The 95th Academy Awards Ceremony was Normal.

by Morgan Stone

 

I was very close to just writing an article about my favorite "red" carpet looks, but I've decided to just stick some of my favorites into a graphic. Behold. 

 

 

March 12th at 5:00 I pulled up the 95th Academy Awards. What proceeded after was my cousin, my mom, my dad, and I watching this award show live and getting excited every time one of my predictions was correct. My mom especially was excited whenever Everything Everywhere All At Once won anything, despite having not seen the movie yet. I even regularly forgot that Jimmy Kimmel was hosting, that’s how unobtrusive he was! I did miss his monologue so maybe it was terrible, but I’ve seen nothing about it online so I think it was just unmemorable. His crowd work left something to be desired, but it could have been worse.

Overall, there’s something I have to say…this year was a very normal Oscars.

Now, I can’t really attest to what a normal Oscars is. The first year I watched was in early 2020, when Parasite swept, Rebel Wilson and James Corden came out dressed as cats, and Martin Scorsese thoroughly frowned while watching Eminem’s long-awaited performance...which by the way, left me very confused for my first Oscar watch but quite enthralled. And compared to 2021 and 2022, that was a very normal awards ceremony! 

 

The 93rd Academy Awards in 2021 was just weird, and there was no way to have avoided that. The thing that sticks with me is that final announcement, where they had strangely saved Best Actor for last. It almost seemed like they were gearing up to give Chadwick Boseman a posthumous award…but then it went to Anthony Hopkins, who had wanted to attend via Zoom, because doesn’t like crowds and didn’t want to be exposed to COVID, and they simply wouldn’t let him. So the awards ended with an awkward pause, after his name was announced, then the credits began rolling and the awards ended. In my humble opinion, they shouldn’t have held those awards in person at all that year with how unorganized it seemed.

 

And I am by no means the first person to talk about everything that made the 94th Oscars so terrible. Will Smith and Chris Rock. Amy Schumer making that seat-filler joke about Kirsten Dunst. Generally, it had a bad vibe. Lot's of great wins and historic awards that show, but the show itself was just a mess. I don’t think it’s something that needs to be lingered on. We can move on. 

 

Awards ceremonies as a whole are something I don’t have a lot of experience watching, but I am learning that there is something so fun about them, despite the fact that you are typically sitting there watching rich and powerful people award other rich and powerful people. But there's also something just fun about the event of it...knowing that it's happening now, live texting with your friends when something exciting happens...it's a fun time, and I think the live aspect is what makes me watch. I can't imagine watching an award ceremony after it's already happened. I think the fun is found in the build-up and getting to experience it with other people.

 

But back to the 2023 Oscars, I'm getting distracted. 

I can only name a few weird moments in the entirety of this year's award ceremony. Even sites like Mashable who ranked their "best and worst" moments were really pulling at straws. Jimmy Kimmel being bad at crowd work, the Cocaine Bear bit just being a little awkward, The performance of "This is a Life" was divisive...I guess? 

 

 

Really, what seems to be lingering from the whole ceremony is the absolute praise for Everything Everywhere All At Once, historic wins, and touching speeches. By all means, it felt like a "normal" awards ceremony...whatever that means.

I had this conversation with my mom after the Oscars that I thought was interesting. She really liked Everything Everywhere All At Once, but she felt something strongly: The Banshees of Inisherin should have won some award throughout the night. She felt the performances were some of the best of the nominees, and that the film was incredibly beautiful.

It's a topic that I know is labored over and over again, but it's so subjective, and obviously the Academy isn't watching every single movie out of a given year and awarding to whatever was the absolute best. What does "best" in any category actually mean? It's really an exclusive group of movies that gets to be considered, and the voters (allegedly) don't always even watch all the movies. They're voting process is not too different that mine, at home with my Birdbath-themed ballot. Though of course, I am a 21 year old college student and they are pillars of the industry.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think an Academy Award is an absolutely incredible career achievement, and there is something almost cinematic in many of the awards given this year. Everything Everywhere All At Once sweeping the awards was just really nice to see. It's a strange movie by Hollywood standards, and seeing it get such praise and accolades is amazing! I was also so happy to see Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraiser win Oscars after being let down by Hollywood time and time again. If other individuals would have won, it feels like the story of this awards ceremony would have been disrupted. It felt deserved.

And it all brings up the question of lifetime achievements and what is "deserved." Was Jamie Lee Curtis deserved in winning Best Supporting Actress for her time in the industry? Or should it have gone to someone who gave a better performance?

Overall, I think that the Academy Awards is not the most valuable judgement of what is and what isn't a good film. I don't think they are the arbiters of taste, as much as the Academy is framed that way. It's so subjective, and it's hard to compare vastly different pieces of art against each other. How are we pitting Top Gun: Maverick and Women Talking against one another? In no way are they similar.

 

I may not entirely agree with the categorizations of films or how awards are given, but I will keep watching the Oscars. I get to see a bunch of famous people in gorgeous clothing giving each other awards, and what more could one want from celebrity entertainment? 

What I really left this show wanting to do was to go watch RRR. That performance was delightful, and I only hear good things about the film. Why wasn't it nominated for a category other than original song?!