The Oscars

The night before last I watched the Oscars, including the strange red carpet rituals beforehand. Am I the only person who caught sight of the following, genuinely startling vignette? Purely by chance it could be observed in the foreground, down at the very bottom of the screen, in the middle of one of the many elevated and relatively prolonged shots of the full extent of the red carpet, not too far distant from this vantage point adjacent to the Kodak Theater. With considerable ingenuity, a tuxedo-wearing gentleman, who was guiding his frail-looking lady companion’s wheelchair, stopped; hauled her up onto her decidedly wobbly legs; darted around to take her place in the same wheelchair; eased her back down into his lap so that together they could be photographed in that awkward, evidently uncomfortable, and curiously unorthodox pose. Presumably he may have been unaware that this maneuver, indelicate in a whole variety of ways, could be seen by millions across the globe, but neither he nor she seemed particularly incommoded, so let us assume that the only discomfiture was my own. Still, rather strange—yes?