The sudden onslaught of A-list celebrity endorsements for a little known actress named Andrea Riseborough for the Best Actress Oscar nomination seems to be courting a lot of positive and negative attention. Riseborough, 41, snagged her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress for a teeny tiny budgeted movie named To Leslie. To Whom and What??? Exactly.
But talent is talent. It shouldn’t matter if a movie has been seen or fighting to be seen, right? And there are pages and pages of rules of eligibility as defined by the Academy. All is fair as long as you follow the rules, right? And it’s a democratic process because people vote for who they want, right?
Looks like things aren’t as fair as it seems. The Academy has announced it will be conducting an investigation to “ensure that the Awards competition is conducted in a fair and ethical manner, and [they] are committed to ensuring an inclusive awards process.” They don’t name Riseborough, but this will certainly inflame defenders of Riseborough even more so. The riffraff will also whine about wokeness and how this time it was definitely about merit and this is already the most diverse Oscars…Anyway…
So why are there so many people upset with the Michael Bloomberg of the 2020 Presidential election of the Best Actress Oscars race? Let’s take a look at some of the possible reasons.
This was not an authentic grassroots campaign
This Hollywood Reporter article details the strategy and coordination behind the campaign by Riseborough’s manager and PR team. The quest for the Oscar nomination found its way onto various media platforms and ricocheted across many a notable Hollywood star’s social media accounts.
The spontaneous but seemingly prepared social media posts fawning over an actress’ performance in a film no one can find to watch just seemed bizarre. The over-the-top proclamations and exclamations just seemed borderline desperate. It was like those baffling commercials starring Robert De Niro, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, and so on talking about the WELL Health-Safety Seal during the height of the pandemic.
There were posts all over social media from superstars like Jane Fonda and Edward Norton. Kate Winslet even declared Riseborough’s performance as the “greatest female performance onscreen” she has ever seen in her life. Reading and hearing about how all of these enormously talented actors (with most already having their own Oscars) trying to convince us regular movie going folks that Andrea Riseborough is the Cinderella frontrunner for the Best Actress Oscar just seemed ick and cult-ish.
Grassroots campaigns like the political ones we’ve seen with Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and even AOC are grassroots in nature because they primarily relied on no name, regular people with no connections (that we could tell) to the System. The Riseborough “grassroots” campaign was essentially a celebrity influencer one which took advantage of massive owned and earned impressions to generate buzz.
And more importantly, these celebrities most likely have some sort of sway over the Academy voters in the Actor’s branch that gets to vote for the Best Actress nominations. This Oscar nomination may not be courting so much controversy if the praise was driven by critics and journalists versus super powerful and influential celebrity “friends.
An embarrassment of privilege, not riches
Cate Blanchett is one of the most talented actresses of her generation. Her Best Actress nomination for Tar is her eighth Oscar nomination. But there was just something about her Critics Choice Awards acceptance speech that didn’t quite land right. The wanting to appear humble, socially conscious, and apathetic about silly things like awards was not a good demonstration of her Oscar calibre acting skills.
She laid it on thick with the bit about the gum in her mouth and not expecting to win (sure, sure). Slamming the “structure” and “patriarchal pyramid” and that her win is “arbitrary.” And yet she still found a way to hop up on the stage to accept the award.
Blanchett is a privileged actress who has already won two Oscars. To rack up 8 nominations says a lot about the quality roles she’s been privileged to be cast in. But now she’s standing on the stage with yet another award, and trying to play cool and embarrassed as if awards don’t matter (probably because she already has enough). It’s totally fine to be against awards and think they’re not good for the craft.
But the award is a symbol and capstone for a lot of people. There’s a reason why people shed tears and jump up for joy when they win an award. It could be an Oscar. The Superbowl. An Olympic medal. A school award. Awards exist for a reason. Competition is a good thing.
By making those comments about awards and awards shows, is she taking a shot at other actors who are overjoyed with winning and being nominated? It’s just very tacky and disrespectful. You don’t go to a party you’ve been invited to and then mock it for being irrelevant.
Yet in the same breath, she gladly namechecked Riseborough to be deserving of recognition. Blanchett’s acceptance speech just added to the appearance of the manufactured buzz for Riseborough. Now we’re taking things a bit too far in terms of the influencer marketing by taking advantage of free broadcast media time.
And if you’re going to shout out your friend on live TV, don’t come off sounding negative and ungrateful. On one hand you think awards are a joke and you don’t quite care for them, yet you still want your pal to get nominated for one. If awards don’t matter, then why are you caping so hard for your pal? Put your money where your mouth is and do what Ving Rhames did at the Golden Globes and sacrifice your spot for your most talented friend.
We’ve seen enough of these Oscar bait-ish roles
Riseborough’s Oscar-nominated performance is in a small film called To Leslie. She plays the titular character who is (of course) white, from the south (Texas), is an alcoholic, does drugs, is unhoused, has no money, and is estranged from her son. I’m sure she’s also allergic to chocolate and has adult pimples and other bad things going on for her. The “twist” is that she won a lottery once and squandered the jackpot.
The character’s multitude of troubles and overall shitty circumstances checks the many boxes that have scored many other (mostly) white actresses an Oscar nomination. Sharon Stone in Casino. Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas. Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone. Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Emma Stone in Birdman. Charlize Theron in Monster. Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine. And on and on.
