The 2018 Oscars were always going to be weird, but in a mostly predictable way.
In the #MeToo era, pre-show red carpet commentators avoided any hint of Joan Rivers-esque critique of women’s fashion choices or bodies. Everyone was “Stunning!” or “Iconic!”Ryan Seacrest, who was recently accused of sexual harassment by a former stylist, was bound to have some awkward interviews. (Some, for instance, took actress Taraji Henson’s response to Seacrest—“The universe has a way of taking care of the good people, you know what I mean?”— to be a not-so-veiled reproof.)
In a rare delightful moment, it was revealed Rita Moreno came wearing the same dress she’d worn in 1962 when she won for West Side Story. And in another, best director nominee Greta Gerwig—who wrote and directed Lady Bird, and looked lovely in a French’s-mustard-colored gown—abbreviated her film’s moral takeaway for the viewers at home: “Be nice to your mom.”
The first dig at Trump though came, predictably, when the camera honed in on Lupita Nyong’o, who was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya: “Let the tweetstorm from the president’s toilet begin,” the announcer said.
The self-serious host—this year’s is Jimmy Kimmel, who’s made earnest political talk a running theme of his late night talk show—and all those announcing and accepting awards guaranteed that political hits would come early and often..
With woke jokes like—“We don’t make films like Call Me By Your Name for money, we make them to upset Mike Pence,” and “Oscar is the most respected man in Hollywood, no penis – the type of man we need more of in Hollywood”—the one thing worth watching Sunday, besides who would win the actual Oscars, was whether the patriarchy or the president would be a richer target.
The night’s first win—Sam Rockwell for his role as a racist but “redeemed” small-town cop in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri—went to a polarizing performance in a timely film, which is also up for Best Picture. The controversy surrounding Rockwell’s character, if you were lucky enough to miss it, was pretty absurd: Why should have to sympathize with a white male cop during his anti-racist awakening? By these standards Rockwell’s win was also a big win for the patriarchy. (How’s that for predictable, eh?)
