Post #5: The 2021 Oscars Failure

The Oscars are my Super Bowl. It is one of the highlights of my year, and as a film student it’s very important that I take it too seriously: I watch as many of the nominations as I can, I extensively research what’s going to win and why, I make ballots, I place bets, and most importantly, my friends and I always plan a costume required watch party for the night of. This year was no exception despite the pandemic. Luckily my friends and I were all able to be vaccinated prior, so I hopped on a plane to New York with my “redneck from Borat 2” outfit, ready to celebrate.

There is a very complex approach to predicting the Oscar winners, it requires looking at a number of factors such as who won categories in the other leading award shows, what is the nominees Oscar track record, is the Academy changing demographics, and what sociopolitical factors may affect the outcome. The Oscars are not about “which one of these options are the best”, film is so subjective that it would simply be impossible to decide that way, rather you need to look at what contributes to the decision of Academy voters.

This year seemed like a relatively predictable Oscars, compared to at least the last few years. The big 4 awards all appeared to have a sure winner, other than Best Actress. One of the most certain awards of those 4 was Best Actor, which was sure to go to Chadwick Boseman. Boseman unfortunately passed away before the release of his nominated film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which turned out to be one of the most critically acclaimed roles of his career. His work in the film was really fabulous and completely deserving of nomination, but, his death gave him a heightened advantage going into award season. I feel quite guilty and like an absolute dick saying that but it’s the truth. The winners aren’t decided by an unbiased machine, they’re decided by people, people who have sympathy for an incredibly talented man who has one last chance for Oscar recognition, a man who most certainly would have won at some point should he have had more time, and a man who many of these voters had encountered or worked with who by all accounts what said to be an incredible person. How could that not be taken into account when voting? So his performance went from what normally would be considered a strong contender to an unquestionable win. Going into the 2021 Oscars, Boseman had not only a large number of the leading up award show wins but also voter respect for his legacy behind him. To an outsider, there was no way he would lose.

My experience with the Best Actor category was a little different this year. On a rare occasion in which there is a nominee not predicted to win that extremely affects me, I will disregard the research and bet on who I liked the most. This was one of those years, because as much as I knew Boseman was going to win, I was awed by Anthony Hopkins role in The Father. I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed by an acting performance before, not to mention it was from a man in his 80s. I’d also like to press that I like winning when I make my Oscars predictions, I put money where my mouth is because this is the most high stakes my industry ever gets. Even though it’s a bunch of biased Hollywood elites, it’s something that challenges my awareness of the film community and it’s always fun to try and best my friend’s predictions. So I bet on Anthony Hopkins, accepting that I would lose.

This is where I feel disappointed for my industry, because if you follow the Oscars then you know what went down. I mention all of the above only to try and show that not only is this award show a source of game and joy for many film lovers, but also that it’s a chance to honor deserving people in the film industry. To stop beating around the bush, Hopkins won and Boseman lost. That in itself is not why I feel embarrassed for my industry, obviously I thought that Hopkins’ performance warranted a win, but the disrespect shown by the Oscars to these men was appalling, and why I lose faith in the integrity of my industry.

There were a few aspects of this year’s show that highlighted the blatant way in which the Oscars attempted to profit off of Chadwick Boseman’s death. The first being the literal way in which they capitalized by including NFT’s of a picture of him in the show gift baskets. Secondly, the way in which they broke the chronological order of the In Memoriam section to place his picture at the end and for longer than any other picture. And lastly, for the first time in the show’s history I believe, they moved the Best Actor category to be the last award of the night. All of these factors were teasing the audience that Chadwick Boseman would win, making sure they would watch until the very end of the show so they could see this deserving man claim his last chance at an Oscar. Yet when the last award was announced, Anthony Hopkins was declared the winner. To make matters worse, The Academy did not allow Hopkins to play a prerecorded acceptance speech, and immediately cut to the credits. They did not give Hopkins the chance to receive the praise that all the other winners did, because they knew people would be upset that Boseman had lost. Not only did they use one incredible actor’s death as an attraction to watch the show, but they disrespected another incredible actor who had just given the best performance of his lifetime.

I don’t feel angry that Hopkins won over Boseman, it was probably his last chance at an Oscar as well considering his age and he acted his ass off for the award. I’m pissed that there are people in this industry that I love, who care more about the spectacle of their show than about the people involved. It’s a sad reminder that people in film have lost touch with their humanity. For me, this year’s Oscars has forever tainted my view of the awards, there had always been problems in the integrity of the show but this felt particularly heinous. At this point I know that for the film industry to become a good place, we can only accept having a sympathetic, fair, and diverse pool of people to run things, because whoever is in charge now is not cutting it.