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.
This choice is disturbing for two reasons. Firstly, Oldman, the actor has a questionable past with allegations of sexual assault. Secondly, he played Winston Churchill who continues to get lionized in the west, despite his track record of being a genocidal maniac. For an industry trying to correct history, this is a gigantic misstep.
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.
The basketball titan was accused of rape but that didn’t stop him from taking home his first Oscar.
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.
Janney, quite like her sassy nature, began her speech with ‘I did it all by myself’, taking a dig on the worn-out tradition of thanking families and friends by winners.
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.
“I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider”.Frances McDormand
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,
“We are the actors you keep hearing about, but whose names you have trouble pronouncing”.
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.
Master cinematographer Roger A Deakins won for Blade Runner 2049 and took the podium with a Mick Jagger swagger. James Ivory, the half of the great Merchant-Ivory, became the oldest Oscar winner in history for adapting Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name to melancholic glory.
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?
The rest of the night had a tired ‘movie stars dazzling commoners’ gag, and some hit and miss jokes by host Jimmy Kimmel who left no stone unturned to take a dig at Mel Gibson, Mike Pence, and Weinstein.
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.
America may not be great again, but it is at least trying.
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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