No alarms, no surprises

The Oscars needed a crisis-free year after the La La Land/Moonlight farrago, and by and large it got one. All the talking points were basically manufactured, from the Time’s Up montage to the Tiffany Haddish/Maya Rudolph double act. (Even Jimmy Kimmel’s wannabe viral trip to the cinema over the road was a reheat of the meet-the-people stunt he’d tried last time.) To make everything extra-clear to the presenters (who included Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, the unwitting messer-uppers last year), each envelope had its category printed in giant shiny letters on the back. The dearth of surprise extended to the actual awards, with all the biggies going the way we thought they would: the Oldman/McDormand combo looking nailed on back in January, while Guillermo del Toro had convincingly stomped all contenders by the time he won the Directors Guild of America award. There was some doubt over best picture but after it became clear (thanks, Hollywood Reporter’s Brutally Honest Voters) that Three Billboards was not as resonant in the US as elsewhere, The Shape of Water became the likely winner. So: no alarms, no surprises.

The Shape of Water is hardly a ‘safe’ choice

Conventional wisdom cast this year’s best picture race as “the exciting underdogs” v “the stolid favourites”. In the former category were the diverse, youth-skewing likes of Get Out and Lady Bird; and in the latter the more “conventional” Three Billboards and Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water. The win for Del Toro’s film then is being painted by some as a victory for conservative tastes, which seems slightly odd. This, after all, is a fantasy film (a genre that rarely gets much love from the Academy) featuring a band of outsiders – a gay man, a black woman, a person with a disability – battling authoritarian forces. It features onanism, graphic violence, and – here’s the kicker – a woman procreating with a sea creature. It’s hardly Driving Miss Daisy. The fact that this strange fish has been deemed a “safe” choice among this year’s nominees underlines what a vibrant, provocative, exciting best picture race we were handed. More of the same next year, please.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Little rancour … Ryan Seacrest, working the red carpet despite allegations of sexual abuse Photograph: Michael Buckner/REX/Shutterstock

#MeToo has much to do

A consistent theme of this year’s awards: #MeToo and Time’s Up have landed major blows, but the edifice of patriarchy remains untoppled. E! host Ryan Seacrest, accused of sexual abuse by a former employee (he denies the allegations), managed to get through the red carpet without too much rancour, despite #MeToo founder Tarana Burke calling for his suspension. Kobe Bryant was given a standing ovation despite facing a sex-assault charge in 2003 (which was dropped after the accuser refused to testify – a civil case was later settled out of court with Bryant apologising to the plaintiff without admitting guilt). After all the hype, Lady Bird came away with nothing. And to cap it all, despite all the consciousness-raising, this year saw the fewest female winners for six years. So despite all the red carpet blackouts, the social media campaigns and fervent speeches, it still seems that the boulder is only part way up the hill.

We’re not quite back in the 70s

After Weinstein: why this year’s Oscars are make or break Read more

The last time the Oscars fizzed with so many truth bombs and sticking-it-to-the-mans, it was the heady era of the Hollywood new wave, and the counter-culture was going overground. Sacheen Littlefeather, Vanessa Redgrave, telegrams from the Viet Cong … the 1970s may have been the decade taste forgot, but they certainly didn’t mess around when it came to podium point-making. #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite seem to have liberated the current generation, but they tend to deal in carefully modulated consciousness-raising rather than the full-on rabble-rousing in which their elders indulged. The political demonstrations of the 70s exuded utter contempt for the Oscars – which still seemed to resemble a floor show at the Talk of the Town – and all it stood for. In contrast, despite the rhetoric, nowadays everyone seems delighted to be there. True radicalism won’t arrive till the industry starts hating the Oscars again.

Awards or no awards, Get Out is the start of something

So, Get Out didn’t quite manage the best picture upset so many people were rooting for. Instead Jordan Peele will have to be content with a original screenplay win, though that in itself should be cause for celebration. This, after all, was a horror film released in February, and one that presented subject matter almost certain to prove unpalatable to some of the Academy’s less forward-looking voters. The fact that it even got near the nominations suggests that those widespread efforts to change the Academy’s makeup are ever so slowly working. Besides, Get Out’s influence will ultimately be measured by far more significant metrics than awards statuettes. Along with Hidden Figures, Girl’s Trip and of course Black Panther, it showed that the old beliefs about films with non-white protagonists not selling at the box office are bigoted nonsense. Change is afoot.

Play Video 2:52 Seven must-see moments from the Oscars 2018 - video

Oscars shares the wealth

Just as the Baftas did a month before, the Academy spread the love here. No picture took home more than four prizes, and The Shape of Water was the only film to manage that. Instead, Academy members seemed to dole out little consolation prizes across their ballots: a costume design prize for Phantom Thread here, visual effects and cinematography prizes for Blade Runner 2049 there. Might the much-discussed changes to the Academy makeup be ending the idea of the consensus pick, like Titanic or The English Patient? Just as likely is the notion that many of this year’s films contained great elements rather than being great as a whole – see Allison Janney’s performance in I, Tonya – and voters responded accordingly.

Snubs aren’t just about social media outrage

Everyone loves a snub: they supply a cheap opportunity to yell at the referee. Every year the Oscars gets something wrong, or drops the ball. Adam West was the unlucky late actor missed out in the In Memoriam montage this year, though possibly forgivable as his best known work was on TV. Mind you, Chuck Berry was included, and he was hardly a star of the silver screen. There were other omissions that made less sense: Peggy Cummins (legendary lead of Gun Crazy), Jean Rochefort (The Hairdresser’s Husband) and Lewis Gilbert, British director of The Spy Who Loved Me. But snubs are more than Twitter fuel: the fact that Lady Bird and Mudbound came away empty-handed is a telling knockback for the new generation (though a similar wholesale rejection of The Post may indicate a certain type of earnest-ideas movie is now on the verge of redundancy).

The trans breakthrough is real

A Fantastic Woman review – sublime study of love, loss and the trans experience Read more

Among a welter of Oscar breakthroughs and records, the sudden visibility of trans film-makers stands out as an unqualified step forward. A Fantastic Woman won the best foreign film Oscar: the first ever winner with a trans actor in the lead role – and that same actor, Daniela Vega, became the first trans presenter with an introduction to best song nominee Mystery of Love from Call Me By Your Name. At the same Oscars, trans director Yance Ford was nominated for best documentary for Strong Island. Maybe The Danish Girl, with its four Oscar nominations, was a forerunner, but at this distance it looks like a pretty mealy-mouthed one, with the casting of a cis actor in Eddie Redmayne a counterproductive non-masterstroke. Surely Vega’s example can lead to significant opportunity for trans performers in English-language cinema?

