NPR wants you to write an Oscar speech

I don't watch award shows.

I know that sounds snobby and elitist. It's like people who say they don't watch television, or only watch movies with subtitles, but I'm not that uptight when it comes to popular culture. I can watch and enjoy a lot of trash, but a night dedicated to an entire industry fawning over itself just rubs me the wrong way. My more open-minded friends tell me I should just lighten the hell up, but I can't. Perhaps some day.

Then again, maybe if I were allowed to actually pen some of the speeches myself I would actually tune into the Academy Awards. No one has asked me to do that, but NPR is offering the next best thing: a contest where people write Oscar speeches in a movie character's voice. The winner will have his or her speech recorded in a phone interview and put on NPR.org. I might try my hand at writing a speech in the voice of Alan Arkin's character from Little Miss Sunshine. I wonder if the rules allow one to snort heroin? It would only be to get into the mind of the character, of course.

[via Pop Candy]