Oscars 2016

The Oscars, held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, is an annual celebration of all things Hollywood; of the Academy and the films, actors and filmmakers they chose to bestow golden statues upon in reward for their talent.
Not this year.

This year, the Oscars became a roast, thanks to Chris Rock’s scathing commentary and the all-too-evident absence of people of colour, both figuratively and literally. As the Academy had yet again failed to nominate any people of colour in the major categories, some actors, like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, had boycotted the ceremony. These glaring absences were continuously noted on Twitter, as #OscarsSoWhite trended throughout the night – and the fearless host dove straight into the controversy, making race the main theme of his monologues, jokes and sketches – much to the discomfort of many audience members, who were undoubtedly missing the tamer, selfie-loving banter of Ellen DeGeneres.

But Chris Rock’s humour was sharp, necessary, and taking no prisoners.
After an opening montage celebrating the year in film, Rock sauntered on stage declaring that he was delighted to be back hosting the Academy Awards – also known as “The White People’s Choice Awards.” He remarked upon the lack of nominations for people of colour, dryly noting that “if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even be here.”
For Tinsel Town natives who were unaccustomed to being literally confronted with their White privilege, the opening monologue was about to get all too real for them.
Rock addressed his own doubts about attending the Oscars, but said that despite the #OscarsSoWhite boycott, the lack of nominations for people of colour was not a new phenomenon, observing that “this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times,” and the reason it hadn’t come up before was because African-Americans had “real things to protest at the time.”

“We had real things to protest,” Rock said. “We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won Best Cinematographer. When your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about Best Documentary Foreign Short.”

Rock’s pitch-black joke was met with as many gasps as it was laughs, but he never faltered in delivering his Pryor-esque material. Addressing America’s history of lynching, slavery, violence and oppression, Rock’s sly candour highlighted just how recent America’s presumed “history” is. He then delivering a gutpunching dose of reality, referring to the ongoing cases of police brutality in the United States and quipping that “This year’s In Memorial package is just going to be Black people who were shot by the cops on the way to the movies.

Thorny, uncomfortable and deeply important, Rock’s monologue wasn’t perfect, however. By repeating that people of colour used to have “real” things to worry about, Rock seemed to undermine the issues facing people of colour in America today, particularly the #BlackLivesMatter movement – no doubt just a questionable wording choice, as his passion and sentiment were all on-track. But a mean-spirited bit dismissing Jada Pinkett-Smith’s boycott of the Oscars fell flat, as Rock needlessly criticised and mocked the actress for her outspoken criticisms of the awards show “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties – I wasn’t invited!”

Though the jab was well-received in the theatre, it felt off-target, as Rock mercilessly dismissed a woman of colour for her activism.

On the flip side, a joke that sadly didn’t land with the Oscars audience but was razorsharp in its construction was a blink-and-you’ll-miss it appearance by Stacey Dash, known for her role as Dionne in Clueless. Dash, an outspoken conservative who has become known for making controversial and largely ignorant comments of the controversial and largely ignorant station Fox, had infamously called to eliminate Black History Month, celebrated in the US in February. Introducing Dash as the “new director of the Oscars’ Minority Outreach Program,” Rock grinned as Dash declared “I cannot wait to help my people out. Happy Black History Month!” The joke was lost on many people (either unaware of Stacey Dash’s comments, Black History Month, or both), but certain circles on Twitter loved it, with Jamil Smith tweeting “That Stacey Dash moment might be the first time an Oscars telecast has aired a #BlackTwitter inside joke.”

Rock’s monologue ended on a lighter note, that perfectly balanced calling out Hollywood and the Academy for being what he called “’sorority racist’; like ‘We like you Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa’”, while also calling them into a conversation about race and progress, telling them “things are changing,” and that activists and allies aren’t looking to cause more division, but merely “want the Black actors to have opportunities.”
Of course he then introduced the first presenters, saying “You want diversity, we got diversity! Please welcome Emily Blunt & someone Whiter, Charlize Theron.”

The show had begun.

