The Oscars: This Means War, or at least it should.
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The 2020 Oscar nominations were released yesterday, and well over some 48 hours later I am sick and tired, I am disgusted, and I am baffled, but mostly angry. I should explain the anger, or rather I want to. I am angry because I don't see this year's nominations as merely casual indifference, or woeful ignorance, but as a purposeful declaration of a social warfare of sorts. That may sound dramatic, and maybe it is, but I also dont believe there is much evidence to support much else considering what we've read and seen from many in the industry since April Reign started #Oscarssowhite. To be sure the Oscar's are just an old flabby over inflated pageant institution, but also it is an institution. An Institution invested in dictating canon. Sure we will always remember great films, but oscar noms and winners keep alive a tradition in storytelling that prioritizes white males as the inherent signifiers of greatness, of talent, of truth, and of purity in America cinema, and it is beyond clear to me that certain people from within the industry are tired of hearing from those outside their hegemony about the importance of different voices and more varied perspectives. You're not going to convince me that ( especially in this entertainment economy currently making its bones off the still mostly unpaid brand publicity offered by social media and its hashtags, fan castings, and memeification) that the academy board was unaware of the swell of disappointment and frustration hurled at their award season peers over their head-scratching omissions of the verifiably well received films, performances, and technical accomplishments of women and people of color this year. Especially when at least a couple of the films they declared worthy (Tarantino's Once Upon a Time, and Todd Phillips Joker) were as polarizing amongst the critical mass as they were. Especially while films like Lulu Wang's “The Farewell” , Greta Gerwig's Little Women, or Lorene Scarfaria's “Hustlers" received near universal praise and adulation. Critical praise should not be an isolated barometer, but in light of the wide crevice between these films it should count quite a bit. The Terry Gilliam's of the world are more than a few, and voices like his have been heard from the ranks of Oscar’s ranks very recently.
Todd Phillips “Joker” was the clear winner in this years oscar nods, despite being a polarizing film amongst critics upon its release
It could be said this may be a by- product of the academy's recent push to allow for films with more of a popular standing with mainstream audiences, but then while “Little Women”, and “The Farewell” never reached mainstream audiences (for a multitude of reasons that include distribution and marketing) why not the 150 million plus/over its 20 million budget “Hustlers”? The head of Bafta derided the lack of opportunity in the industry to defend the negligence of that institution. Hmm…you mean that institution who denied Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman their entire careers, and this year helped shut out Lupita Nyong'o, who gave arguably the performance of the year in Jordan Peele's “Us” - a film that didn’t quite receive the reception of his now seminal “Get Out”, but still far outpaced both Tarantino'sand Phillips films in critical regard, and wasn't far behind Once Upon a Time in Box office (especially when set against budget)? This is about several kinds of biases and prejudices. This was a clap back, or at least a stern stubborn affirmation of the previously held position of the last 100 or more years of cinema. Why else would one of their institutional peers hire someone of the constitution of the very non-asked for Ricky Gervais (whom mind you I somewhat like). Could be there was no one else…could be ratings, but neither of those are anymore solid than the possibility that Gervais was a representation of the animus of those tired of apologizing for what they feel are minor infractions, for being artist, for being taste makers, and as Terry Gilliam, and so many others have put it, for being white. There were too many categories, too many folk as close to objectively better than the chosen nominees, and that's before you get to the “like-clockwork” arrival of obvious miscues like the various Uncut Gems snubs. No actor, no director, no best picture nod(s) for a film that obviously made both an academic and social imprint on this year beyond most of the films they chose. The Oscars have long had a prestige bias, and that too is also coded, but the original language is so forgotten, so dated , so archaic that even its most ardent disciples don't ’t know what prestige is or means. Uncut Gems lack of nods is a case of a general lack of imagination and inspiration by the academy, and shows its age, but still mostly this feels like a pretty blatant repudiation of people of color, of women, of certain genres, and bias against certain types of performances, and stories. It's important to understand these things ( gender, genre, and racial bias) intertwine and intersect. Long held conscious and unconscious prejudices against various members of different sexual orientations, genders, and peoples are part and parcel of the biases against certain genres. Horror having a genuinely observable narrative