On Sunday, February 9th, the 92nd annual Oscars ceremony took place, starting with a spectacular performance by Janelle Monae and Billy Porter. Brad Pitt was the first one to receive an award for his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood as Best Supporting Actor. Throughout the night we saw performances of all those nominated for Best Original Song. “Into The Unknown” was performed in multiple different languages, celebrating diversity. Randy Newman played the piano and sang “I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away” from Toy Story 4, and “Stand Up” from Harriet was one of the most powerful moments of the ceremony. In the end the award went to Elton John and Bernie Taupin for “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from Rocketman, which Elton John performed on a stage decorated with giant sparkly sunglasses.
The biggest surprise of the night was underdog Parasite receiving the most awards. The nominations for this year’s ceremony clearly lacked diversity, with very few women and people of colour nominated. Despite this, Parasite, the first South-Korean movie to ever be nominated, took home more Oscars than any other feature. In comparison, Joker, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, and Ford v Ferrari all received two. Most people predicted Joker to be the main winner, seeing as it received the most awards at previous award ceremonies such as the Golden Globes. Bong Joon-ho, the film’s director, humbly received the awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, and Best Picture. In a touching speech, Bong Joon-ho offered to split the award for Best Director into five pieces so he could share it with his fellow nominees. Furthermore, Parasite became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture, the top prize of the ceremony. Considering last year’s Best Picture went to Green Book, Parasite proves we are slowly moving towards a more diverse climate.
In the category of Best Original Score, Hildur Guðnadóttir was the seventh woman to be nominated, and became the fourth ever to win the prestigious category. She gave an inspiring speech calling to all women to speak up. “To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up,” Hildur said in her acceptance speech. “We need to hear your voices.”
Many presenters addressed the Oscars’ general lack of diversity throughout the night. Natalie Portman wore a dress embroidered with the names of female directors left out of the nominations this year, including Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Lulu Wang (The Farwell), and Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers). Later on, Oscar Isaac made a reference to the Oscars-So-White movement, and Joaquin Phoenix preached love and equality for all minority groups in his acceptance speech for Best Actor.
Steve Martin and Chris Rock, who gave this year’s opening speech, referenced both the lack of women and people of colour in the nominations. “So many great directors nominated this year, but there was something missing,” Steve Martin said. “Vaginas?” Chris Rock replied. They did not leave it at that, however: “Think how much the Oscars have changed in the past 92 years,” Martin said. “Back in 1929, there were no black acting nominees!” Rock responded, “And now in 2020, we got one!”
Mark Ruffalo, who presented the award for Best Documentary, made sure to mention that four of the nominated films were directed or co-directed by women. All of these celebrities using their platform to speak up about diversity will hopefully inspire the Academy to diversify its nominations in coming years. Slowly but surely, we are moving towards an awards ceremony that reflects our diverse society.