5 moments when politics took center stage at the 2015 Oscars

1) Racial diversity

Politics took center stage right off the bat, when host Neil Patrick Harris referred to the #OscarsSoWhite debate.

“Tonight we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest — sorry, brightest,” he said, an ode to the controversial fact that the year’s acting nominees were all white.

2) Gender pay gap:

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America,” best supporting actress winner Patricia Arquette said in her speech.

The comments were likely sparked by the email hack on Sony Pictures that revealed Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams made significantly less than their male co-stars.

Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez were seen next to each other in the audience, responding with delight to Arquette’s words.

3) Selma

Singer John Legend brought up voting rights, the incarceration rate of black men and Selma in his acceptance speech for his song “Glory” with Common from the movie “Selma.”

“We say that Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now,” he said. “We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised right now in this country today. We know that right now, the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today then were under slavery in 1850.”

“We are with you, we see you, we love you and march on,” he concluded.

4) Snowden’s Oscar

“CITIZENFOUR,” which focuses on National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, won for best documentary feature. Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, joined director Laura Poitras, producer Dirk Wilutzky and journalist Glenn Greenwald onstage to accept the award.

“The subject of ‘Citizenfour,’ Edward Snowden, could not be here tonight for some treason,” Neil Patrick Harris said to laughs as the winners walked offstage.

5) Sean Penn’s Immigration Joke

Finally, the night ended with an awkward joke from Sean Penn, who made what some called a racist joke toward Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, the Mexican director of “Birdman,” which won four Academy Awards.

When introducing the winner for best picture, Penn quipped, “Who gave this son of a b—h a green card?” before revealing “Birdman” had won.

Iñárritu said later he found the joke “hilarious.” During his acceptance speech, he called on his fellow Mexicans to “find a build a government that we deserve.”

“I just pray they [Mexicans living in the U.S.] can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones that came before and built this incredible, immigrant nation,” he said, and soon both the hashtag #VivaMexico and Iñárritu himself were trending on Twitter.