One of the most notable additions of this year’s Academy Awards was a “thank-you” scroll that simultaneously ran at the bottom of television screens as winners gave their speeches. The intention, according to those that made the decision, was to encourage more “meaningful” victory speeches – and, no doubt, to cut down on length. Yet by all counts the gimmick failed: winners still read names off of lists; people were still played off, often in tasteless fashion; and the ceremony itself still ran far too long, clocking it at over three-and-a-half hours. By the time Sacha Baron Cohen emerged in his old Ali G character to introduce the final two Best Picture nominees, the mood for bits-and-skits had long turned sour.
The length problem only contributed to what was an uncharacteristically strange Oscars, with the cloud of racial exclusivity (or, in contemporary terms, #OscarsSoWhite) hovering over despite the show’s best efforts to address it head-on. Host Chris Rock did a consistently admirable, at times tremendous job of tackling the controversy, and of assuming a responsibility he neither expected nor requested. His jokes disarmingly swayed between anti- and pro-PC, sharply in-tune with the optics of a black comic putting on a show for, fundamentally, a group of white producers, actors, writers, directors and craftsmen. He mocked the significance of both the awards and the controversy; he managed to make pointed claims about the snubs of Michael B. Jordan and Straight Outta Compton while also sticking in some off-base – worse, unfunny – bits involving Asian children and actress Stacey Dash. (He also had a standard, dragging, go-nowhere skit, this time featuring Girl Scout cookies.) His presence, which unfortunately faded the longer the show ran, invoked unease more than comfort – an apt choice, given the circumstances.
Yet the show was also overwhelmingly issue-centric, as if the Oscars and its winners were determined to demonstrate their importance and their value. After being introduced by Vice President Joe Biden, Lady Gaga explosively tackled sexual assault by gathering real-life survivors at the climax of her “‘Til It Happens to You” performance. Leonardo DiCaprio’s expected Best Actor win was capped by a declaration that “Climate Change is real!” Producers of Best Picture winner Spotlight called on Pope Francis to recognize the perpetrators and survivors of the scandal they depict; the film's screenwriters, Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, commented on the vitality of investigative journalism. Adam McKay and Charles Randolph, scribes of The Big Short, predictably lamented income inequality and political corruption, but then, strangely, had to elaborate that they weren’t merely stumping for a certain presidential candidate. Best Director champ Alejandro G. Inarritu, in a speech cut off by music much too soon, essentially advocated for the end of racism. And at the apex of the ceremony's “this matters!” theme, Sam Smith – winner of Best Original Song – erroneously claimed to be the first openly gay man to win an Academy Award. (He’s not even close.)
This made for an ugly contrast, and rendered many of the night’s more progressive claims reductive. A night earlier, at the Independent Spirit Awards, Mya Taylor became the first transgender actress to win a major film award for Tangerine, while Idris Elba continued his awards dominance for Beasts of No Nation – sans Oscar of course. Thus the all-white liberalism trumpeted on Oscar night felt especially reflective of Hollywood’s “sorority racism,” which Rock cleverly identified in his monologue. It’s the kind of insidious juxtaposition – of liberal values and racial exclusion – that continues to signify important points of discussion within American politics, and is increasingly defining the Democratic Presidential Primary harshly divided along racial lines. Fortunately, the annual aura of self-congratulatory message-thumping at the Oscars was qualified this year, somewhat, by a controversy that the public refused to minimize.
The sense of displacement created by the show’s contradictory politics extended to the winners’ circle. This was a year of relatively low passion, in which the industry struggled to settle on an appropriate choice for “Best Picture,” a title which intends to hold as much cultural weight as it does qualitative. The Big Short had the message, but its means were antithetical to what is traditionally deemed “serious”; The Revenant boasted a visual audacity that couldn’t quite compensate for its lack of narrative purpose. There was also Mad Max: Fury Road, which cleaned up with a staggering six technical victories before quietly stepping into the background, and Room, the Academy’s choice Indie this year, represented in every major field. But Spotlight was the consensus choice: a cleanly-made, undeniably “important” movie with a cast of well-liked actors and a director whose work had long gone unjustly unrecognized by the Academy. I should add that it’s a great film – my personal choice, in fact, for the prize. But its win is also indicative of a limited set of standards.
Last night, the performance from Chris Rock and the trend-cloud named #OscarsSoWhite visualized such limitations in stark terms. Rock explained that these standards aren’t new, exactly – most Oscar ceremonies from past years have been all-white, after all – but in the era of Black Lives Matter and social media, they’re being confronted with newfound urgency and understanding. Anyone who picked up a Friday New York or Los Angeles Times in the past few months saw Spotlight and The Big Short essentially competing for the “value” prize in their advertisements; anyone who heard the earlier award speeches from DiCaprio and the Spotlight cast listened to frontrunning contenders honing and sharpening their messages, in preparation for the big stage.
You don’t win an Oscar without explaining your importance. To be clear, this is not to say that Spotlight and The Big Short don’t have important things to say – they do, and they say them well. Yet, in the scheme of honoring the “best,” what is one supposed to point to and call “important”? That’s the central question here, one that continues to take up more space. The social arguments of movies like Creed and Carol – both of which missed out on Best Picture nominations – are quieter, but they’re also more radical. Precisely for that reason, it’s unfortunate that they’re considered “under-the-radar” come Oscar-time. There's an industry problem, yes, but as the Indie Spirits emphatically proved by giving three of its four acting awards to people of color, the Academy's whitewashing should not be reduced to symptomatic claims.
Around the middle of the telecast, Rock introduced a taped bit to the audience, in which he parked himself outside his “favorite” theater in Compton, California, and interviewed a collection of black moviegoers. He asked what they thought of the Oscars’ all-white nominations slate; the answers were diverse in perspective, informative, thoughtful and refreshingly divorced from the circular discussions such “trending topics” can encourage. But Rock’s real political statement came afterwards, as he asked each interviewee which nominated films they’d seen. There was little interest for Spotlight. Hardly anyone even reacted to The Big Short. Hell, one avowed movie-lover was convinced that Rock had made up “Bridge of Spies” as a movie title. The Dolby Theater bellowed with innocent laughter, but a powerful statement was made nonetheless.
Climate change, sexual assault, investigative reporting, Catholic Church scandals, income inequality – all proudly addressed by winners and losers alike last night. But one overpowering question still demanded an answer by night’s end: Oscar, why so white?