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Commentary
The real winners at the Oscars this year
I always watch the Oscars, but I seldom enjoy them. They’re long, they’re full of jokes that are “let’s pretend we’re laughing” funny instead of ha-ha funny, and the winners only occasionally match the films that endure in the long run (it’s an honor to be nominated! Really!). For awards shows, give me the Grammys, where the music is over-the-top and the artists aren’t schooled in faux-humility — and by the end of the night, they’re all pretty tipsy, so anything can happen.
But this year’s Academy Awards ceremony won me over. It was short, it was sweet, and best of all, it was weird: John Mulaney dissecting the absurdity of the “Field of Dreams” plot (he’s right, but who cares, it still makes me cry every time); Ryan Gosling frolicking through Ken-dom like a kid in a campy ball pit; Ariana Grande dressed like a bright pink head of broccoli; Jimmy Kimmel reading a Truth Social post by Donald Trump moments after it was released into to the wild. There was time for an ad-lib, it seemed, because the ceremony was actually running ahead of schedule — some presenters, having little of interest to say, barely said anything at all.
Maybe we have “The Slap” to thank.
In a run of catastrophic-but-enduring Oscars moments (the botched Best Picture award in 2017 was a disaster of project management and graphic design), “The Slap” might still rank as the most fascinating debacle ever. Will Smith’s physical reaction to Chris Rock’s verbal jab — which looked like a bit until the moment it became disturbingly clear that it was definitely not a bit — prompted months of meditations on masculinity and anger, the nature of comedy and the rankings of power. (When he mocked Jada Pinkett Smith’s appearance, was Rock punching up or punching down? It might depend on how closely he was expected to be reading her Instagram feed.)
But The Slap was also an indictment of a Hollywood where egos are so gigantic, and power commands such fealty, that it’s hard, in real-time, to point out the Emperor’s clothes. Smith assaulted a person in public and the crowd of insiders couldn’t summon the wherewithal not to give him a standing ovation a few minutes later, because treating acting performances on par with rescuing endangered animals and curing disease is what Hollywood is conditioned to do.
Last year’s Oscars was a reaction to The Slap. As host, Kimmel — as good as anyone at an impossible job — mentioned the incident about a half-dozen times, as an extended apology for the prior year’s impotence. Afterwards, congratulations went around for avoiding misdemeanor offenses or career-wrecking impulsiveness.
But this year’s Oscars was full post-Slap, which indicates some lessons learned. Self-importance is out. Self-deprecation is in. Don’t let the proceedings get too sharp-edged. It gets in the way of the magic.
Some of this re-calibration came by design: A ceremony on speed, a deliberate choice of presenters. As a comedian, John Mulaney is far safer than Chris Rock, more interested in absurdity than power imbalance. Rock’s humor is genius, but it’s designed to challenge people, and the Oscars might just not be the venue. (It was certainly no good for Rock, who now is linked forever to a throwaway joke that went awry.)
But fate also played a role. Even when the ceremony devolved into old-school fawning — before the best-acting awards, a lineup of stars made speeches about the glories of other stars — the cosmos intervened to set things right. On her way to the podium, Emma Stone, now a two-time Oscar winner, realized that her gown was coming apart at the seams.
Like Jennifer Lawrence’s face-plant in 2013, it was a humanizing moment for an already-human celebrity. And it was strangely good news for the ceremony overall. Stone's costume malfunction was even more reminder that the glamorous trappings of Hollywood are stitched together out of very thin thread, that (at least some) stars are people, too, and that the real victors are the people who can laugh at themselves.
Laughing — ha-ha laughing — is an undervalued service the Oscars can provide its ailing industry, especially at a time when anger gets all the attention. It’s when the Oscars veer into outrage, after all, that the whole thing goes off-pitch. That happened a bit on Sunday, too. Declarations about the Middle East sowed the usual ugly divisions. Kimmel couldn't resist an anti-Trump jab, and while Trump set up the punchline on a silver platter, it was a bummer to be back in ugly, exhausting reality.
Next year’s Oscars, in a dream world, would have none of that. The movies can examine society, probe at the human condition, etc., etc., etc. But award shows are about borrowed jewels, gowns with strategic holes, crazy dance numbers, fantastical mistakes, and bits about naked John Cena. They aren’t set up to be a forum for debate. On Oscar night, we just need Ken. This year’s ceremony came across mostly as nature intended: loaded with eye candy, minimally important, and over well before bedtime. Everyone wins.
