Now that the dust has settled from Tuesday morning’s announcement of the Oscar nominations, what can we glean from who made it in and who didn’t, and what do these nominations suggest about the social issues that Hollywood is still grappling with?
Below, your Carpetbagger walks you through four subjects that have been on his mind since the Oscar race got real.
Blockbusters were well-represented, with some caveats.
This is the first time since 2009, when the best-picture field was expanded in the hope of including more hits, that there have been three nominees that each grossed more than $200 million domestically: “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star Is Born.” It’s also the first time since 2009 that we’ve had a $700 million grosser in the mix — then it was “Avatar”; this year it’s “Black Panther.”
Though the rest of the best-picture nominees are not quite at that level of box office performance, there are no small specialty films among them. Even “The Favourite” has so far grossed more than $20 million, with the potential to make plenty more in the weeks to come. (Netflix declined to report theatrical grosses for “Roma,” but it’s primarily meant to be watched on a streaming service that’s in more than half of U.S. households.) This is heartening news for an academy that nearly introduced a popular-film Oscar to try to wedge more blockbusters into the telecast.
“Crazy Rich Asians” and “A Quiet Place” missed best picture for different reasons.
Still, this best-picture crop could boast even better box-office figures had it included “Crazy Rich Asians” and “A Quiet Place,” which each made just under $200 million domestically. Why did Oscar look the other way?
It’s hard to earn a best-picture nomination without a few other nominations in other categories, and that’s what ultimately held “Crazy Rich Asians” back from contending for the big prize (or indeed any prize). The three races in which the film had the strongest shot were all uphill battles: The costume design in “Crazy Rich Asians” is fabulous, but contemporary films are usually overlooked in that race; the movie’s adapted screenplay was competing in a tough, crowded category; and Michelle Yeoh was not as ubiquitous a presence on the awards circuit as a supporting-actress bid often demands.
“A Quiet Place” at least managed a nomination for best sound editing, but the academy can be skittish about nominating genre films for best picture. When a horror movie like last year’s “Get Out” makes it in, it’s because those thrills are wrapped around a social message that resonates. For its award-season rebranding, “A Quiet Place’s” director, John Krasinski, tried to emphasize the family drama at the heart of his horror movie, but it still lacked a strong theme to punch through.
The Oscars are growing more international.
To meet multiyear membership goals intended to make the academy more diverse, the group has increasingly reached out to artists who hail from other countries, and that’s begun to have a profound effect on the nominations.
After the Screen Actors Guild failed to recognize the Mexican cast of “Roma,” the academy delivered in a big way, nominating Yalitza Aparicio for best actress and Marina de Tavira for best supporting actress. That’s only the second time a film has received two acting nominations for foreign-language performances; the first was “Babel,” which was recognized for supporting actresses Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza but was still toplined by Hollywood actors Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and contained plenty of English-language sequences.
The directors branch has been among the most profoundly diversified by the academy’s push, and though this year’s crop of best-director nominees still lacked a woman, it notably eschewed homegrown Hollywood auteurs like “A Star Is Born’s” Bradley Cooper and “Black Panther’s” Ryan Coogler in favor of Alfonso Cuarón for “Roma” and Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski for “Cold War.” Germany’s foreign-language contender, “Never Look Away,” even managed a cinematography nomination, one of Tuesday morning’s most surprising inclusions.
With #OscarsSoWhite and #MeToo, there is still work to do.
These two hashtag-driven campaigns for social change became major movements in part because of award season. Do this year’s nominees indicate that Hollywood has taken their lessons to heart?
Yes and no. On the #OscarsSoWhite front, several actors of color were nominated, and “BlacKkKlansman” director Spike Lee earned his first long-overdue nominations for best director and best picture. In the less prominent categories, nominees of color included “If Beale Street Could Talk” writer Barry Jenkins; “Black Panther” production designer Hannah Beachler — the first African-American ever nominated in her field; and Domee Shi, who directed the animated short “Bao” for Pixar.
But when it comes to #MeToo, it’s another story. The day after the Oscar nominations were announced, The Atlantic published an explosive article containing multiple accusations of rape against Bryan Singer, the credited director of best-picture nominee “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Singer, who Wednesday called the article a “homophobic smear piece,” has long been trailed by accusations of sexual misconduct. He’s also missed work, which got him fired from “Bohemian Rhapsody” with just weeks left in the shoot. (He was replaced by Dexter Fletcher.)
“Bohemian Rhapsody’s” star, Rami Malek, who is nominated for best actor, has deflected questions about Singer in interviews, instead crediting producer Graham King for getting the film made.
Malek also told The Los Angeles Times that he was unaware of a high-profile lawsuit with allegations against Singer when the director was releasing the 2014 “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” (The lawsuit was later dropped.)
But if the industry takes #MeToo as seriously as it has claimed, this can’t be a cause that stops at red-carpet ribbons and mild expressions of support. The academy is a big organization with several thousand members, so the same group that expels Harvey Weinstein for accusations of sexual harassment and assault can also include members willing to look the other way when nominating artists like Mel Gibson and Casey Affleck, both of whom have been the subject of troubling accusations.
Singer was not nominated himself, but his name is still on a film that scored five Oscar nominations. Though Malek would prefer not to have his best-actor bid tarnished by Singer’s involvement, a lot of tough conversations need to be had in the coming months about what people in the industry are willing to tolerate when it comes to the pursuit of gold.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.