...Green Book? Huh. A Rundown of the 91st Academy Awards

Well, another Oscars have come and gone. It’s fitting that Bohemian Rhapsody took home the most awards of the night because, like that film, it was a problematic few hours which nonetheless was enjoyable to watch and in some ways was commendable simply for not being a complete trainwreck. After the Academy’s repeated gaffes throughout the season (the Best Popular Movie category, the announcement that not all Best Song nominees would be performed, the announcement that some awards would be given out during the commercials, the Kevin Hart hosting controversy, having no host, etc.) and the redaction of many of those gaffes, it really felt like this was a ceremony that could go completely off the rails. Especially since there was no host keep the ceremony on the track.

Well, the truth is that these Oscars were not a mess. Although the ceremony did run long, it still moved along briskly and had several strong bits throughout. A host wasn’t necessarily missed (especially considering that most Oscar hosts tend to disappear shortly after the monologue anyway). But, the lack of a host still had an effect on the ceremony. It became a lot more about the awards. And, yeah, the Oscars are an awards ceremony, but usually they also feel much more like an EVENT. With a host, the skits, and the oft-maligned montages, the Oscars tend to feel a lot more like a party. This year, they felt like they could have been any other awards ceremony and I felt they lost some of the special buzz that the night usually can have. It was a smooth ceremony, and it was a good ceremony. But I feel like if this becomes the new standard for the Oscars, they do risk losing the luster they’re known for.

The lack of a host also made this ceremony the least political that it’s been in YEARS. It was pretty noticeable that Donald Trump was hardly mentioned (one of Alfonso Cuarón’s speeches took a pretty direct jab at Trump, and Keegan-Michael Key had a subtle gag which mocked Trump’s inability to close an umbrella). And while a few of the winners (notably, Spike Lee, who won his first ever Oscar) did comment on the historic importance of their wins, all-in-all there was less political urgency in this ceremony than in the past.

Perhaps this tepidness wouldn’t have stood out so strongly had the Best Picture award not gone to Green Book. Things had seemed so promising towards the end of the night. Olivia Colman upsetting Glenn Close for Best Actress was a major surprise, and immediately gave the Oscars an exciting feel. It reminded me as a viewer that anything can happen, even in what seemed like one of the most decided categories of the night. Then, when Best Director was given out, seeing Alfonso Cuarón on stage for the third time that night made Roma seem unbeatable (especially since Peter Farrelly wasn’t even nominated for Best Director—making Green Book only the 5^th film in Oscar history to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination). While Roma had seemed like a frontrunner, by the time Best Picture was announced, its win seemed more likely than ever…and then Julia Roberts said “Green Book.”

It kind of deflated everything. And I was genuinely hoping for a repeat of the infamous Moonlight envelope screw-up. I know not everyone was as in love with Roma as I was (it being my absolute favorite film of the year) but even the film’s harshest critics have to admit a win for it would have been incredible. Aside from simply making history as the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, the idea of a Best-Picture winner that celebrates a lower-class, indigenous Mexican woman would have been such a powerful statement at the height of Donald Trump’s border wall debate.

