The Long Take: Winning An Oscar To Own The Libs

What Happens When The Academy Nominate The Least Woke Film

As the Academy Awards prepare for its 94th annual ceremony on 22 March, with vaccine mandates varying on whoever’s going, it is pretty clear that the Oscars have an identity crisis. And depending on who you talk to, these problems are perpetually evolving. One of these is the idea that it should be nominating blockbusters or anything that audiences have lapped up, as a token of appreciation that they’ve kept Hollywood afloat. Why nominate a bunch of movies that no one watches, when this [X Thing] that I saw and loved is far more superior. Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021’s biggest box-office draw, earned ire when it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, from Kevin Smith to Jimmy Kimmel. It’s true that Drive My Car, Power of the Dog and West Side Story (the Spielberg one) aren’t what you call box-office breaking movies and they are certainly better pictures than Marvel’s trophy, but it’s a fair point to make.  

There are many varieties of this argument and the Academy is usually quick to respond to it, regardless of how it was properly executed. When there was outrage that No Way Home got snubbed, the organization proceed to give out a Fan Favorite Award, as if it was the People’s Choice. #OscarsFanFavorite lets the angry tweeter, who whined that it wasn’t nominated, vote it in. The same way the Awards expanded the number of Best Picture nominees in 2009, after the realisation that The Dark Knight and Wall-E weren’t getting their dues, despite receiving wins in other (and more substantial) categories. It’s quite transparent to how hollow this strategy is, mainly because it is giving a participation award to the biggest guy in the room, thus driving back their ratings. 

But that had me thinking. For all the talk about #OscarSoWhite, there is the antithesis; #OscarSoWoke. It’s obvious that the ceremony has a layer of groupthink that broadly represents the politics of Hollywood. Whether it’s to accommodate Film Twitter’s screeching over the lack of female directors in the 2020 ceremony by having Janelle Monae dedicating a performance to them. Or when #OscarSoWhite came about because Selma, of all nominees, is the cause celebre for all things diversity. 

Typically, there’s a nominee that serves as a scapegoat for their problems. Joker caused all sorts of outrage, including the idea that Greta Gerwig deserves a Best Director nomination for Little Women (don’t tell anyone, but she actually liked that movie). I written about it several times, so I don’t think it warrants another explanation. 

There are other films in recent memory that elicited some pearl-clutching, because of its supposed politics. Green Book takes on race in a particularly anodyne way that it promotes the white savior trope. As I wrote in my last Reaction Shot:

Keep in mind that no one in my circle has a fondness for Green Book. But it is a box office smash hit and has an ultimately anti-racist message that may have affirmed their perspective because it makes them feel relaxed. It’s certainly forgettable, of course. But it wouldn’t be tolerated by the chattering class, who ironically enough, cannot stand Don’t Look Up in spite of the film meeting much of their ideological beliefs.  

But I should clarify what it was that makes it controversial, in case you have been living under a highly secured rock. Green Book is a buddy movie about Tony Lip, the Italian chauffeur who drove Don Shirley, a famous pianist, around America (to my surprise, he was also famous for playing Carmine Lupertazzi in The Sopranos). Central to the outrage was Tony Lip’s son, Nick Vallelonga - who was the screenwriter -  was tweeting in support of Donald Trump (he claimed that Muslims were cheering on 9/11, which wasn’t true). But more importantly, Don Shirley didn’t slowly become Tony Lip’s friend and never has been, according to some of his relatives. It also went up against such nominees like Black Panther, an actual Marvel movie, and Blackkklansman, directed by Spike Lee about an undercover cop taking down a KKK branch. Lee infamously stormed off the ceremony once Green Book won.

If there was one thing I could say in defence of Green Book. I also at least like the bonding between Shirley and Lip, because it was structured like a generic road trip movie, which really made the racial themes less uncomfortable, but still edgy nevertheless. Obviously, those moments when they stop for a car and have a problem with each other are still something you can find in any other film of its kind, but the dressing of it was the right call. And I thought it was a good cast. Mahershala Ali, who won Best Supporting Actor playing Don Shirley, is pretty great and puts a lot of vulnerability. So I can see why it’s appealing. 

When American Sniper came out, many critics have intentionally underestimated the artistic merits of the film (including myself, as I regrettably cackled at the sequence with the plastic baby). It was glorifying Chris Kyle, who wrote in his memoirs about killing his targets. Thus, it is pro-war propaganda, and its box-office smashing popularity, particularly among Fox News viewers, disturbs them. 

Then there was Hacksaw Ridge, directed by Mel Gibson and is about a conscientious objector enlisted in WWII even though he refuses to touch a gun. While La La Land and Moonlight were battling out to see what was the most forward-thinking film in the race, Hacksaw Ridge’s aesthetic embraces its Christian themes right out of the gate, that it begins quite wholesomely before it has a brutally bloody end. Never mind the fact that it was pivoted as Mel Gibson’s comeback movie. Remarkably in the same year, Hell or High Water was nominated for a handful of big categories including Best Original Screenplay and Picture. With rugged imagery and a backdrop being the aftermath of the sub-prime mortgage crisis, one could interpret it as the movie to understand Donald Trump voters. 

This year’s Best Picture nominees leaned left-liberal, particularly Don’t Look Up, which I recently wrote about being the reverse Green Book. Critics will feel that the movie feels delusional about its intent, but the reaction surrounding it, including the backlash to the backlash, is almost akin to the way people think a Rotten Tomatoes score is indicative of elitism. Left-leaning pundits have pushed back hard against critics slamming Adam McKay and think that the message is being willfully missed. Sounds familiar?

Controversial claims about certain politics might as well be the best barometer, whether or not there is some truth to them. These movies aren’t going their way to push back against wokeness, but they might as well be the least woke because they represent complexities that are intentionally distorted by their critics. All of the films I’ve mentioned centred around American men and their struggles. We have too much of it, they say. A white person learning to be less racist from an African-American who is literally next to them for six months. The Oscars are being embarrassing! And while it may not add much, or bring the culture warriors to watch the Oscars, it does help to nominate movies that at least resonate with them.