First Awards, Short Speeches and Small Victories

As Spotlight walked away with the first gong of the evening for Best Original Screenplay, eagle-eye viewers noticed a scroll below the winners during their speeches. This scroll is the result of the awards show’s new and strictly imposed 45-second time limit for speeches. By letting nominees say who they would like to thank before the show, the producers hoped they could cut down on the incessant gushings of “Thank you to my Mum, my Dad, my God, my dog – in that order” and instead allow winners to keep their speeches short and meaningful.

The speeches were short. There were still ‘thank yous’, and relatively little meaning. Baby steps.

After The Big Short won Best Adapted Screenplay, the awards show did earn some points for meaning, when the ever-endearing JK Simmons presented the award for Best Supporting Actress. While name-checking nominee and eventual winner Alicia Vikander, he described The Danish Girl as a film about a person undergoing “gender confirmation surgery.” This tiny phrase marks a distinct linguistic and cultural evolution regarding the trans experience, where medical intervention has historically been called a “sex change” or more recently “gender reassignment surgery.” To acknowledge the reality and validity of the trans experience and identity was an apparently small but monumentally important moment in a show under fire for its lack of progress.

After Mad Max:Fury Road dominated the technical awards, sweeping up statues for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Make-Up and Hairstyling, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing, the only brief breaks from the worshipping of George Miller’s raucously fun dystopian rock opera was when Emmanuael Lubezki rightfully won Best Cinematography for his luscious, evocative and beautifully nightmarish work on The Revenant, and when the shamefully overlooked sci-fi drama Ex Machina won for Best Visual Effects.

It then became all about the kids, as Chris Rock recruited Hollywood’s rich and famous to buy Girl Scout cookies from his daughters, while Bear Story won for Best Animated Short Film, beating out fan favourite World of Tomorrow to become the first ever Oscar won for Chile. Disney/Pixar’s gorgeous Inside Out then rightfully won Best Animated Film, and co-creator Pete Doctor remained true to the theme of the film, which explores how the emotions of an adolescent girl begin to change her experience of the world.
"Anyone out there who's in junior high, high school, suffering, there are days you're going to feel sad, you're going to feel angry, you're going to feel scared -- that's nothing you can choose," he said. "But you can make stuff. Make film, draw, write. It'll make a world of difference."

Hart, Biden and Gaga, oh my!

Comedians took over the next segment of the show, with Kevin Hart coming to introduce The Weekend, who performed his nominated song from Fifty Shades of Grey. But before bringing the singer onstage, Hart gave an impassioned and unscripted speech about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.

"I just want to take a second to get something off my chest. First and foremost, I'm a positive guy I feed off of positive energy, I feel like positive overall beats negative. With that being said, I want to applaud all of the actors and actresses of colour that didn't get nominated tonight. The reason why I say that is because I want them to understand that tonight should not determine the hard work and effort that you put into your craft.” He added, “"At the end of the day we love what we do, we're breaking major ground doing it. These problems of today will eventually become problems of the old. Let's not let this negative issue of diversity beat us, let's continue to do what we do best. With that being said, congratulations on an amazing year."

After The Weekend performed – accompanied by what looked like the BDSM loving members of Cirque Du Soleil, the Best Supporting Actor gong was awarded to Mark Rylance for his role in Bridge of Spies – a surprise win, as many expected Sylvester Stallone to walk away with a statue for his performance in Creed. Louis CK then took to the stage to present the award for Best Documnentary Short Film, ribbing the nominees by telling the other nominees that “You came here winners, you’re leaving millionaires [whereas short documentary filmmakers] cannot make a dime on this. These people will not make money as long as they live. So they mean something. This person is going home in a Honda Civic. This Oscar is going to be the nicest thing these people own in their life. They’re going to be nervous to keep it in their crappy apartment.”

The comedian quipped “And the Oscar goes to…Mad Max!” before announcing the winner The Girl in the River:The Price of Forgiveness. Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy gave a rousing feminist acceptance speech, saying “This is what happens when determined women get together."

After Amy scooped up Best Documentary – a controversial win, as the emotive but problematic doc was in a strong category, the Irish won our award of the night, as Dubliner Benjamin Cleary graciously won Best Short Film for Stutterer.
After the highly acclaimed Hungarian drama Son of Saul won acclaimed Best Foreign Language, none other than Joe Biden came onstage to celebrate The Hunting Ground, Kirby Dick’s documentary about campus sexual assault. The Vice President used his time onstage to give a PSA about sexual assault, consent and victim-blaming, promoting itsonus.org, an organisation which informs people about the importance of consent and how to support survivors of sexual assault.