Instead we got Green Book. I’m not going to go deep into why Green Book is so controversial, as I’m not really the right person to be discussing this, but if you’re not familiar with the backlash the film received, I encourage you to read more into it. Here are some good articles to start with. It was, needless to say, really surprising to see the film introduced by vocal activists John Lewis and Amandla Stenberg—I’d love to know how that came about and what their true thoughts are on the film. I do have to say that, despite the film’s numerous problems, I do understand its appeal, and why the controversy surrounding the film might not have affected Academy voters. It’s a well-made film. Peter Farrelly (himself a problematic figure, for the record) is a capable director, making an appealing film with excellent pacing. He comes across as a true actor’s director, and that was undoubtedly appealing for the actor’s branch of the Academy—which is the largest branch. The performances are also fantastic—Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen both do great work and work wonderfully as scene partners. The Oscar-winning screenplay has problems with its content as detailed in the articles I’ve linked to, but the dialogue is good and the story is well-told. You can tell whenever Farrelly or co-writer Nick Vallelonga have discussed the controversy surrounding the film that they don’t really understand what the problem is. That’s because I think Green Book is exactly the movie they were trying to make. It fails in discussing the civil rights movement because it’s not trying to be a movie about the civil rights movement—it’s a movie about friendship and in that respect, it 100% succeeds. And since the friendship this particular movie is about does take place during the civil rights movement, they throw in a message of tolerance that seems like it should be agreeable to everyone. The problem is that in 2019, in a landmark year for black filmmakers, you simply cannot make a film about a historical black figure set in 1962 and NOT address racism with so little nuance and directness. It just can’t be done, and so Green Book fails right from the outset because it doesn’t realize the goals it needs to be hitting. And while I don’t fully agree with the criticism that Dr. Don Shirley exists in the film only in service to Tony Vallelonga’s character (in huge part because Ali gives such a commanding and complex performance), it’s still dated to see a movie where a supposedly likeable protagonist has to be taught that racism is bad. What’s noticeable is that the problems with the screenplay’s content probably would have been avoided if a single person of color had been part of the writing team. I don’t believe that the screenplay by Farrelly, Vallelonga, and Brian Currie was malicious, but it also missed crucial things that white people would miss because they’re simply not a part of our lives. This year’s Oscars had the most black winners in the history of the ceremony, and most of these winners took some part of their speech to thank people for giving them an opportunity. The flaws in Green Book’s screenplay are a perfect example of WHY diversity is so important in writer’s rooms—especially when telling the stories of underrepresented voices.

It’s also clear that, while Green Book technically beat out all of the nominees, it most noticeably beat out Roma. The fact that Cuarón won his second trophy for Best Director is exciting—very few directors have won that award multiple times and that he has won twice is truly incredible (and means a Mexican director has won Best Director 5 times out of the past 6 years). BUT…it’s noticeable that both times Cuarón has won Best Director, his film has failed to win Best Picture (the other time being Gravity). In the past 62 years (after George Stevens won Best Director but didn’t get Best Picture at the 24^th and 29^th Academy Awards) there have now been only two people to have won Best Director more than once without winning Best Picture: Cuarón and Ang Lee. That’s really, really, really specific, and it simply can’t be a coincidence that both are non-American directors. Which is really depressing. At the very least, if one is being charitable, it’s likely that Roma’s snub here was not only due to racism, but was also due to the Academy’s major dislike of Netflix and other streaming services.

Green Book’s Best Picture win wasn’t the only disappointment awards-wise. As I already mentioned, the film that took home the most awards of the night was Bohemian Rhapsody. I know this film does have some huge fans, but it’s impossible to get around the fact that the film’s credited director is Bryan Singer. At last year’s Oscars, the theme of the ceremony seemed to be the #MeToo movement, and if you had mentioned then that next year, the biggest winner of the night would be directed by someone accused of sexual assault, most people would have been in disbelief. Well, most men would have been in disbelief. I think most women would have probably been disappointed but said, “yeah, sounds about right.” It’s nonetheless unfortunate that that’s the case.

I was also disappointed by the win for the Live Action Short Skin. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll summarize the film now, so a major spoiler lies ahead. The film is about a sweet young boy whose dad is your stereotypical racist skinhead. After the father and his friends brutally beat up a black man with no provocation, the father is kidnapped by associates of their victim, who tattoo his entire body so that his skin is entirely black. They then drop him off at his home and when he enters, his young son, thinking he’s a black man intruding, shoots him and kills him. It’s an okay film—not bad by any means. But it was also not really surprising to me that when the filmmakers took the stage for the win they were all white. It distinctly felt like a story about race told by white people—even before I knew the filmmakers’ backgrounds. I imagine that if the Live Action Shorts were a category more people cared about, there would be a lot more discussion of Skin and its rather blunt premise.

As far as the telecast goes, the exclusion of a performance from "All the Stars" was jarring. This isn't 100% the Academy's fault, as Kendrick Lamar made the choice to drop out of the Oscars last minute, leaving them without time to find a singer who'd be ready in time to perform the Oscar-nominated song. But it was still odd when it wasn't performed considering the Academy had publicly stated that all five of the nominated songs would be performed (after previously claiming they wouldn't and people yelling at them for it). At the very least, the lack of a performance should have been addressed, and maybe a clip of the song could have been played. Instead, presenter Chadwick Boseman (perhaps chosen to present this category to make up for the lack of a performance?) read off the teleprompter, "Once again, here are the five nominees for Best Original Song," even though only four of the nominees had been mentioned up until that point. The news of Lamar dropping out had only come out shortly before the broadcast, and I imagine I wasn't the only person who was confused about what was going on and had to frantically google whether the Academy had just plain up forgotten to have a performance or not.

