When the nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced on January 13th, the conversation was heavily about how poor they were, how various movies, performances, directors, screenplays, and technical achievements were overlooked, as well as how sparse the offerings seemed to be, with Joker, 1917, The Irishman, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood all having at least ten nominations. And the choosing of these films: a war movie, a nostalgic Hollywood movie, a Scorsese movie, and a movie desperately trying to be a Scorsese movie in conjunction with the near-erasure of more dynamic and diverse options, not to mention women-lead and directed films, seemed to prove the Academy was continuing to pursue the regressive well-worn patterns it demonstrated when it gave Green Book multiple Oscars last year. Only one out of twenty acting nominees was a person of colour and legacy choices seemed preferred over less seasoned talent. Even the ceremony itself didn’t bode well, with no host and an earlier date that almost seemed like the show wanting to get itself out of the way as early in the year as it could.
And so we weren’t expecting much. While not likely to be a repeat of last year (unless Joker managed to sweep with all its nominations), there was no indicator it was going to be anything new or different. That held true for some aspects of the show, certainly on the structural side, but damn if it didn’t give me some hope for this silly little “local Awards show” after all.
As is often the case, the interstitial moments were still largely flat, too many celebrities reading bad jokes or performing schtick that just prolonged the show. With a handful of exceptions (Keanu Reeves reading off the original screenplay nominees, casual moments from Kelly Marie Tran, Anthony Ramos, and Zazie Beetz, and James Corden and Rebel Wilson reprising their roles from Cats) the presentations were mostly generic -there definitely didn’t need to be presenters for presenters in some cases.
There was a clear theme to the choice of the presenters though, and it was a faux self-awareness. From Chris Rock making jokes about the lack of women or people of colour nominated to Billie Eilish being chosen to sing the In Memoriam song (a rather uninspiring pick of “Yesterday”) to Sigourney Weaver, Gal Gadot, and Brie Larson being brought on stage together as cinematic women superheroes, the show was blatantly trying to emphasize it was aware of the backlash without ever saying anything substantial about changing things. Basically these choices in presenters and moments of “solidarity” were a P.R. move and mostly disingenuous: See, the Oscars couldn’t have a problem with women filmmakers and stories -they brought together Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, and Ripley!
The one exception to this that felt authentic was the opening sequence and musical number by Janelle Monae which really convinced me she should’ve been the host all along (as a black queer woman it would certainly be a good P.R. move itself). Her performance was like an inverse of those Billy Crystal songs that parodied the movies nominated, only she drew attention to ones that largely weren’t -from opening on the “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” song, to performing a medley of her own “Come Alive” and Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” with Billy Porter and a legion of background dancers dressed as characters from overlooked movies like Queen & Slim, Dolemite is my Name, and Us (she herself wearing Florence Pugh’s May Queen outfit from Midsommar), to then infusing comments on OscarsSoWhite and Black History Month and very pointedly proclaiming it a night to celebrate “women who directed phenomenal films”, there was a passion and daring and truthfulness to her whole act that the show could have benefited more from, rather than handing the reigns over to Chris Rock and Steve Martin to make the obligatory yet unequivocally insincere jokes about the Academy’s representation problem.
The other musical performances of the show were of course the original song nominees. Idina Menzel (who had to endure a couple really outdated jokes about that Travolta name mix-up from six years ago), performed “Into the Unknown” with a number of the international Elsa voice performers (including Lisa Stokke) which was neat. And Cynthia Erivo performed “Stand Up” with all the gravity she conveyed in Harriet. But then there was Eminem for some reason, performing “Lose Yourself” from Eight Mile -the song that won the Oscar in 2003 though without Eminem there for it to be performed. So this was clearly recompense for that, but coming at such a weird time (seventeen years later) and with a large portion of the Oscars’ desired demographic not likely even knowing the minute bit of Academy trivia that makes its inclusion here make a slight bit of sense. But maybe it was worth it for that shot of a very bored Scorsese.
