From the archives: Oscar night
Jesus, i'm a busy guy. I couldn't even get around to finsihing this post on the Oscars till now. Whatever, you're the one surfing the internet at work:
Every year i watch the Oscars and find new things to fuel my spastic fits of fist shaking and inarticulate sputtering. Maybe i should just stop watching. Given that this is pretty unlikely, possibly because i love complaining, i'll procced to this year's inevitable gripes.
Lately the Academy Awards telecasts have contained some electric moments that really expose the clumsiness and discomfort with which we americans confront issues of race. These events have pointed out how even the supposedly enlightened and liberal Hollywood establishment cannot easily broach these issues, not that that should come as a surprise.
I'm thinking particularly of the 2002 awards in which Denzel Washington and Halle Berry were both awarded Oscars for acting. Berry made a now (in)famously emotional acceptance speech proclaiming that she was proud to open the way for other women of color to gain more respect as actors (she was the first black woman to be awarded the oscar for best actress.) Although at the time i found this speech to be a grating, i liked what she said overall. I particularly appreciated the fact that she explicitly brought the question of race into an arena where it is often glossed over (if not ignored completely), at least in the main stream press. (I admit there certainly has been much discussion of race and film in academic circles.)
The same night, Denzel Washington made a very different speech, one that seemed to have a suggestion of resentment towards the academy, especially by comparison to Berry's emotive triumph. His opening comment was, "two birds with one night, huh?" while examining the award. For just a moment, i thought i could detect a certain sense of weary irony. To me, this suggested that the academy's awarding black actors was a move calculated to allow their organization to be painted in a favorable light, as progressive and egalitarian, and perhaps as a move away from the racism to be found in american film's history.
Am i reading too much into that remark? I would welcome anyone to offer their interpretations of his comment. And admittedly, the rest of his comments were of a completely different tenor, honoring fellow Oscar recipient Sidney Poitier, and thanking the usual assortment of movie people. But the saying "kill two birds with one stones" suggests that it is possible to deal with two problems with one act. This sense of taking care of providing a problem to a solution hardly gels with the stated goal of the Academy Awards as honoring excellence.
It is also important to recognize that the parts for which black actors are nominated tend not to be ones from movies with upfront political or social messages. Washington was passed over for an Academy Award (although he was nominated) for The Hurricane. At the time, commentators noted that Washington was uncharacteristically vocal about his desire to win this award because of the personal importance that this film and it's anti-racist message, held for him.
He did win an award for best supporting actor for Glory, which was essentially a white hero movie about a northern abolitionist who took a rag-tag group of ex-slaves and made them into honorable soldiers. Then they all march into some big guns and get slaughtered. In the end, the rich northern capitalists are allowed to keep their easy access to the agricultural products of the American south. There were courageous abolitionists and black people who fought for the union. I'm sure many of them fervently believed in their cause, and i believe that the Civil War was a step towards racial equality at a time when that goal was incomprehensibly far from realization. But Glory is still fee-good Hollywood, white-washed history, and that's always a detriment to real anti-racist efforts.
Training Day, for which Washington won the Oscar, was, to me, a racist and classist film, showing the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles to be an urban jungle, inhabited by savage "natives" who are portrayed as alien and inferior to the middle-class cops played by Washington and Ethan Hawke.
The representation of the cops vs. "natives" was drawn directly, so far as i could see from Apocalypse Now, a similiarly racist film by Francis Ford Coppola. The first element of the film that drew this to my attention was the parallel between the car that the cops ride in and the boat that the solider protagonists occupy in Apocalypse Now. In both cases their vehicle is a safe haven from the strange and violent happenings on the shores of the river, or the sidewalks and lawns. In fact, director Anthony Fuqua himself admits that he drew inspiration for these scenes from Apocalypse Now on the commentary track to Training Day.