All this being said, there is still a lot to love in this year’s list of awards winners. As I already mentioned, this year saw the highest number of black Oscar winners ever—and by a pretty large margin. There were 7 black winners out of the 24 categories, which shatters the previous record of 4. This is a huge step up considering how recent #OscarsSoWhite was a trending hashtag, and while there’s still a long way to go, it shows real progress. It’s also nice to see that these record-number wins are not just concentrated to one movie, but spread out across several, which shows actual change as opposed to one film being an outlier. With wins for Regina King, Mahershala Ali, and Rami Malek, this is also the first time in Oscar history that a majority of the acting winners were people of color. There was also a record number of women who won this year, with 15 female winners in total. Black Panther's Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler became the first black women to win for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design respectively. Spike Lee, one of the most recognizable American filmmakers, and specifically one of the first prominent black filmmakers, can finally say he’s an Oscar-winner thanks to his screenplay win (although wow I would give anything to have a private conversation with him where he could drop the professional courtesy and really let loose with his thoughts on Green Book). While it might not be the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, Roma was still groundbreaking; it is, shockingly, the first film from Mexico to win Best Foreign Language Film, and Cuarón is the first person to win Best Cinematography for a film they also directed. Black Panther's three wins make it the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to ever win an Oscar (even though the MCU still failed to score a yearned-for win for Best Visual Effects). Overly orange lighting aside, the performance of "Shallow" from Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper was beautiful, and managed to breathe new life into a song that had felt very overplayed at that point. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Colman’s win in the Best Actress category was a legitimate surprise, and a really great one. In the past few years, the acting categories have all felt so pre-determined, and to see a genuine upset was wonderful. It helps that, in my opinion, Colman’s performance was SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than Close’s, making this feel like a delightful surprise as opposed to an unbelievable miscarriage of justice. But regardless, it was a magical moment—and the type of upset that makes watching the Oscars most exciting. It helped that her speech, one she clearly didn't plan for and never expected to make, was absolutely delightful.

So, if you’re disappointed in Green Book’s win, there are still many things to be happy about out of this year’s Oscars. Ultimately, though, the biggest thing one can take solace in is that what makes the Oscars the strongest is the fact that they’re kind of meaningless. I doubt Green Book is going to have the cultural staying power of, say, Roma, Black Panther, or BlacKkKlansman. There are films this year that weren’t nominated for Best Picture (like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) or not even nominated for any Oscars at all (like Eighth Grade) that are going to be remembered more fondly than Green Book. Ultimately, that’s going to have more importance than any Best Picture win. The Oscars aren’t important because they provide definitive accolades, but because they force discussion. If Green Book hadn’t been so strong over this awards season, there wouldn’t have been any reason to discuss its problematic elements, which has lead to some GREAT discussion about the duties any art tackling race must take on. Let this disappointing win fuel your own passion for your favorite films of the year. Reflecting on Academy Awards past, the winners read less like a catalogue of greatness, and more like a depiction of the state of the industry at the time—you can easily pick up patterns and sense the trends of the industry by looking at what was considered worthy at the time. In a few years, when we look back at the win for Green Book, it will indicate that in 2018, the film industry was progressing and becoming more inclusive, but still had a long way to go. And, honestly…yeah, that’s pretty spot-on.

And while that would be a good note to end on, I need to mention that whoever designed the costumes Melissa McCarthy and Brian Tyree Henry wore while presenting deserves some sort of award because wow. That was a brilliant sight gag. Well done.

Thanks for following my awards season coverage—I hope you enjoyed it! It’s a lot of work, but it’s work I admittedly love doing, and it always means a lot when people say how much they appreciate my Oscars coverage. If you want to know about a lot of great films from 2018, check out my list of my 30 favorite films of 2018 (23 of which didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination). You can also see my list of 100 favorite performances of 2018, and of course The 4th Annual Miles Awards, where Bohemian Rhapsody didn’t receive a single nomination. Thanks again, and KEEP WATCHING GREAT MOVIES!

Like Cam. Cam is so fucking great, y'all. Please watch it.