This Sunday night, you’re going to see a lot of fake smiles and probably even more polite claps. Hopefully, the cameras will catch a few honest eye rolls and sighs as a very long Oscar season finally comes to an end.

The few will waltz onto the stage of the Dolby – formerly the Kodak – Theater to collect their shiny new Oscars, while the losers stay seated down below. Later, those who lost will tell E! News’ Giuliana Rancic how glad they were just to be nominated.

But maybe winning isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Especially for the ladies.

There’s the obvious awkwardness. Winners have to remember to thank the right people and avoid a wardrobe malfunction in front of about 40 million Americans.

Beyond the ego-inflating effects of the win, it doesn’t seem like getting an Oscar does much else.

Last year, “The Help” actress Octavia Spencer took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Spencer told New York Magazine’s Vulture.com her win wasn’t much of a “needle-mover” in her career. The actress snagged two of her three major upcoming movies before “The Help” award nominations even started coming in.

Fellow Supporting Actress winners Mo’Nique and Penelope Cruz’s careers haven’t seen a huge change, either. Following “Precious,” Mo’nique moved to the small screen by hosting “The Mo’Nique Show” on BET. After two seasons, it was cancelled. Cruz’s movie highlights following her win include “Pirates of the Caribbean 4,” general failure “Nine” and “Sex and the City 2.”

But these same problems can’t be seen for the guys. Almost every Best Actor — and even Best Supporting Actor — since 2000 has continued to have a healthy career. Even the losers are doing well, and tend to pop up again for more nominations.

Also unfortunate for Best Actress winners is having to worry about the infamous “Oscar Curse.” According to the jinx rumor, any woman who wins the Best Actress trophy should keep an eye on her husband or boyfriend. Soon enough, he’ll cheat on her. In the last 11 years, seven of the Best Actress winners have broken up with longtime boyfriends or husbands.

Almost every female winner, from Halle Berry to Sandra Bullock, has been affected. Apparently, these men don’t know how to appreciate a successful woman. How sad.

Somehow, the Oscars uphold America’s workplace divide between genders. Just as women make less money than their male counterparts in the office, women can win the same award as men and not gain the same benefits.

Luckily for Jennifer Lawrence, this year’s Best Actress frontrunner, if and when she walks onto the Dolby Theater stage, will have a definite future blockbuster in the bag and no boyfriend to worry about. Lawrence’s “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” is slated for a November release, and she broke up with her boyfriend, actor Nick Hoult, in early January.

That sounds like a broken curse to me.

Ariana Romero is a junior magazine journalism and political science major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at akromero@syr.edu or followed on Twitter at @ArianaRomero17.

Published on February 21, 2013 at 1:13 am