As for the awards themselves, in spite of the large number of nominations for those aforementioned movies, there were no sweeps this year, most movies just winning a single award. Little Women got one for Costume Design, Marriage Story got one for Supporting Actress (Laura Dern, clearly because she deserved one years ago). Jojo Rabbit got one for Adapted Screenplay, Bombshell got one for Makeup and Hairstyling, and Rocketman got the one for Original Song. Obviously I’d have liked to have seen movies like Little Women and Marriage Story get a few more highly deserved wins, but there is something to how none of the major nominees went home empty handed (except The Irishman). But few of these were quite the right wins either, if not misplaced enough to be laughable as was the case with a few of the choices last year. I don’t know, maybe because a lot of the most deserving winners in these categories weren’t even nominated, it takes some of the sting out of the actual winners. There were still some painful choices: after last years’ Into the Spider-Verse claimed victory over Best Animated Feature from Disney, Toy Story 4 got it back, despite being another case of the least good movie in its category (especially next to Klaus and Missing Link). The camera would regularly pan over to Bob Iger in moments of Disney allusion just to emphasize his seat of power within this industry.
And we must address the Joker wins as well, one for Original Score and one for Best Actor. I don’t take any issue with the former, as though the score is mediocre, composer Hildur Guðnadóttir was one of the sweetest winners of the night and an important one as well, as one of only a handful of women to win in that category. Joaquin Phoenix on the other hand… the pre-award montage of the nominated actors really highlighted how poor his performance was next to his fellow nominees. And his acceptance speech was as weird as you’d expect from Phoenix: political but also tangential (what was with the meat-eater shaming?) and bizarre, yet ending on a quote from River which you can’t really criticize. He was followed by Renee Zellweger giving a long speech about Judy Garland and hero worship and vaguely the American Dream when she won for Judy though, so he wasn’t alone in inappropriate self-indulgence.
Alongside Joker, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won two awards for production design and Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt (because see Laura Dern); and weirdly enough Ford v. Ferrari which I could have sworn would be the loser of the Best Picture nominees, won for editing and sound editing. 1917 did slightly better with three wins for sound mixing, cinematography, and visual effects, which is perfectly fine. I’d never begrudge Roger Deakins getting an Oscar and I do take a little bit of glee in 1917 beating an almost entirely Disney slate of competitors in the one category they had a shot in.
But at last we come to the reason this show was such a joyous surprise: the night of Bong Joon-ho! It was a given that Parasite would win the newly christened Best International Film award, and I believed it could take home another Oscar in either writing or directing, as Roma had last year. I did not expect it to get both, and to see Bong and his lovely translator Sharon Choi take the stage three times in the evening. It was especially rewarding when he won for directing as he managed a quote from Scorsese and personally thanked Tarantino for the work he’d done to bring wider recognition to his own films, and both veteran directors responded with beautiful grace. I was ecstatic that Parasite was leaving with three Oscars …and then the impossible happened when Jane Fonda announced its name as Best Picture winner.
This is huge! With this win, Parasite became the first non-English language film to win the Academy’s top prize. It became the first movie since 1955’s Marty to win both Best Picture and the Palme d’Or, and the first non-English film since 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to win four Oscars. Most importantly though, one year after a Best Picture winner that’s possibly the worst film to receive that accolade, the Academy actually gave the Best Picture Oscar to the Best Picture of the year, something that doesn’t happen so often anymore.
So what does this mean? Does it redeem the Oscars, their choices last year, and long history of problems? No. At most, it makes up for some of the lesser choices this year. I can stomach a lot better the Joker wins (even though the Joker as a character now has more Oscars than women directors), in the knowledge that the far better more intricate film about class struggles was rewarded over it. It still doesn’t fix the Academy’s problems by a long shot, yet I don’t feel so bad about the Academy as I did in the wake of last years’ results. Parasite’s win is a sign of hope. A sign that the Oscars can move forward and gain back some modicum of authentic prestige. The optimism in my last essay may not be in vain.
It still can’t be ignored all of the snubs in this years’ nominations nor the pattern that emerged in the kind of films represented instead. There’s a lot of work to go yet -every aspect of the Academy Awards still needs to be scrutinized and evolved. Enough with the jokes and talk about better representation, actually make it happen! But I have said multiple times in the past that no foreign language movie ever had a chance of winning Best Picture. I am delighted to be proven wrong.
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