Taking place in an America that is riven down the middle while it wages imperialist wars on foreign countries, the Academy Awards show on Sunday checked all the boxes but took care to stay within limits. Unlike the Grammy awards or the Super Bowl halftime concert, which both took a no-holds-barred stance against the fascism sweeping the US, Oscar night kept its political opinions clipped.
There were the usual nods to liberal tropes: a good few honours went to non-white or foreign artistes; host Conan O’Brien’s muted opening monologue celebrated multiculturalism, referenced the Epstein scandal, and ended with a call for ‘optimism’. But there was an unmistakable feel of a war going on out there. The event itself took place amid tight security, occasioned by recent attacks on Jewish institutions in two US cities, but also by the antipathy white nationalist America feels towards ‘woke’ liberal cultural bastions.
There were few strong political statements by honorees or presenters, one of note being Javier Bardem’s support for Palestine. Even that was accompanied by typical careerist hypocrisy. His co-presenter Priyanka Chopra, who hops onto easy liberal bandwagons in the West but keeps to the right side of fascism at home, nodded sagely while her Spanish companion expressed himself unequivocally. The award winners reflected white liberal America’s current engagements. The politically infused action-comedy One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, dominated the show with six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Black artiste Michael B Jordan won Best Actor for Sinners, reflecting America’s enduring fascination for vampire themes.
The tentativeness of the latest Oscar show reflects its waning relevance as a showcase for American entertainment. Its audience has been dwindling for two decades. Contrary to claims of reaching a billion people (a metric that refers to potential reach rather than real numbers), actual verified global viewership is estimated to be no more than 60 million, which is a massive drop from the 90s, when the US audience alone was nearly 60 million. The 17.8 million US figure for Sunday night’s show indicates the drift.
The Oscar show is now more talked about for unseemly acts rather than significant cinematic statements. The 2022 ‘slapgate’ involving Will Smith and Chris Rock remains the most remembered moment of recent years. This followed the 2017 La La Land/Moonlight Best Picture mix-up. With audiences getting fragmented due to the growth of streaming services and young people being drawn away by social media, the show has become a stage for performative posturing rather than gritty political expression, the likes of Marlon Brando refusing his Oscar to protest the treatment of Native Americans or Vanessa Redgrave braving a backlash for a speech upholding Palestinian rights.
While women have justly gained more space as a byproduct of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, his legacy continues to colour the choice of nominations and winners. Just as it passed over the gritty Raging Bull for Ordinary People in 1981, fell for the charms of Shakespeare in Love in 1999, and failed to discern the fascism of RRR, the Academy Awards continue to be ruled by slickly promoted but easily forgotten dramas with safe ‘liberal’ themes.
Shorn of real substance, the Oscar show has become a platform for artificial emotion, trite speeches, and elaborate and downright silly sketches. And this decline, in a backhanded way, reflects the morass America is trapped in, both as a military power and as a compass for liberal arts.