The Oscars Finally Have Good Reason to Be Self-Important

At first glance, this weekend’s Academy Awards show doesn’t promise much in the way of surprises: Many of the nominees long ago earned sure-thing status (our sincere pre-emptive congrats, Mahershala and Viola!), and you just know host Jimmy Kimmel will engage in some Trump-related zing-slinging. But even if you can’t get worked up by the prospect of countless statue-nabbing La La Landers treating the podium like their own personal In-N-Out window, you have one big reason to get excited about this year’s ceremony. Because by the time the telecast wraps up late Sunday night, it will have earned an unofficial prize of its own: Most Important Awards Show of the Year (At Least So Far).

It’s a tougher field than you’d expect, given the much-discussed #SoWhiteness of this month’s Grammys, or Meryl Streep’s Donald-bashing tough-talk at last month’s Golden Globes, or the podium outrage on display at the once-way-too-insidery SAG Awards. Only a few years ago, we were stuck in an awards-show glut-rut, with dead-eyed celebs being marched from one noisy, shallow debacle to the next (remember Johnny Depp’s bleeped appearance on The Hollywood Hubris Hoedown, or whatever it was called?) But in 2017, these programs’ ability to marshal forum-seeking celebrities, GIF-witted Twitter observers, and at least a few million viewers has turned awards shows into prime-time referendums on everything from racism to sexism to Trumpism. Every speech or snub, every reaction-shot side-eye, is scrutinized or celebrated like never before (even a dippy red-carpet flub like “Hidden Fences” can be a jumping-off point for conversation, not to mention a decent fake trailer). Awards shows have always extolled their own self-importance; this year, it finally feels kinda earned.

And no awards show matters as much as the Oscars. My own feelings toward the event have shifted back and forth over the last few decades, from Amy Adams-like optimism to Amy Adams-like defeat. But if you believe cinema reflects society—if you think of movies as mirrors, big enough to fill a screen—then the Oscars provides an annual opportunity to stir and sway state-of-the-nation conversations that will go on for years, even decades. Some of those discussion focus on merit (Birdman vs. Boyhood, Goodfellas vs. Raging Bull, Mackie vs. quacky); others use the awards as a catalyst to examine bigger cultural conflicts, such as in 1994, when the needle-plunging hoods of Pulp Fiction paired off against Forrest Gump‘s earnest flag-wavers.

Politics, too, can streak across the Oscar stage, whether it’s Marlon Brando’s 1973 non-acceptance speech or Michael Moore’s boo-earns in 2003. Such attempts at gravitas almost always draw an outcry, whether from TV audiences, celeb-hating culture-warrior cranks, or even Academy members themselves. After Julia star Vanessa Redgrave ended her 1978 Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech with a pledge to “fight against anti-Semitism and fascism,” presenter (and Network writer) Paddy Chayefsky chided her, to loud applause. (It says a lot about the industry’s political squeamishness at the time when the guy who came up with “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore” wanted everyone to be less mad.)

But ever since 2015, when the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag called out the industry’s woeful inclusivity, the show has been transformed—possibly against its will—from a sporadically #woke statuette dispensary to something bigger. The entire show is now political: The nominees, the winners, and the things they say (or don’t say) on stage. And at time when everyone’s mad as hell, and deservedly so, this year’s Oscars offer a rare chance for everybody to make a statement—even the viewers playing along at home.

Laughing to Keep From Crying

That’s not to say Sunday’s proceedings will be somber: The year’s most-nominated entry, La La Land—which features several bright, satire-appropriate musical numbers and a hardships-of-Hollywood storyline, and which has enjoyed healthy box office returns—will no doubt set the tone for a show that loves nothing more than reveling in its own relevance. Expect lots of musical numbers, and jokes about musical numbers, and some sort of history-of-music-in-the-movies montage with a bit too much Chicago and not enough Cameo.

If the show’s inevitable lighter moments seem facile in the age of Trump, keep in mind that, no matter what’s going in the real world, the Oscars never stray too far from gilded nonsense. Even the 2002 ceremony, held just six months after 9/11, could keep a straight face only so long: Though the show opened with Tom Cruise solemnly reminding us of the power of cinema (followed by a montage of film lovers, including our future president, earnestly discussing their favorite movies), it was only minutes before host Whoopi Goldberg descended from the ceiling to crack jokes about Viagra and Anna Nicole Smith. At the Oscars, you can slow the tune down for a few minutes, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep dancing as fast as they can.

Still, this year’s Oscars feel more monumental than any ceremony in recent memory. The timing is one key factor, coming just a month after Trump’s inauguration; considering the contempt many in Hollywood feel for the man, it’s hard to imagine acceptance speeches not occasionally going full firebrand. If the prospect of so much on-display liberalism makes you roll your eyes to the point of near-vertigo, you may want to switch channels on Sunday night (Have you seen this show Girls? It’s really funny this season! If not, have some zombies.). But be warned that, in the social era, these kinds of moments are all but unavoidable: Patricia Arquette’s controversial 2015 acceptance speech for Boyhood, in which she called for gender equality, prompted thorny online debates about race, class, and privilege. You can snub the Oscars, but you can’t avoid them.

Even if this year’s winners and presenters stay absolutely apolitical throughout the show—which seems about as likely as Kenneth Lonergan dancing in the aisles during the Trolls musical number—the social and cultural ramifications of the awards will play out on online, thanks in part to the nominees themselves.

And even if this year’s winners and presenters stay absolutely apolitical throughout the show—which seems about as likely as Kenneth Lonergan dancing in the aisles during the Trolls number—the social and cultural ramifications of the awards will play out on online, thanks in part to the nominees themselves. In nearly every category you find a film that crystallizes one of the many issues dominating discourse nowadays, whether it’s class (Fences), 20th-century race relations (I Am Not Your Negro, O.J.: Made in America), sexual assault (Elle), or equality (Hidden Figures, Loving, Moonlight).

Even the nominees are tied up in bigger movements, not all of them voluntarily: Casey Affleck settled his sexual-harassment lawsuit through mediation years ago, but it’s been a daily topic online for months now. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose The Salesman is up for Best Foreign Language Film, is boycotting the ceremony to protest Trump’s travel ban. And, at a time when white male directors are allowed to screw up as much as possible without their careers suffering for it, the reemergence of Best Director nominee Mel Gibson—arguably the whitest, malest, most screwed–up director of the modern age—could not have been better (worse?) timed to land smack in the middle of the ongoing public deliberations on privilege.

All of these films and creators—and the topics with which they’ve become inextricably entwined—will be seized upon during the Oscars’ three- to 13-hour duration, then carried forward for months to come, via Twitter and Facebook. Awards themselves may ultimately be frivolous, but an awards show like this one has become the closest thing we can get to a seismic mass-culture event, one that uses art (and the occasional Denzel-reaction meme) to address what’s happening in the world beyond the confines of the Hollywood and Highland Center. The long-running and tired joke about the Oscars says that, by next week, no one will remember who won. That may be true, but only because the show gave everyone far more important things to talk about.