Is there even a way to talk about the Oscars without talking about its problems? At this point, the awards show, now in its 88th year, isn’t much more than a set of problems. And most of them seem unfixable. In its failure to nominate a single actor of color in any of the main categories — despite ample and obvious deserving opportunities — the Academy has been correctly chastised by the press, and the organization has claimed it will change. But how the modifications to the voting process that have been provided will change anything is still unclear. The problems that led to the outcry over this year’s show are larger and more deeply systematic than the overly white Academy members are willing to admit.The idea that this is a new thing, a situation that is distinctly of the current moment, is ludicrous. The Oscars have always been troublesome, and the Academy’s lack of political sensitivity and insight is nothing new to anybody who has been paying attention. This is an awards show made for and by the people of a wealthy industry, a self-congratulatory pat on the back. It has never been revolutionary or radical. At most, it has perpetuated the idea that Hollywood is a meritocracy, while remaining committed to a profoundly conservative status quo. The winners of Oscars, we are told, are there because they are the most deserving. This is the best the world of film has to offer — and advertising campaigns and regular public appearances have nothing to do with it. Indeed, let’s not forget that the awards are bestowed by a voting block that proudly doesn’t even watch most of the films before they vote.This year, the major awards were almost uniformly decided beforehand — Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, and Alejandro González Iñárritu had been locked in to win for weeks, if not months; if there was any surprise, it was the inconsequential win for Mark Rylance. And the entire show, as always, was a slog. Everything felt like filler until host Chris Rock came back on stage. His opening monologue, which came loaded with unnecessary pressure (a white commentator on ABC’s red carpet pre-show claimed he needed to address the controversy while also being respectful to the audience — because, right, that seems like the right approach) was funny, even while hitting the expected targets. He was direct in his labeling of Hollywood as racist, and even more damning in his joke about this year’s in memoriam package: “It’s just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on their way to the movies.”To be fair, there were some good things in the show besides the jokes. All the women who won awards for their behind the scenes work on “Mad Max: Fury Road” provided a nice stretch in the broadcast, which ran past midnight on the east coast. Ennio Morricone winning the award for Best Original Score, presented to him by a clearly excited Quincy Jones, was another highlight. But then “Spotlight,” a movie that featured a completely white cast, and which takes place in a historically white and racist city, won Best Picture. I liked the film well enough, and would rather have seen that win than the problematic “The Revenant.” But it was an odd capstone to a night that could have gone differently, and should have. Despite Chris Rock shouting out “Black Lives Matter” as the credits started to roll, while Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” played in the background, the end looked like the end of every Academy Awards show: a bunch of people on stage, basking in the applause of their peers, and hardly a person of color in sight.
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