human race."
"It's hard to figure out what the moral of this story is. There are no lessons learned," it said.
Parks said the lesson, or "cleansing," is usually the magic ingredient that makes infidelity surmountable in the United States.
Cheating is still not acceptable behavior, she said, "but it doesn't get you banished from the village anymore" -- provided that there is some sort of "cleansing process, like a public flogging in the media.
"That's a new storyline," Parks noted.
"Sideways," the tale of two bachelors navigating through midlife crises during a road trip through California's wine country, sees one man (played by Thomas Haden Church) desperately trying to sate his wild urges before getting married a week later.
Asked in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter why men seem to have more difficulty than women remaining faithful, the "Sideways" star replied noncomittally: "Uhhh ... I don't know. We're hunters and gatherers? I mean, I don't think all men have a problem staying faithful."
Still, Parks noted that art often mirrors reality.
"Infidelity is interesting because, of course, films are a fantasy vehicle," she said, adding that several surveys show that "a large number of Americans fantasize about infidelity, and a growing number actually practice it.
"And what films do best is to pick up a trend very early and perform a type of evangelism, in that they propel it out into the main discourse."
Plus, there simply seem to be more chances to stray, she said.
"With women being in more public spaces in the last 30 years, there's much more opportunity. And certainly, it is OK now for women to initiate behavior, so there's a doubled chance of it being initiated," Parks said.
Asked about the flood of films involving infidelity in 2004, Williams said filmmakers may have been riding on the coattails of the popular 2002 film "Unfaithful," starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.
"That was a big hit," he said, "and it just kind of also put the woman out in the forefront as being the one who was unfaithful, as opposed to most of the films that had touched on the subject, that had obviously had the man as the one who stepped out."
Added Parks: "Marriage was kind of the last place to go" in terms of exploring taboo behavior, "so it's hard for me to imagine what's next."
But moviegoers are probably in for at least another year of witnessing adultery played out on the silver screen, she said.
"I don't think they're done with marriage yet, because I think there's probably still more room (to explore)," she said.

02/26/2005 13:13 GMT - AFP