Who played what better can be subjective, but the type of character being played can be judged more objectively. We’ve seen more than enough actresses play the down and out, drugged out and drunk, poor, and lonely woman. But how many times have we seen a character like Lydia Tar? Or Evelyn Wang? Or General Nanisca?
The character of Leslie just comes off too trite to be given such lavish praise like it’s the best character an actress has ever played in the entire cinematic universe. Perhaps there would be less backlash if this campaign were for something different that the Academy rarely ever recognizes. Maybe push an actress of a comedy role or a scary role like Mia Goth in Pearl. Now that’s really pushing the boundaries of the System.
The uncomfortable conversation about the intersection of race and power dynamics
The army of A-list celebrities rooting for Riseborough was a who’s who: Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Courtenay Cox, Jane Fonda, Edward Norton, Rosie O’Donnell, Jennifer Aniston, Sarah Paulson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mira Sorvino, Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, Minnie Driver, Frances Fisher, Rosanna Arquette, Patricia Clarkson, Alan Cumming, Howard Stern…
I’m sure there’s actors and entertainers of color who were on the bandwagon, but it’s pretty clear that the upper echelons of most industries and patriarchal pyramids are dominated by white faces. I don’t have the statistics, but I’m certain the Actors branch that voted for the five Best Actress nominees are overwhelmingly white. And I’m certain that the Academy as a whole is majority white.
I wouldn’t doubt that this army of primarily white influencers have a lot of pull in the overall Academy voting contingent. It’s highly doubtful that if you got all of the Black, Asian, Latino, mixed race A-listers trying to pump up an indie darling of color you’ll get the same success. There’s just not enough of them.
We don’t like to admit that a lot of things are not about merit. We all like to think that we’re special and we’re the smartest and prettiest and work the hardest. And we won fair and square. But we’ve all applied for jobs and been on hiring panels and have seen that fame and fortune really favors those Nepo Babies and friends of friends.
You can roll your eyes or say But it’s about who gave the best performance! But then didn’t Blanchett just wax poetic about how everyone is talented and how it’s arbitrary of who wins? And everyone clapped? If everyone is talented and deserving and the cream rises to the top, then why would anyone need these powerful people to put in a good word for them?
Talent is just one column to check when deciding who wins an Oscar or who gets the job. It usually boils down to a multitude of reasons why so and so wins and so and so loses. It’s not fair (maybe). It’s not right (maybe). But it’s reality. Who can recall the many articles that have been written about how Leonardo DiCaprio finally scored his Oscar. Apparently his talent wasn’t enough to get the win and we’ve all been there.
And the reality is, you would never see this group of A-listers go full force for a Danielle Deadwyler or Stephanie Hsu or Janelle Monae or most any under the radar actor of color. They’re happy to shout out about the plights of the people in Haiti and Africa and Iran, but if it’s too close to home, you won’t hear much of it.
It’s surprising that this group of Hollywood elites isn’t banning together for a deserving icon like Michelle Yeoh. Unlike Blanchett or even Riseborough, an East Asian actress like Yeoh will have a slimmer probability of getting another award-worthy role even if she were 30 years younger. This might be Yeoh’s one and only shot at an Oscar. And when was the last time an Asian woman, especially an East Asian woman, was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar or even won? Oh, right, it’s that “patriarchal hierarchy” Blanchett talked about. Right…
The system needs to change beyond the voting process
Depending on who you are, how the system should change and what should change may mean different things. Blanchett talked about the “patriarchal pyramid”, so she’s alluding to some gender imbalance and male influenced view of success. But for someone who’s like a Ke Huy Quan, Danielle Deadwyler, or even Troy Kotsur, the systemic change needs to extend beyond just the voting process.
In order for the voting process to be truly fair, the types of roles available for actors to participate in needs to be more equitable. If more actors of underrepresented groups (whether it’s by race, ethnicity, weight, age, disability, what have you) can be cast in more roles that the Academy loves to nominate for, then we’re talking about changing the system.
Let’s take Riseborough’s role as Leslie. Could someone like Danielle Deadwyler be offered a role like that? What about Stephanie Hsu? How about even Peter Dinklage if the gender can be switched? Will we ever get to see Troy Kotsur or Ariana DeBose play more layered and dynamic characters that have the potential of award worthy performances?
And I’m not talking about playing roles where it centers on their identity. I’m talking about letting the character take centre stage and their demographics being secondary. Can someone like Kotsur be cast in a movie like The Fabelmans? Can Ariana DeBose be cast in a movie like Tar? That’s really where the Oscars conversation should be focused on if we’re serious about changing the system.
Systemic change isn’t getting a bunch of A-listers to publicly endorse you. If others want to go this route, then it’s going to be even more about who you know in Hollywood and who’s buddies with who. It’s like a political candidate being carried by Super PAC’s.
It’s amazing what Riseborough has done and congratulations on her first Oscar nomination. But her Oscar campaign methodology is not a blueprint for most actors and actresses of underrepresented groups or those who don’t have powerful connections in Hollywood. It’s like the average Joe who worships Elon or other “captains of industry” thinking they can be just like them if they follow their lead. No, it’s a one-time and one-way ticket only.
It’s ironic that despite all of the efforts by the Academy to increase diversity and inclusion, even a campaign to subvert the system is still basically a systemic subversion. It’s still two sides of the same coin and with the same outcome.
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