By awarding Best Picture Win to "Green Book", the Oscars have played it safe again



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Every year it's the same thing: the Academy is about to catch up with the rest of the film world, only to bestow the Oscar for best film at the mediocre platoon [19659002] Many moviegoers in the world They probably scratched their heads, or rolled their eyes, or maybe threw something on television, when Julia Roberts called Green Book & # 39; her movie , the film LA Times later called "The worst winner of the best picture since" Crash ".

The film tells the story of 39; an unlikely friendship between the musician Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his chauffeur Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), visit South America in the 1960s. It is part of a long series of Hollywood films featuring a white protagonist "saving" the black character, made pbadive during the process.

The film was denounced by Shirley's family for describing him as an isolated person, separated from his three brothers and the black community. (In hindsight, perhaps Crash was not so bad?)

BlacKkKlansman Director Spike Lee was apparently so furious with the announcement from the best movie that he had stormed the back of the theater only to be brought back into his seat. Director Jordan Peele and he apparently did not applaud the winners. Later, with a drink in hand, Lee told the newsroom that "the referee had made a bad choice".

The fact that a movie with a story of a white savior wins the grand prize should not really be really shocking though.

The Oscars have clashed with a number of controversies in recent years, from #Oscarssowhite to The Land which was wrongly read as the winner of Best Film in 2017 on Moonlight. A 2016 LA Times report indicated that 91% of Oscar voters were Caucasian and 76% male.

It is obvious that the Academy must continue to improve its game by diversifying electoral demographics.

The role of the campaigns and the selection by the studios of the films to be promoted also prevent the rewards from truly reflecting the best works. Other films, including directors, have been excluded this year. Lynne Ramsay You never really were here and Marielle Heller Can you forgive me are only two who deserved greater recognition?

The great message to remember from this year's ceremony, if it was not it is clear that we should not turn to the Academy for an enlightened thought.

An ocean of security and whiteness

The optics of Green Paper the team to accept their reward would have could not be more blatant. A predominantly white men's collection (Mahershala Ali and Octavia Spencer next door) stated that the film, as it could be paraphrased, speaks of love and love, despite our differences, and discovers that we are the same people.

movie that is supposed to be about race relations in America, all we got from that speech was a sea of ​​security and whiteness.

In 2010, the Academy expanded the Best Film category to ten candidates. This change also saw the introduction of preferential voting. All the voting members rank the candidates of the year from the first to the eighth. If the film with the highest number of votes in the first row does not exceed 50%, the film with the lowest number of votes in first place is eliminated and its votes are redistributed according to preferences.

the film breaks the margin by 50%. As such, second and third place votes start counting as much as first place votes.

This preferential voting system results in a more enjoyable movie that wins division. Perhaps this is why The Shape of Water won last year against Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

. Before the awards ceremony, the critical consensus was to make Rome a more pleasant choice, with Green Book being the candidate for the division. It turns out that this prospect has been reversed in the academy world and that the Green Paper has been found to be the most enjoyable.

A Year of Back-Eddy

This year's awards were controversial even before the start of the ceremony. . Kevin Hart's previous homophobic remarks led him to resign. Four awards – cinematography, film editing, makeup / hairstyle and live film – were to be removed from the live broadcast. The Oscars have also initially snubbed nominated songs from the series, which is not new.

The Academy then did a lot of peddling in return. There was no main host, all awards were included in the live broadcast and four of the nominated songs were performed live, with the omission of Kendrick's All the Stars Lamar and SZA of Black Panther Due to Timing. "

John Ottman, accepting the prize of the best edition of Bohemian Rhapsody, says that the production was a work of This perspective contrasted strangely with the recent statements of Rami Malek, in which he stated that working with the film's director Bryan Singer "was not pleasant"

. Thanksgiving speech by the best actor, Malek also identified Bohemian Rhapsody speaks of a homobadual immigrant without any excuse, yet it was reported that Mercury was bibadual. would celebrate Mercury's baduality. Still, the victory of Green Book will probably eclipse the homophobic moralization

Broadway actress Carol Channing was omitted from the In Memoriam section. It is sad to note that there are omissions every year that make eyebrows, but do not include Channing, which was a showcase of show business,

Highlights [19659002] ] many delicious moments. The choice of presenters seemed ridiculously strange. Serena Williams presenting A star was born and Queen Latifah presenting The favorite were interesting to say the least. Barbra Streisand introduced BlacKkKlansman because apparently she and Spike Lee both grew up in Brooklyn.

Lee, who won an honorary Oscar in 2016, was honored this year with the Best Adapted Screenplay Award. The reception that the film received was much more delightful than that given to Green Book for the best original screenplay. The difference was palpable. Lee noted that February was Black History Month in the United States:

1619, 2019. 400 years old. 400 years old, our ancestors were stolen from their mother Africa and taken to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved. Our ancestors worked the land, can not see the morning not to see the night.

The ceremony saw a large number of women artists of color come on stage to collect prizes, from Hannah Beachler, decorator for Black Panther won by Regina King for her role in Si Beale Street could talk.

The performance of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in Best Original Song, "Shallow", which evoked the Hollywood glamor of the old school. The chemistry between the two is palpable.

Olivia Colman won the Best Actress award for her hot actress on favorite Glenn Close, nominated for the seventh time. Colman delivered a sparse and comforting speech that will not be forgotten any time soon.

The ceremony attempted to portray itself as a liberal party, with several mentions of metaphorical destruction of the walls. However, it is clear that in Hollywood, this will always happen as the powerful want. The Oscars will never be as progressive as we would like. If that's what you're looking for, give yourself the Indie Spirit trophies.

In the end, the final presenter of the Oscars, Julia Roberts, was drowned by the music emanating from the orchestra in the pit at the closing of the show. Even the producers were finished. Let's remember the moments of joy chosen and forget the rest of the events   The Conversation

Stuart Richards, Senior Lecturer in Screen Printing Studies at the University of South Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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