When the clock struck midnight on the 3rd March, I was seated in front of the television, remote in one hand, snacks in the other. As a self-proclaimed cinephile, the Academy Awards are one of my favourite events of the year – a time where you can judge the biggest celebrities in the world from the comfort of your own home. There are highs, lows, and fashion faux pas. Even if you haven’t seen most of the films, there’s no need to worry – apparently, neither has the Academy!
Commonly regarded as Hollywood’s “most magical night of the year,” the Oscars are a whirlwind of glitz and glamour. They’re also an inevitable source of controversy. Everyone remembers the awkward moment during 2022’s ceremony between Will Smith and Chris Rock, and who could forget the time La La Land mistakenly won Best Picture? This year, the primary discourse online seems to be centred not around an actor or technicality, but the content of Anora, the film that swept the board and took home 5 awards.
Going into the night, it was the film I was rooting for. Sean Baker’s black comedy-drama Anora, an indie film about a stripper who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, is not the usual Oscar nomination, let alone winner. When I’d watched it months prior, it seemed audacious, funny, and a genuinely interesting watch. Obviously, then, it wasn’t going to win much. When the film did win multiple categories, I was delighted. While I enjoyed Berger’s Conclave, a political drama about the Catholic Church, and admired The Brutalist, a 3-hour epic about a Holocaust survivor, Anora’s Oscar for Best Picture seemed like a triumph in many respects. It was a film sympathetic to sex workers, female-led by a first-time nominee, and had a remarkably low budget of $6 million (for context, last year’s winner Oppenheimer had a budget of $100 million). All winning speeches also thanked and acknowledged the sex worker community in what felt like a rare moment of empowerment against a year of concerning right-wing victories.
Reaction online was unusually visceral. The most prominent voices weren’t the usual rage-baiters intent on shaming women no matter what. Rather, most criticism was genuine, coming from a wide range of women. Some believed the film and winning speeches glamourised sex work on a world-wide platform, teetering compliance towards an industry that often entrenches the objectification and sexualisation of women. The internet exploded with discourse on whether Anora had empowered or exploited its lead actress, with several of the film’s most explicit scenes going viral. One twitter account posted that “Anora winning is a sign of conservatism and misogyny making a comeback”, which received 113,000 likes (and a typical slew of angry replies).
While I hadn’t initially thought the film was glamourising sex work, there were several points online that did cause me to wonder. Its male director Sean Baker, for one, has been called out for following questionable social media accounts, such as the homophobic “@libsoftiktok” and “@IDFBabes”, an account dedicated to posting oversexualised images of female IDF soldiers. It’s easy to see how this leads to queries of intent and whether Anora is yet another film made under the male gaze.
Others noticed that a disproportionate amount of Best Actress winners had won for roles heavily featuring nudity and sexuality compared to their male counterparts – think Emma Stone in Poor Things, or Charlize Theron in Monster. 25-year-old Mikey Madison’s win over 62-year-old Demi Moore also sparked the question of gender-based ageism in Hollywood, with British Vogue publishing the article “Does The Academy Still Have An Ingenue Bias?” Nevertheless, counterpoints were just as defensive, with one user arguing that many critiquing the movie showed “not a moral vision of the world, but a witch-hunt-like selfish hedonism.”
There are numerous elements surrounding this discourse that, in my opinion, are too complex to be resolved via the reactionary world of social media. The truth is, women’s lives and successes are constantly scrutinized and judged. As human beings, our lives will also inevitably feature sexuality. Anora’s representation of a female sex worker may not serve as a role model, but it shouldn’t have to – whatever your perspective, sex work is a reality for many women. Film, as an art form, is not inherently problematic for reflecting that.
While all films (especially 5x Oscar-winning ones) rightfully incite mixed criticisms, I would encourage audiences to watch Anora with an open mind. With social media’s over-analysis of surrounding context, the film itself is often neglected. If you haven’t seen the film yet and your interest is piqued, Anora is available to buy on all video-on-demand platforms.