In both Apocalypse Now and Training Day the portrayal of people as "natives" is stereotypical and offensive. In Apocalypse Now, the indigenous people among whom Kurtz has become a god are incapable of initiative, of determining their own fate. They are either at the mercy of the warlord Kurtz or the enlightened Willard (Marin Sheen's character) who overcomes his own nihilism to offer them a path to peace. The film offers no alternative to white savoirs.
Similarly Hawke plays the white hero, Jake, in Training Day. While the residents of South Central are not necessary portrayed as evil, they are shown to be disposed to violent behavior, and unable to deal with Washington's corrupt cop, Alonzo, who exploits them in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the way in which Kurtz "goes native" in Apocalypse Now. Finally Jake is able to intervene and allow the people of South Central to deal with this corrupt cop in a final violent catharsis. Things work out fine in the ghetto as long as you have enlightened whites like Jake to see things through.
To be clear, i'm taking it for granted that the quality of the performance is of little concern in deciding the winner of a best acting Oscar (and i think the same holds true for all the awards.) It's entirely possible that Washington gave the year's best performance (although i didn't see all of the other films for which actors were nominated, and there can not possibly be a best in a subjective, aesthetic judgement, but i digress.) But every year, the critics who make predictions discuss a host of other factors that play into the Academy's decision process, and i'm only suggesting that race may be one of them.
I've only provided a few examples above, but i think it is enough to suggest the kind of bias that the Academy shows towards actoresses and actors of color. I'd welcome any additional comments about this. One can also point to forms of sexism in the awarding of Oscars. It has been widely commented on that women are more likely to win awards for roles in which they appear naked, and of course Berry acted in a famously racy scene in Monster's Ball, for which she won her best actress award.
***
The 2005 Oscars did have a bit of an edge, as would be expected from the host, Chris Rock. There was a pre-taped bit where Rock first asked filmgoers in a predominantly black neighborhood what they thought about some of the films nominated for best movie, and then asked them about the comedy White Chicks staring the Wayans brothers. Almost none of the interviewees knew about the films nominated for Oscars, but all told him that they had seen White Chicks and liked it.
I suppose that this could be a subversive comment on the classist and racist nature of the Academy Awards and the film establishment in general as it reveals the gap between critically lauded and celebrated films with those that "average" people, or in this case ostensibly middle-class black people, go to see. But doesn't the context (this is a comedy bit being shown at the Academy Awards) and the deliberate choice of White Chicks, a critically reviled film, which has a premise that virtually precludes the audience from taking it seriously as a film, actually serve to poke fun at these filmgoers themselves, and their, by implication, low brow taste in movies?
There was a much better moment that occured when Jorge Drexler accepted his award for best song Al Otro Lado Del Rio from the motorcycle diaries. Every year, popular musicians, occasionally the composer(s) and/or performer(s) themselves, play each of the nominated songs at various points throughout the broadcast prior to the award being given out. This song was performed by Spanish singer/actor Antonio Banderas and Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana. At first i mostly enjoyed the perfomance. I was somewhat surprised to find that i liked Banderas's singing (i had no idea he was a "real" singer until i looked it up later on) although i felt that Santana's characteristic bluesy soloing was completely out of place in the song, which sounded more like a Latin American folk song to me. I admit i know next to nothing about Latin American music, so feel free to lacerate me on this point, but i'm sticking to my guns when i say that Santana's contribution was distracting and superfluous.
But you can't appreciate the full meaning of this event until you learn the backstory. Jorge Drexler is a big star in Latin America (he's from Uruguay), writing and singing on his own albums. He had requested that the Academy allow him to perform the song that he had written at the awards. Apparently he wasn't a big enough star for them, and apparently there were no stars from Latin America big enough to perform on the Academy's stage, because they recruited Banderas and Santana. I don't mean to denigrate either as a musician or a person, but i find the academy's decision shameful. It would obviously have been relevant to have a Latin American performer sing this song about a Latin American Revolutionary who fought on the side of poor countries against the hegemony of the United States. But it just wasn't in the stars.