obsession with femininity and empowerment, as well as masculine objection, rejection, and objectification around and about their bodies as postulated by folk like Laura Mulvey and Carol Clover, and also being arguably the most disrespected genre by both the gatekeepers of prestige and the Academy, cannot be reasonably construed as merely coincidence. Science Fiction, and action films have had a history of incorporating marginalized people throughout their cast and as leads in the narrative, long before drama which mostly insisted that if marginalized folk be presented it was in work or stories specific to their identity and not much else. Funny enough these same people who had no problem basing casting and story choices purely on rigid assumptions and definitions of identity take issue with the idea of identity politics based purely on identity. Whether Queen aliens, black oracle’s, sexual succubuses, slasher victims, psycho powered teenagers, over pressured asain males, possessed little girls, beleaguered wives or mothers, or women who dare object to motherhood, stories about women, gays, black folk, and people of color unencumbered by white male intruders, be they audience, characters, or directors have rarely been seen as worthy of the supposedly academic sensibilities of the academy as those made by white men, though the uber men villains of comic book films have (though both have thus far been iterations of the Joker ). The socially acceptable prejudices in white audiences towards black storytellers of color as to which depictions of what kind of black folks lead to nominations and wins are narrow, and many times guided by white hands with few exceptions. Slaves and struggling depictions of black folk will earn rave reviews, and most likely awards, but ultimately happy, or just average stories about everyday black folk less so. Dating back to Justin Lin and “Better Luck Tomorrow”, Mira Nair and The Namesake, all the way to LuLu Wang and The Farewell, and even to some extent the better received Parasite (Academy-wise) asain stories have been largely ignored , and same for many kinds of stories about Latinos, and worser still Native Americans. To blame the obvious industry wide problem of lack of opportunities is incomplete, lazy, and an insult to almost any filmgoers intelligence. Lack of opportunities doesn't explain why Bafta has famously excluded both Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman their entire careers. Lack of opportunities doesn't explain why “Kasi Lemmons's” American gothic classic Eve's Bayou was wholesale ignored in 1997. Why Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust received a similar ghosting, or why Smoke Signals, or American Me, or the Joy Luck Club received none of the kind of wide eyed adulation so many mediocre white entries like The King's Speech, Amistad, The Last Samurai, or Crash received. This is because the lack of opportunities are interwoven with the covert and overt lack of respect for storytelling outside the white hegemonic institutional paradigm, and tellers that do not regard the sensitivity of white viewers or allow them a pathway to ownership of the lens of perspective. It’s why “ Driving Miss Daisy", “The Help”, “The Three Billboard's of Ebbing”, and “The Green Book” can consistently do so well during awards season, and why “Widows”, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Dolemite is My Name”, “Queen and Slim”, “The Farewell”, “The Handmaiden” “Hustlers”, and more struggle so mightily, or receive various iterations of consolation prizes.
Lupita nyong'O's performance in Jordan peele's “us” bears many aesthetic similarities in choices and effect (though spiritually and conceptually it’s better imo) as Joaquin PhoeniX's joker, but received none of his acclaim come awards season.
There are most certainly prejudices beyond identity. Clear biases have existed for years towards action films since their inception into the mainstream production values of film. Mission Impossible: Fallout should have been an Oscar nominee last year, and any argument to the opposite will inevitably lead back to some version of an argument regarding low/high art, and prestige. For much of the same reason if I had my way so too should John Wick 3 be nominated as best picture this year, and I remain firmly convinced that films like Die Hard, or even Top Gun should've been best picture nominees in their day. Raucous comedies like Coming to America, CaddyShack, Friday, or the 40 year old Virgin are far too important to the American lexicon and popular culture, never mind being brilliant to have been ignored. Science Fiction films like Alien, The Road Warrior, Minority Report, and The Matrix are more than just their technical achievements, they were astonishingly directed, shot, acted films that offered far more than many of their dramatic contemporaries did to the culture and gravity of cinema. Most certainly Horror films like The Shining, The Babadook and Hereditary at the very least gave us legendary characters and performances the likes of which have rarely been seen in any genre, and yet none of them bore their performers any fruit come Oscar time. What is this, but the most extreme kind of prejudice?
1980's “The Shining featured two of the most harrowing and memorable performances of th 20th century, neither was nominated by the academy.
