Arts Commentary: The Oscars 2022 — No Longer So White, But Still Not So Hot
By Daniel Gewertz
It was soon clear what Oscar was after: two separate younger demographics — one with plebeian cinematic tastes, the other with hip politics.
Beyoncé performing the insipid song Be Alive at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Just a few years after #OscarsSoWhite, we have fully entered the era of Oscars So Witless. Sunday’s Oscar broadcast was a reimagined, speedier awards presentation of considerable visual pizzazz. It was infinitely more woke than the solemn, lumbering behemoths of old, true. But despite all the impressive theatrical finesse, Oscar has become just another awards show. So, for a while, let us ignore the Fresh Prince in the room, and attend to other, less spectacular oddities.
It all started with a whimper: Beyoncé and a large crew live from the Compton tennis courts. It was a fine idea, but the insipid song — Be Alive — was dead boring. It was well sung by the overrated megastar.
In an attempt to gain a new audience, Oscar abandoned the grandeur and solemnity of yesteryear — by itself not a bad idea. Speed was of the essence. The lesser awards were dashed through in double-time: nominees were announced, but not on camera — the preselected winners already onstage as each concise list concluded. Oscarcast’s aesthetic was clear from the get-go: the trio of hosts — Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer — were all female, two-thirds Black. One of Hall’s bits was a turnaround of male sexism, with Hall bestowing salacious compliments to a quartet of male hunks, and even patting them down, slowly.
Despite all the superb set-changes and swift proceedings, the show still ran way over, at three hours, 39 minutes. It was soon clear what Oscar was after: two separate younger demographics — one with plebeian cinematic tastes, the other with hip politics. The methods were also clear: more Black, Brown, female and foreign… not bad goals unto themselves. But it all coalesced around one big idea: a dumbed-down Oscar. What? You ask. How could the Oscars possibly get any dumber?
Easy. There were, for example, a couple of embarrassing attempts to grab the young via an online favorite film contest. None were even close to Oscar caliber. There was one vote for the greatest “cheer worthy” movie moment of ALL TIME! Like of the past 110 years! That one went to something called Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which wasn’t even released in theaters last year. (If a cheer is yahooed in a lonely man-cave, does it make a sound?)
Several films were honored to “plebe-up” Oscar. Each choice possessed a separate oddness. It was nice seeing Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro honoring the 50th anniversary of The Godfather. (De Niro wasn’t aboard until Godfather 2.) Weirdly, they chose Sean Diddy Combs to introduce the august trio. And worse: Combs called Godfather — a piercing condemnation of corruption and evil — a tribute to the strengths of “family and community”! And why choose a man with no logical connection whatsoever? Was paranoid Oscar queasy about honoring a film with no Black cast-members, as if a whole audience segment would tune out during those two minutes?
Other films briefly honored for anniversaries were the James Bond series (60 years), White Men Can’t Jump (30), Juno (15) and Pulp Fiction (28). Wait a minute… why the 28th anniversary? Good question. All I can think of is that the Academy gave Samuel Jackson a Lifetime Achievement award, but for some reason they didn’t want to use up time to present it to him on stage Sunday. So … they engineered a Pulp Fiction deal, with John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing a bit. And come to think of it… year 15 for Juno is weird, too. Unless you think of it as a cool way to get a bona fide transsexual, Elliot Page, onstage. This is exactly how the Academy of Arts & Sciences think. How to bring in viewers. How to widen the net, whether it’s artistically legit or not. Commercialism proudly parades about under the guise of humanitarian ideals. Perhaps CODA is a legitimately great film. But even if it isn’t, Oscar has never had a deaf film before, so, kudos to us. It’s a win-win. The sentimental “feel-good choice” has a long history with Oscar. It’s why Elizabeth Taylor won Best Actress in 1960 for a stinker of a film called Butterfield 8, adapted from a superb John O’Hara novel. She really won it because she was near death’s door with pneumonia, the latest of several tragedies. Maybe she deserved to win as best actress of the year, you say? As a retort I give you just five words: Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment. (And speaking of the best actress Oscar: I thought Jessica Chastain, a fine actress, shouldn’t have won for playing Tammy Faye Bakker, a showy role that seemed just a few steps beyond SNL parody.)
There were several high-points: there was a jazz band and an orchestra, both terrific. Kevin Costner delivered a speech (before bestowing the best director Oscar to Jane Campion) that was steeped in eloquent gravitas. But even my favorite, the In Memoriam segment, got effed up. Many of the photos of the recently deceased were seen in long shots, the names hard to read. Why? Because Oscar thought it was another great opportunity to zip things up — to enliven even the dead folk. In the foreground was a small army of joyous singers performing an African American gospel medley, an upbeat presentation guaranteed not to seem sorrowful or lag the sacred pace of the show! They did slow the parade of photos down for a meager three who received brief testimonials. But one of them was Betty White. Now, Ms. White was a swell TV star who loved pets, but she is not a freaking movie actor!
Sadly, I need to mention the horror of seeing a terribly ill Liza Minnelli, in a wheelchair, unable to talk in full sentences, or keep track of her presentation, apparently due to her many years suffering with encephalitis. She was guided by Lady Gaga, who had wonderful fortune last year steering Tony Bennett in his miraculous comeback show. But here, it was a shock to see the great Minnelli in dire, dreadful shape, 50 years after Cabaret.
And now for the truly cray-cray.
