The 2017 oscars. It’s late February, Donald Trump has just been inaugurated and the culture is changing. We’re down trodden and pessimistic about the state of the world. I, and many others have chosen to funnel our otherwise defeated spirit into the Oscar race. Obviously every year it is political but this year it felt like we had so much more emphasis on the politics because if we couldn’t win that race, maybe we could win this one.
It became clear early on it would be a two horse race. La La Land versus Moonlight. The story of a gay black man’s life versus the story of a white man who fixes jazz. We thought at the time two films could not be more philosophically divided, which looking back at the Greenbook year, how very wrong were. When the card was read on that fateful day, we thought we had taken another L , ideologically and symbolically. It would turn out that we were wrong and in fact, we had won. Moonlight had actually won best picture.
The moments following were pure chaos. Who knew what and when did they know it. Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Jordan Horowitz, the other producer who was a dick and did his whole acceptance speech despite knowing he had actually lost, Jimmy Kimmel. All trying to figure out the best way to proceed. Some genius in the booth showed a crowd shot while the logistics were figured out on stage. In the morning light someone had found and taken all the faces and made a grid of them. I could stare at this photo for hours.
It is simply what I love about Hollywood. We don’t want celebrities to be relatable. We want them to be glamorous and fabulous. We want them to be unattainable. How a person could live if they had all the money in the world and all the tools at their disposal to enact their greatest fantasies. An ideal life with no thoughts and no hardship and no bad parts. That if life could be wholly aesthetically pleasing, it could be pleasing in all ways. We know from countless celebrity memoirs and biopics this is rarely the case but isn’t it nice to pretend? The Oscars are the grand culmination of this. It’s our favorites on display. It's where celebrities get to be celebrities, and we get to watch.
This particular event was the exact thing we needed. A little bit of conflict by too much. Its a crack in the foundation, a break from the facade but not really. Enough to rattle the celebrities but not enough to break them, or god forbid, cancel them. I mean, Mel Gibson is included in the grid.
Meryl, an Oscar mainstay and our cinematic matriarch, remains the most memorable and most repeatable. Mostly among gay men who devote their lives to anyone whos ever been nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but it does get some play among regular gays too. She looks like someone committed a murder before her very eyes. She’s blurry and shocked. We are incapable of getting a good photo of her because she's so distraught, unable to stand still.
Busy Phillips gives us a classic open mouth gasp. Busy is of course a favorite character at the Oscars because she is the best friend of Michelle WIlliams. Michelle Williams is a tragic figure whom we love to feel bad for because her ex husband, also an Oscar favorite, died suddenly. Michelle gets nominated every year and Busy gets to go every year and we all get to clutch out hearts and go “Oh I love them” every year. Busy is given the opportunity to earn her keep and she knocks it out of the park. We don’t deserve her and we don’t appreciate her for being good at being a celebrity in a semi old fashioned way.
Every person in the photo has a story of why they're there that goes beyond “The movie they were in was nominated” all of these people are Movie Stars and have nailed their star persona so much that the lines are blurred. They react how we want them to react. Performing at all times. It also cements movie star status for others in the photo. Trevante Rhodes is clutching his heart, exasperated. He is performing! His movie just won Best Picture and he is feeling every emotion. More importantly, he’s letting us know that he is feeling them. Barry Jenkins being in the grid gives it a little class. He’s a director after all, so knowing who he is makes you seem like an intellectual in some sets. He’s better to have in the grid than Damien Chazelle, who just seems like he sucks.
We’ll never forget this. It was truly the most exciting in the world. I love that this picture exists. I love that everyone’s face is different. The Oscars will never live it down but who cares. It's one of those things that makes the institution more interesting but the institution will never embrace. We don’t want them to embrace it either because that would be lame. This moment was an X factor of everything going wrong in a way that is enjoyable and is impossible to replicate. It will live on forever in that grid.
Great Busy analysis.