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Cognitive dissonance, that’s the best way to describe the 90th night of the Academy Awards. If #MeToo, #TimesUp and the idea of inclusion dominated the proceedings giving out a clear sign of change in world’s most powerful film industry, the ceremony also showed selective amnesia by choosing to reward some who clearly had a problematic past.
To begin with, Gary Oldman won Best Actor Oscar for his prosthetic assisted bombast in Darkest Hour.
The blissful unawareness also extended to performances. ‘This is Me’, the song celebrating diversity and individualism with a Baz Luhrmann gusto was a dreadful oddity, considering it is from a biopic on PT Barnum, a contentious figure of exploitation.
The night also rewarded Kobe Byrant for animated short, Dear Basketball.
Another winner, Sam Rockwell in the Best Supporting Actor category, played the role of a racist cop who gets an easy pass in the film. Again, a mismatch in the narrative that the Academy so carefully planned out.
Like the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, both the categories in their female counterpart went to hot favourites: Allison Janney and Frances McDormand. Both played acid tongued mothers on screen albeit with a different moral compass, and both delivered applause worthy speeches.
If Janney made everyone chuckle, McDormand made everyone stand up and notice the night’s most highlight worthy moment. After acknowledging her collaborator Martin McDonagh, she requested all the female nominees in the auditorium to get up, starting with everyone’s favourite Meryl Streep.
An inclusion rider means one can contractually demand 50% diversity in crew, both racial and gender. A star taking the stage to not only address a conspicuous issue, but actually coming up with a plausible solution, truly magnificent.
McDormand’s stirring speech was a suitable peak of the awards season that saw women lead the march against sexual harassment that has long plagued Hollywood. Earlier in the ceremony Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra, and Salma Hayek took to the stage to bring focus on campaigns like #MeToo and #TimesUp.
Like Harvey Weinstein’s ghost, American president Donald Trump too haunted the night. If a video montage showed industry elders and new entrants talking about representation and inclusion, presenters Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjiani wonderfully quipped,
Keeping up with the theme of inclusion, The Shape of Water emerged as the biggest winner with four trophies including Best Director and Best Picture. Guillermo del Toro’s oddball fantasy romance is filled with characters who would be outcasts in Trump’s America. A Mexican woman, a black woman, a Russian man, and a gay man trying to save an amphibian creature is as bizarre a film can get, and its win is a pack of brownies that the Academy has gifted itself. Like his immigrant compatriots, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican auteur keeps the hope of a migrant alive in an otherwise cynical world.
Though the Academy missed the honour of presenting a competitive Oscar to Agnès Varda, the darling of the French New Wave, two celebrated troupers took home their first Oscar, inviting collective cheers across the world.
Ivory also drove the fashion parade crazy when they spotted the 89-year-old sporting a thoughtful Elio on his shirt. These old-timers show no sign of fading, thank God for that.
One thing that really stuck out was Academy’s failure to put up a great show despite celebrating its ninetieth birthday. The sightings of Rita Moreno and Eva Marie Saint were delightful, but there was no major pre-planned moment including veterans. What happened to those class photo gigs, or making a bunch of greats present a big trophy to a winner?
In totality, the Academy refused to surprise as far as winners were concerned, but it was all forgiven, for it brought a Cherokee man, prominent LGBT representation including a transgender for the first time, blacks, women, and immigrants on stage to honour and applause.
We, the Indians, can look at these political statements and sigh. Such is our industry, and such is our spine. For now, let’s console ourselves with Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor being up there with the greats of the world.
(The writer is a journalist, a screenwriter, and a content developer who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. He tweets @RanjibMazumder)
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