Los Angeles’s Union Station is an architectural gem combining a distinctive Mission Revival exterior with an art decor interior. In normal times, it serves as a grand thoroughfare for more than 100,000 Californians commuting in and out of the city daily. Like most of the metro area’s public spaces these days, it also usually serves as a de facto homeless camp.
Hence, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’s decision to move this year’s Oscars ceremony to Union Station seemed inexplicable from the start. Sure, far fewer people may be commuting into the still highly locked down city these days, but the pandemic has exacerbated California’s already dreadful homelessness crisis. So really, was the Academy going to bet on the optics of shooing away scores of homeless folks to fete a bunch of Balenciaga-bedecked brats who didn’t even make decent films this year?
Evidently, the answer is yes. Despite the city’s assertion otherwise, homeless dwellers around Union Station allege that the city forced them out of the vicinity to roll out the red carpet. Given the show’s orderly proceedings, the city’s denial seems a little less than truthful. TMZ also reports that an Oscars crew member was mugged while preparing for the show.
The big winner of the night, other than those of us who spared ourselves nearly three hours of solipsistic stupidity, was Nomadland, a film about a widow who, after losing her job, resorts to living in a van and pooping in a bucket.
The ceremony began with Regina King making a passionate mention of our national crisis. No, not the pandemic, which was mostly ignored in the maskless evening, but rather the death of George Floyd, whose murderer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted in court last week.
“I have to be honest: If things had gone differently this past week in Minneapolis, I might have traded in my heels for marching boots,” the actress said at the start. “I know many of you want to reach for your remote when you feel Hollywood is preaching to you, but as the mother of a black son who fears for his safety, no fame or fortune changes that.”
No mention was made of all the homeless people they must have pushed to Skid Row, where death is a likelihood and illness a certainty. Better just to celebrate movies about it instead.
