If all publicity is good publicity than the 91st Academy Awards should have been the highest rated yet. Because in their desperation to draw in more audiences they made some truly baffling decisions that have caught the attention of the public and garnered heavy controversy. There was the stupid and condescending “Best Popular Film” debacle, Kevin Hart stepping down from the hosting gig amidst controversy surrounding homophobic jokes, the subsequent decision to do away with a host entirely this year for the first time since 1989, and the decision to cut four categories (Cinematography, Editing, Makeup & Hairstyling, and Live-Action Short) from the broadcast, only to restore them after near universal criticism from the film community on this move. Each of these proposed changes backfired drastically, making the Academy look like they either don’t know what they’re doing, or more depressingly, don’t actually care about celebrating film any more as much as appealing to the desired demographic in as pandering a way as possible. And that’s not even mentioning the backlash they’ve received for nominating movies like Bohemian Rhapsody (a mediocre musical biopic that happens to be directed by a paedophile) and Green Book (an outdated and offensively safe white mans’ idea of race relations) for Best Picture (I also contend that Vice has no business anywhere near the top award). Because of all this nonsense there was added pressure on the Oscars this year, and the Awards show itself responded to that pressure rather well …for a while.
This years’ show was no doubt different from any in recent memory, but not in a bad way. Despite starting off on a bit of a poor note with a mini concert from Queen just to emphasize Bohemian Rhapsody’s presence, the host was not missed at all and the pacing and presentation was way more smooth and even than it’s been in years. There were no silly stunts like ordering pizza or visiting a local movie theatre, it really felt like its focus was on the artists and the medium of film. That’s not to say it was without its moments of levity. The choice in presenters was very smart, from Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph mocking the kind of hack jokes expected for a show like this, to John Mulaney and Awkwafina having a fun chemistry, to the surreality of Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry presenting Costume Design in ridiculous outfits. Keegan-Michael Key made a great entrance, Tyler Perry threw some wonderful shade at the near absence of the Cinematography recognition, Trevor Noah slyly worked in the greatest joke of the night into his introduction of Black Panther, and Samuel L. Jackson paused the show to tell his friend Spike Lee the New York Knicks had just won a home game for the first time in eighteen years. That kind of spontaneity persisted through the show. And they did a really good job allowing the winners to speak. There was no music trying to play off people after only a minute on stage; everyone it seemed got a chance to revel in their accomplishment. And it led to some great speeches from the likes of Ruth Carter (the costume designer of Black Panther), Hannah Beachler (the production designer of Black Panther), and Domee Shi and Becky Neiman-Cobb (the director and producer of Pixar’s Bao), in addition to Spike Lee, Olivia Colman, and the trifecta from Alfonso Cuarón. And with all of this there was even time for the performances of the Best Original Song nominees -and clearly the show’s producers favoured A Star is Born’s “Shallow”, giving Lady GaGa and Bradley Cooper’s live rendition the best lighting, cinematography, and build-up of the night -it of course deservedly won. Overall the show was just way more economical than in previous years, and it was much better for it.
The awards winners themselves are usually mixed, but this year they were for the most part satisfying. Not a lot of my personal choices won, but I was still happy for many of the winners. There were glaring omissions of course (Won’t You Be My Neighbor for Best Documentary and First Reformed for Best Actor and Picture most notably), but I had no problem with Spike Lee and his team winning Best Adapted Screenplay over my choice of Barry Jenkins, or Olivia Colman winning over one of the best performances of the decade from Yalitza Aparacio, because both took those wins so wonderfully. Samuel L. Jackson holding on Lee’s name when announcing him, followed by Lee joyfully embracing his former star, and giving one of the most powerful speeches of the night off a script he’d had prepared for a while, ending on a call for change by way of invoking his greatest movie was the definition of a great Oscar moment. Similarly, Colman’s response to her name being announced has to be an iconic Oscar reaction, and her utterly flustered acceptance speech was unbelievably adorable. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse becoming the first non-Disney animated film in seven years to win Best Animated Feature was a well-deserved triumph and I of course cheered for Alfonso Cuarón’s triple win in Best Cinematography, Best Foreign Language Film (even if that guaranteed Roma wouldn’t win Best Picture), and Best Director -his second, and the fifth in six years for a Mexican filmmaker. It looked like a great night for representation too, as within the first hour, four awards had already gone to women of colour, breaking records in the process. It almost made up for the fact that Bohemian Rhapsody won awards for its sloppy editing, sound mixing, and sound editing, in addition to Best Actor for Rami Malek which everyone saw coming.
However it proved too good to be true. Perhaps its' mind-boggling win of Best Original Screenplay over the stunningly brilliant scripts of The Favourite and First Reformed was a sign, but nonetheless when Julia Roberts announced Green Book as the Best Picture winner I was pretty flabbergasted. After a show that was generally going so well, the Oscars managed a surprise by shooting themselves in the foot at the last minute.
I’ve been watching the Academy Awards for eleven years. In that time, films I wasn’t particularly fond of have won Best Picture. But none of them were necessarily bad movies. Green Book is. It is unequivocally the worst movie to win Best Picture since Crash in 2006. And this on its own would be bad enough, but it’s what Green Book’s win means that is more devastating. In a year of powerful movies about race, from the nominated Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman to If Beale Street Could Talk and completely overlooked films like The Hate U Give and Sorry to Bother You, all made by black filmmakers and offering intelligent, relevant, and nuanced insights on the subject, the movie that takes American cinema’s top prize is one about race from a white perspective that offers nothing insightful, and in fact seems to be content in its feeble message of togetherness meant to make white people feel good about themselves -in addition to its sanitized portrait of the 1960s Deep South and liberties taken with Don Shirley’s character. The Academy could not have chosen a movie this year to make them look worse, save for maybe Bohemian Rhapsody due to the association that comes with it. Ideally Black Panther, with both commercial and critical acclaim comparable to Best Picture winners like Titanic and Return of the King, would have been the best choice. A forward-thinking, socially conscious black utopian movie that questions its own utopia and grapples with themes of colonialism and the harm of isolationism starring a predominantly black cast and being a celebration of African culture would have been the perfect image for Hollywood to project as an evolving industry making the right steps to atone for the sins of the past. Instead it feels like a lot of progress has been thrown out the window. And as to the other race movie Green Book was up against, it’s complete bullshit that nearly thirty years after Do the Right Thing’s snub, a Spike Lee film has once again been dismissed in favour of an awful movie about defeating racism by just getting along. This is honestly a more embarrassing moment for the Academy than the La La Land-Moonlight fiasco two years ago.
And it’s going to be a long time before the Academy will recover from this. Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman losing to the whitest movie about race relations since Driving Miss Daisy will hang over the Oscars and their credibility for years to come. Already it’s being mocked relentlessly, and it’s a shame that it leaves a bad taste on an otherwise very good awards ceremony and some very deserving wins.
I will continue to pay attention to the Oscars and Oscar news because I can’t help myself (and who knows, given their recent actions if the response to this is bad enough the Academy may rescind the award in a few weeks time). But I really don’t have any good reasoning for taking the Oscars seriously anymore, certainly when it comes to Best Picture. All someone would have to say to discredit any argument I make would be, “Oscar Winner Green Book.”
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