6 winners and 5 losers from the 2021 Oscars
This year's Oscars was somehow both entertaining and boring
The Oscars has finally come and go! This year has felt a lot longer thanks to the pandemic, and also the fact that the Oscars, which is usually hosted in February or March, was extended to the end of April. Yes, the Oscars received its lowest-rated telecast ever, but in a year where every televised awards show, and just live television in general that isn’t sports, has been on a downward trend in the age of streaming, it shouldn’t be a surprise. I have more to say about the Oscars winners this year, but that’ll be included in my blog post I’m currently working on. In the meantime, here’s a list of “winners” and “losers” from this year’s Oscars, inspired by Vox’s infamous winners and losers articles.
Winner: Firsts
There were many Oscars firsts to celebrate, including:
Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) becoming the first woman of color, and just second woman, to win Best Director
Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) becoming the first Korean actress, and second Asian woman, to win an acting award
Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) becoming the first Black women to win Best Makeup and Hairstyling
H.E.R. becoming the first Asian women to win Best Original Song
Winner: Best Song Performances
This year, instead of having Best Song nominees performed during the main ceremony, all of the nominees performed during the 90-minute pre-show. And you know what? It worked. Normally, these performances have to be shortened due to time constraints, but this time they were able to go all-out and it was great! I particularly loved the performances for “Husavik,” my personal favorite song “Speak Now,” and eventual winner “Fight for You.”
Loser: No Clips!
As someone who loves cinematic montages, I was super disappointed there weren’t any this year. I love seeing a recap of the year’s best in film. And not only that, there were no clips of most of the nominees. So if you were wondering why many films were nominated, especially if you hadn’t seen them, you wouldn’t get it from the show.
Winner: The Oscars Ceremony
From the moment the awards ceremony began, I knew it’d be a different show. It started off with a simple yet pretty great tracking shot of the great Regina King (Watchmen & If Beale Street Could Talk) walking through Union Station (where the main ceremony took place) leading to her opening remarks. And not only that, the entire show looked great! Steven Soderberg, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind a wide variety of films like the Ocean’s trilogy, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Contagion, and Magic Mike, played a huge role as one of the ceremony’s producers this year, and you can tell. The show was filmed at 24 frames-per-second to give off a cinematic look, and I think it payed off, standing out from the litany of awards shows.
Loser: The Oscars Ceremony
While I loved the new changes to the show, not everything worked. Somehow, even without Best Song performances or nominee clips, and with the reduction of awards (23 instead of 24), the show was still over three hours long!! Like, how?
The biggest change was mixing up the order of the awards. Best Director, one of the top prizes, was handed out during the first half of the show! It’s not a big deal but the purist in me did not like it. But hey, it made it interesting, and I think that’s what the producers were going for. The most controversial change was announcing Best Actor last, instead of Best Picture. It made sense at the time, as everyone expected the late Chadwick Boseman to win the award, but revelation that Anthony Hopkins won resulted in a huge, widespread, and negative reaction all across social media. Many thought it was disrespectful to Boseman and his family (who came to the show, prepared to give a speech). While it did result in a very anti-climactic ending (announcer Joaquin Phoenix awkwardly wrapped up the show after Hopkins, the winner, who also probably didn’t expect to win, wasn’t awake to accept the award via satellite), I do kind of respect the risk the producers took in this decision to announce Best Actor last. Had it paid off, and Boseman did win, it would’ve been a memorable and emotional ending. But, alas, it didn’t pay off, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. (Also, this is the greatest proof that The Academy truly doesn’t know who is the winner until the envelope is open)
I should also note, I decided to watch The Father, the film Hopkins won Best Actor for, the day after the ceremony, and he was absolutely phenomenal. So I can’t say he didn’t deserve to win. I haven’t seen Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the film Boseman was nominated for, but I’ve also heard great things about his performance. Though I believe it’s a well-deserved win for Hopkins, and maybe he truly did give a better performance than Boseman, it can’t be ignore that Black actors have been historically shut out from the acting categories. Only four Black actors have ever won Best Actor in the Oscars’ 93-year history! There’s obviously an institutional problem here, which The Academy, admittedly, has been trying to address by diversifying its voting body every year.
Winner: Music Trivia
One of the highlights from the show was the music trivia bit that occurred late in the show. Lil Rel Howery (Get Out) went around the room testing the nominees’ Oscars knowledge, asking them if certain songs were nominated, won, or not nominated in previous Oscars ceremonies. The most memorable part involved actress Glenn Close correctly identifying the song “Da Butt” from Spike Lee’s School Daze. See it for yourself!
Winner: Speeches
This is the first time the awards winners were not played off the stage for going overtime with their speeches, and I fully support this decision! The Oscars is meant to close out the award season so it’s only right to allow winners to take in their moment and give their entire speech. Particularly memorable was writer/director Thomas Vinterberg’s emotional speech after winning Best International Feature Film for Another Round. He honored his daughter who tragically died in an accident shortly after shooting began on the film, to which his daughter was meant to appear in. It was a beautiful tribute. Other memorable speeches came from Best Actor winner Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) and Best Supporting Actress Winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari).
Loser: Tyler Perry’s Speech
Entertainment mogul slash union buster Tyler Perry was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and, for the first half, gave a moving speech about charity. But then he started to preach about centrism, about not hating others for their marginalized identities, like Mexican, Black, White, LBGTQ (yes, he said “L-B-G-T-Q”), Asian… as well as police officer. Yikes.
Loser: Netflix
Netflix, the biggest streaming service, has a pretty good track record when it comes to getting nominations; it’s often the most nominated studio every year. But it has trouble winning the top prize, Best Picture. This year it had two films competing for Best Picture, Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7, two of the most nominated films at the Oscars at 10 and 6, respectively. Mank only won two (cinematography and production design). The Trial of the Chicago 7 won zero. The biggest prize Netflix has won was Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón, for Roma).
Loser: Los Angeles’ Homeless Population
With this year’s show taking place at the Los Angeles Union Station, this meant months-long restrictive access to the local community, both residents who rely on public transit for work and daily living, as well as the homeless people who take shelter in the area. The Oscars had a negative impact on the community, forcing many homeless people to relocate. While the city disputes this, saying they provided housing to the homeless, others are saying the city never offered such accommodations at all. But even if it is true that housing accommodations were made, the question remains: why can’t these accommodations be permanent?
Winner: Sharon Choi Hive
Legendary director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) returned, along with his translator Sharon Choi, and it just reminded me how great last year’s award season was (because Parasite got its due). Everyone, including me, absolutely adores Sharon and were so excited for her return!
Also consider checking out:
Daniel Kaluuya responds to a journalist who mistook him for Leslie Odom Jr.
Youn Yuh-jung calling out Brad Pitt for under-funding Minari (and more tweets about this)
Another iconic Youn Yuh-jung clip