The slap heard round the world

Before the Oscars the biggest news was whether Ukrainian Pres. Zelenskyy would be given a prime time segment, not that he really cared what went down in Tinsletown.  Nevertheless, Sean Penn was so adamant about this that he vowed to publicly smelt his Oscars if the Academy didn't honor this request from a large segment of its members.  Leave it to Will Smith to completely overshadow the event with his notorious slap.

I can't say Chris Rock didn't have it coming to him.  The guy has made it his schtick to crack jokes at other persons' expense, and obviously his bad joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's bald head didn't sit well with her husband.  However, Will only succeeded in calling more attention to his wife's alopecia than I imagine she wanted, not to mention relegate the historic evening of Oscar winners secondary to his outburst.

We tried to watch CODA last night but without subtitles it is impossible to follow.  It was the surprise winner of Best Picture, when it seemed the Oscar would go to The Power of the Dog or Drive My Car.  What little we did see of it didn't strike me as anything great, but will try to watch it all the way through another evening.  There was a lot of last minute jockeying for this award, and it seems the folks at Apple managed to convince just enough folks to tip the scales in favor of their streaming service movie, giving it the historic first over Netflix and other streaming services.  It's ironic as Sian Heder, the writer/director, used to write for the Netflix production, Orange is the New Black.

There hasn't been a "deaf" movie like this since Children of a Lesser God, which won Marlee Matlin an Oscar back in 1987.  Troy Kotsur joined Marlee as the only deaf persons to ever win an Oscar, as he took one home for Best Supporting Actor.  Heder won for Best Original Screenplay.  

The Power of the Dog and Drive My Car weren't shut out entirely.  Jane Campion took home the Oscar for Best Director and Drive My Car won Best Foreign Language Film.

Overall, it seemed the Academy decided to redress all the mistakes it made last time around.  In 2021, everyone was so sure the recently deceased Chadwick Boseman would win Best Actor for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom that Anthony Hopkins didn't even bother to show up, accepting his surprise award from his home in Wales.  It didn't matter that Chloe Zhao was only the second woman, and the first Asian woman director to win an Oscar for Nomadland.  Somehow, the Academy was still seen as exercising white privilege.  I saw The Father and it is pretty hard to argue with Hopkins' standout performance.  

I can't say I'm a big fan of Will Smith.  He is a good actor, but he's one of those actors who tries so hard each time around that you feel he is staking his reputation entirely on a phallic statue.  Reminds me of Tom Cruise in this way, who has been nominated multiple times but has yet to win the coveted gold dildo.  Even more odd is that Will should win the award for playing a man who was known for his own "toxic masculinity" in bullying not just his girls but his wife too in the years he pushed his daughters to attain greatness.  His domestic bouts with his former wife had become so toxic that he was alleged to have broken her ribs at one point, but "King Richard" was one of the first to admonish Will Smith for slapping Chris Rock.

I did see many of the movies and performances nominated this year, and my personal favorite was Andrew Garfield in Tik Tik Boom.  This was truly a captivating performance in every way, as Garfield was able to fully inhabit Jonathon Larson, learning to sing and play piano in a way that astounded director Lin-Manuel Miranda and his co-stars.  I guess Andrew just wasn't alpha male enough.

Much is said about the Oscars tuning out persons of color, but its biggest disgrace has been awarding toxic men. It's a pattern that goes way back, but continues to rear its ugly head.  For instance, Green Book was built largely around the character of Tony Lip, played by Viggo Mortensen.  We were all supposed to be taken in by how this Italian-American bouncer became a driver for the acclaimed pianist Don Shirley, overcoming his racism in the process, and finally able to give the attention his wife deserved thanks to Don coaching him on how to write better love letters.  A heart-warming story, but one that treated racism on the same level as Forrest Gump, and was harshly criticized by Don Shirley's family as greatly diminishing his character.  Just the same, Mahershala Ali won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor so all was forgiven.  Turns out the largely apocryphal story was written by Tony Vallelonga's son.

In many ways, Sean Penn displayed that same toxic masculinity by vowing to smelt his Oscars if President Zelenskyy didn't speak at the event, not thinking for one moment that the Ukrainian president had more pressing matters on his mind, or just wanted a little bit of rest between 3 and 6 am his time.  It was more important for Sean to show his position, after having spent a week in war-torn Ukraine filming a documentary.  Amy Schumer had taken a much softer approach earlier, but no one seemed to take much notice.  

This is why the slap heard round the world made such an impact.  We can't help but take notice and react, regardless of everything else going on in the world, or even at the Oscars themselves.  As I told one of my friends on facebook, on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of relevancy the slap was a 1, yet I still can't help myself from commenting on it.  There is even a meme transposing Zelenskyy and Putin in the scene.  Feel free to add your own words.