“Despite significant progress over the last few years, too many woman and men on and off college campuses are still victims of sexual abuse,” the Veep told industry power players and the tens of million watching. “Tonight, I’m asking you to join millions of Americans including me, President Obama, the thousands of students I’ve met on college campuses and the artists here tonight to take the pledge.”

This was followed by an emotive performance of the film’s nominated song, ‘Til It Happens To You’ by Lady Gaga, who was joined onstage by fifty real survivors of sexual assault, who proudly showed their arms, emblazoned with words like “Survivor” and “Unbreakable.” Lady Gaga’s haunting refrains of “Until it happens to you, how will you know how I feel?” drew tears from many in the crowd, who gave her a standing ovation.
The awards stayed with music, as mater composer Ennio Morricone won his first (non-lifetime achievement) Oscar for his work on Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, receiving a standing ovation from the audience. Best Song was then awarded to Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith for the Spectre theme tune, ‘Writing Is On The Wall.’ The win was divisive, as many people were not a huge fan of the Bond theme, and Sam Smith’s slightly fumbled acceptance speech drew criticism also.

"I read an article a few months ago by Sir Ian McKellen, and he said that no openly gay man had ever won an Oscar," said Smith. "If this is the case – even if it isn't the case – I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community all around the world. I stand here as a proud gay man and I hope we can all stand together as equals one day.”

While well-intentioned, Smith’s attempt to make an empowering statement was drastically undermined by his inability to do basic research, as he is far from the first gay person to nab an Oscar. Elton John, Dustin Lance Black, Melissa Etheridge, Stephen Sondheim, Bill Condon, Alan Ball and Joel Grey are all Oscar winners who are open about their sexuality – and Smith also failed to mention his co-nominee Anohni, who is the first ever trans nominee, and in fact boycotted the awards because she wasn’t invited to perform – a decision she said wasn’t “directly” because she is transgender, but is rather one example of systematic oppression. She wrote in an open letter this week “It is a system of social oppression and diminished opportunities for transpeople that has been employed by capitalism in the U.S. to crush our dreams and our collective spirit.”

The Big Ones

The Oscar’s Diversity PR took a tumble when Alejandro Innarritu won Best Director for The Revenant, his second win in as many years as he was also awarded the honour last year for Birdman. However, when the Mexican director attempted to address diversity, he was aggressively played off by the orchestra.

Brie Larson rightfully won Best Actress for her extraordinary turn in Room, thanking Irish director Lenny Abrahamson and Emma Donoghue in the process.

Then, after decades of great films, six nominations, and endless internet memes, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won a Best Actor Oscar for his immersive performance in The Revenant. He thanked his co-star Tom Hardy and director Alejandro Innarritu, as well as long-time collaborator Martin Scorsese. He also used the film’s theme of Man Vs. Nature to highlight his lifetime political cause, climate change, saying “Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” He finished his speech by saying “Let us not take this planet for granted. I do not take this planet for granted.”
Finally, the night concluded with procedural journalism drama Spotlight scooping Best Picture – a disappointment to Irish fans who were hoping Lenny Abrahamson might win for his emotionally and structurally brilliant drama Room – but we’re not worried. We see many Oscars in his future. We can wait.

The Winners
Best Picture: Spotlight
Best Actor: Leonardo Di Caprio, The Revenant
Best Actress: Brie Larson, Room
Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Best Song: Sam Smith & Jimmy Napes, ‘Writing Is On The Wall’, Spectre
Best Score: Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight
Best Cinematography: Emmanuael Lubezki, The Revenant
Best Short Film: Benjamin Cleary, Stutterer
Best Original Screenplay: Spotlight
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Big Short
Best Costume Design: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Production Design: Mad Max: Fury Road
Achievement in Make-up & Hairstyling: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Sound Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Sound Mixing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Visual Effects: Ex Machina
Best Animated Short Film: Bear Story
Best Documentary Short Film: The Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness