The Oscars are often a bittersweet night for fans of film; while they mark the end to another awards season, they are the pinnacle of the months-long celebration of some of the year’s best films, as well as the people who worked hard to create and produce them. The 88th Annual Academy Awards took place in Los Angeles, California on February 28 and host Chris Rock, as predicted, took almost no time to get to addressing and skillfully tackling the lack of diversity in the nominations, an issue brought to light by #OscarsSoWhite on Twitter (for the second year in a row).
In one of his responses to the age-old debate of whether Hollywood is racist or not, Chris Rock stated “You’re damn right Hollywood is racist. But it ain’t that racist that you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist.”
Admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of some aspects of Chris Rock’s performance as host, but he absolutely killed it addressing #OscarsSoWhite — especially during his opening monologue and his questionnaire with Compton movie-goers. However, I do wish he had been even more inclusive when talking about the ways in which the Academy fails on the very subject. Without making it into a debate about “Who faces more racism in the land of Hollywood,” it should be pointed out that there is such a lack of all people of color, including Asians and Latinos, that the nomination of a few Black actors and actresses would not be nearly close to the diversification needed to be achieved by the Academy.
This is precisely why I enjoyed Kevin Hart’s short speech: “I want to applaud all of the actors and actresses of color that didn’t get nominated tonight … 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.”
Some other notable moments personally include Chris Rock bringing out an LA troop of Girl Scouts who sold, apparently, $65,000 worth of cookies to the wealthy audience members in attendance, adorable Jacob Tremblay (“Room”) being given a wooden box to step on while co-presenting an award with Abraham Attah (“Beasts of No Nation”), and Vice President Joe Biden bringing awareness to ItsOnUs.org and the realities of sexual assault.
Although “Mad Max: Fury Road” won six Oscars during the night, it was “Spotlight” that took home the ultimate award having won only one award prior, and notably, “The Revenant” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu won Best Director for the second year in a row. More importantly, “Room” actress Brie Larson won the well-deserved award for Best Actress, while Leonardo DiCaprio (finally) won for Best Actor for “The Revenant.” Not only was Leo’s win a long time coming and anticipated by thousands of viewers and fans, but also finally put an end to the “Leo has no Oscar” jokes that have been going around for years. So congratulations to Leo, for finally winning a long-awaited Oscar, and congratulations to us, the people, for finally freeing ourselves of this meme.