Andrea Iriarte
Staff Writer
As stars and celebrities arrived on the red carpet, members of the Free Democratic Palestine Movement and Black Lives Matter LA marched along the streets of Hollywood in hopes of disrupting the Academy Awards and calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Wrapping up the 2023 season, the 96th Academy Awards Ceremony was the culmination of an era of fierce rivalries, billion-dollar blockbusters, and industry turmoil that would ultimately challenge preconceptions of critical and commercial success, and reel sleepy audiences back into theaters. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, interest in the awards ceremony was propelled by the leftover momentum from last year’s Barbenheimer trend.
The clear winner of the night was Oppenheimer, winning 7 out of the impressive 13 awards for which the movie was nominated, including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Directing, and Best Picture, granting esteemed director Christopher Nolan his first Academy win. Poor Things, the second-most nominated film of the night, won four awards, including Best Actress for Emma Stone as Bella Baxter.
The 96th Academy Awards also marked a few firsts. Notably, despite its comparatively minuscule $15 million budget, Godzilla Minus One beat out pricier productions for Best Visual Effects, landing the franchise its first Academy Award. The Japanese VFX team could be seen carrying tiny Godzilla statues onto the stage as they accepted their Oscars.
The experimental film The Zone of Interest also won Best Sound for its unsettling and innovative soundscape that highlighted the many atrocities that went unseen but not unheard at the Auschwitz-Dachau concentration camp. The Zone of Interest was also one of three foreign films nominated for Best Picture (the other two being the Past Lives and Anatomy of a Fall), the most out of any other year at the Oscars.
The standout of the night, however, was Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” for the Best Original Song category. Dressed in a bedazzled pink suit in a tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” video, Ryan Gosling danced and sang along to the anthem before being absorbed by a Barbie cutout dream sequence and re-emerging to a soulful guitar solo performed by none other than Slash, the legendary Guns and Roses guitarist.
Still, beyond the typical acceptance speeches and comedic skits were signs of a troubled political landscape.
As nearby protesters inched closer to the Dolby Theater, many nominees, such as Billie Elish and Anatomy of a Fall’s Swann Arlaud, could be seen wearing “Free Palestine” pins.
Jonathan Blazer, in his acceptance speech for Best International Feature awarded to The Zone of Interest, condemned the atrocities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stating that “the Holocaust, being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, are all the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?”
In the commercial break prior to Jonathan Blazer’s speech, an ad depicted members of a synagogue being welcomed by a neighboring Christian church after an anti-Semitic bomb threat prematurely ended their congregation. The ad was published by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS), under the hashtag #StandUpToJewishHate.
Some attention was also given to the ongoing Russian occupation of Ukraine. In his acceptance speech for Best Documentary awarded to 20 Days in Mariupol, director Mstyslav Chernov noted that, even though this is the first-ever Oscar awarded to a Ukrainian production, he would rather Russia had never invaded Ukraine, exclaiming, “I wish to give all of the recognition to the Russian killing of tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians…but I cannot change the history, I cannot change the past.”
Recently deceased Russian political activist Alexei Navalny also received a tribute at the start of the “In Memoriam” feature dedicated to all of the actors and filmmakers that passed away last year. Navalny’s final message from the documentary Navalny was aired where he encourages his supporters to rally together and utilize their collective strength in the case of his death. Navalny is believed to have been tortured and murdered by his guards at a Siberian prison after having been incarcerated for trumped-up tax evasion charges, in an attempt to silence his political discourse.
Most controversially, many felt that Lily Gladstone was “snubbed” after the award for Best Actress was unexpectedly given to Emma Stone, instead. Having been the favorite for the award, if Gladstone had won for her role of real-life Osage Mollie Burkhart in The Killers of the Flower Moon, she would have been the first Native American person to ever win an Oscar.
While some argued that Gladstone played only a minimal and understated part in the movie, many more feel that this turn of events highlights the many atrocities that have ultimately erased Native American peoples from the narrative.
According to a Newsweek article on the matter, the Academy Awards “missed out on the opportunity to rectify an ugly part of Hollywood’s history by awarding Lily Gladstone Best Actress.” The article also states that “since the Oscars began, Native Americans have frequently suffered from racist depictions with Native Americans presented with few opportunities in Hollywood.”
Though The Killers of the Flower Moon was nominated for ten awards, it did not win a single one. Shockingly, this is the third movie directed by Martin Scorsese that lost for each of the ten awards for which it was nominated.
Ultimately, despite the fun and excitement surrounding the Oscars this year, the ceremony was underscored by many of the tensions and outcry surrounding many of the current domestic and international political crises