Will Smith (R) slap Chris Rock onstage during the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
2022’s show will long go down as the Oscars where one multimillionaire Black star (Will Smith) jumped on stage and walloped the face of another Black multimillionaire (Chris Rock) with a powerful slap. It was an unscripted attack followed by a vicious spew of profanity unaired by ABC-TV. The physical and verbal violence was all because comedian Rock dared to poke fun at the bald look of Smith’s wife — Jada Pinkett Smith. If the Oscars had any balls, Smith would have been summarily escorted from the Dolby Theatre, his name then removed from Best Actor contention. Instead, Smith later won the award. He delivered a long, tearful, self-aggrandizing speech that bragged about his protective family instincts before briefly apologizing to the Academy for his behavior. He issued not one word of apology to Rock. (Smith’s speech was the TV audience’s first proof that the hellacious hullabaloo was not some kind of baffling theatrical hoax gone haywire.)
If Smith were just an actor instead of a star, he couldn’t have gotten away with it. Oddly, if he were a white male star in 2022, he mightn’t have been able to wheedle out of the mess quite so easily. Smith acted like a disturbed individual. But he may just be an overly protected asshole, coddled and courted for decades since his Fresh Prince TV days. So, a man of untold power and riches who knows he can get away with anything short of Harvey Weinstein or OJ crimes — is that mental instability or Hollywood-style noblesse oblige? It was cruelly ironic that a tribute to Sidney Poitier came so close to the Smith debacle. Perhaps it is a backwards breed of social progress that our Black movie stars don’t have to act like giants of dignity anymore. They don’t need to represent their race any longer. An optimist might, if he searches hard enough, find an unlikely upside to the sheer ugliness at the Oscars on Sunday. But if Will Smith becomes a hero, and sucker punch-slapping becomes the new fad in so-called “real life,” allow me to doubt that optimism.
Back in the ’70s, I thought the Oscars stood a good chance at becoming more interested in pure aesthetics. I was naive. It just was that back then being artistic was cool. It was in style. But the truth is the bottom line, money, has never been out of style.
For 30 years, Daniel Gewertz wrote about music, theater and movies for the Boston Herald, among other periodicals. More recently, he’s published personal essays, taught memoir writing, and participated in the local storytelling scene. In the 1970s, at Boston University, he was best known for his Elvis Presley imitation.
Right on, Mr. Gewertz. Never, although close, more evident than this year that genuinely talented, top-notch individuals were nowhere to be found at this silly, absurdly over-rated assemblage—just a multitude of sow’s ears.
Just for future knowledge, referring to Elliot Page as “a bona fide transsexual” comes across rather crass to be honest, mostly because “transsexual” has fallen out of favor as a more pejorative term for transgender people among the LGBTQ crowd. Trans man is the appropriate term here (I do understand confusion over what’s the “best” up to date terminology, so please don’t take this as angry criticism!).
Since everyone is throwing in their two cents about Slap Gate, at the end of the day, we’re watching two famous multimillionaires duking it out on stage who’ll likely face little to no consequences for the incident, I think it’s safe to say what happened pales in comparison with some of the more heinous shit celebrities/film people in that auditorium have probably done, never mind certain Oscar recipients (the stink of Weinstein still permeates the air). And the political aspects that have been pulled from the incident are bordering on, if not outright, ridiculous, with hypotheticals like “what if Will Smith has slapped Betty White and broken her neck and killed her on stage???” being made in full delusional sincerity.I owe this to people being unsure whether to fault Rock for making a luke warm joke about a black woman or Smith for pulling a Kanye and perpetuating “toxic masculinity” with violence.
But definitely agree, Smith’s win after the slap was insane, and his speech completely unhinged in light of it.
I appreciate your mentioning your comment was not angry criticism. I can’t say I’m especially invested in keeping up with the latest terms. If an editor thinks of changing it, that’s fine with me. I have long thought that a “minority group” choosing its own name — while surely understandable — is often important when it is the sole (sad) bit of power in a powerless political/social situation. When the “out” term is essentially respectable, like the word transexual seems to be, it is hard for some (like me) to accept that it might be “crass.” It sets up a hipper than thou clubby feeling that is bound to annoy, at least slightly… i.e. the feeling that you can’t win for losing. (To argue, in a sense, the opposite view, if I saw MYSELF referred to as “a cis male” I would be annoyed precisely because I did not choose the appellation myself!) It’s all little performative power-plays that don’t really change society in a meaningful way. I do agree it isn’t very difficult for a journalist to keep up with the latest terms. But to get back to the broadcast, I think that the Oscar folks may well have chosen “Juno” precisely to get diminutive Elliot up on stage in a tux as a freaky touch. I wouldn’t put it past them. Likewise, they probably hope that “slapgate” pumps up the viewership next March… when somebody else might get slugged. (Back in “the day,” Oscar hired a streaker for the pure titillation.)
Hi Daniel!!There are three things that connect me with you, And these are Elvis, BU. and the Boston Herald., We can start with our penchant for Elvis Presley, whose show I attended at the Boston Garden on November 10, 1971. The other is my playing soccer for the College of the Holy Cross, against BU, first away, at your soccer field, the one with artificial turf, on November 3, 1969 when I was a freshman, and then also on a November 3, but in 1970, at home, while a sophomore. My last game against you guys was on October 25, 1972, again away, during my senior year. Then, a fortnight after the Nicaraguan earthquake, my roommate and I were interviewed for the Boston Herald which ran a story on us being captive witnesses, and which was later published in numerous papers across the US. My roommate was the son of the publisher and owner of the then largest Spanish speaking newspaper in the US., so our funding advocacy even took us to the Boston Cathedral in January of 1973. All the best from a reader in Nicaragua.