Drexler responded in a very graceful way, giving no acceptance speech, instead singing one of the uplifiting lyrics from his song. I guess i'd have perferred a fiery denunciation of the academy, and American liberals in general, but his way worked too, if you were listening and watching, critically.
Every year i watch the Oscars and find new things to fuel my spastic fits of fist shaking and inarticulate sputtering. Maybe i should just stop watching. Given that this is pretty unlikely, possibly because i love complaining, i'll procced to this year's inevitable gripes.
Lately the Academy Awards telecasts have contained some electric moments that really expose the clumsiness and discomfort with which we americans confront issues of race. These events have pointed out how even the supposedly enlightened and liberal Hollywood establishment cannot easily broach these issues, not that that should come as a surprise.
I'm thinking particularly of the 2002 awards in which Denzel Washington and Halle Berry were both awarded Oscars for acting. Berry made a now (in)famously emotional acceptance speech proclaiming that she was proud to open the way for other women of color to gain more respect as actors (she was the first black woman to be awarded the oscar for best actress.) Although at the time i found this speech to be a grating, i liked what she said overall. I particularly appreciated the fact that she explicitly brought the question of race into an arena where it is often glossed over (if not ignored completely), at least in the main stream press. (I admit there certainly has been much discussion of race and film in academic circles.)
The same night, Denzel Washington made a very different speech, one that seemed to have a suggestion of resentment towards the academy, especially by comparison to Berry's emotive triumph. His opening comment was, "two birds with one night, huh?" while examining the award. For just a moment, i thought i could detect a certain sense of weary irony. To me, this suggested that the academy's awarding black actors was a move calculated to allow their organization to be painted in a favorable light, as progressive and egalitarian, and perhaps as a move away from the racism to be found in american film's history.
Am i reading too much into that remark? I would welcome anyone to offer their interpretations of his comment. And admittedly, the rest of his comments were of a completely different tenor, honoring fellow Oscar recipient Sidney Poitier, and thanking the usual assortment of movie people. But the saying "kill two birds with one stones" suggests that it is possible to deal with two problems with one act. This sense of taking care of providing a problem to a solution hardly gels with the stated goal of the Academy Awards as honoring excellence.
It is also important to recognize that the parts for which black actors are nominated tend not to be ones from movies with upfront political or social messages. Washington was passed over for an Academy Award (although he was nominated) for The Hurricane. At the time, commentators noted that Washington was uncharacteristically vocal about his desire to win this award because of the personal importance that this film and it's anti-racist message, held for him.
He did win an award for best supporting actor for Glory, which was essentially a white hero movie about a northern abolitionist who took a rag-tag group of ex-slaves and made them into honorable soldiers. Then they all march into some big guns and get slaughtered. In the end, the rich northern capitalists are allowed to keep their easy access to the agricultural products of the American south. There were courageous abolitionists and black people who fought for the union. I'm sure many of them fervently believed in their cause, and i believe that the Civil War was a step towards racial equality at a time when that goal was incomprehensibly far from realization. But Glory is still fee-good Hollywood, white-washed history, and that's always a detriment to real anti-racist efforts.
Training Day, for which Washington won the Oscar, was, to me, a racist and classist film, showing the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles to be an urban jungle, inhabited by savage "natives" who are portrayed as alien and inferior to the middle-class cops played by Washington and Ethan Hawke.
The representation of the cops vs. "natives" was drawn directly, so far as i could see from Apocalypse Now, a similiarly racist film by Francis Ford Coppola. The first element of the film that drew this to my attention was the parallel between the car that the cops ride in and the boat that the solider protagonists occupy in Apocalypse Now. In both cases their vehicle is a safe haven from the strange and violent happenings on the shores of the river, or the sidewalks and lawns. In fact, director Anthony Fuqua himself admits that he drew inspiration for these scenes from Apocalypse Now on the commentary track to Training Day.
In both Apocalypse Now and Training Day the portrayal of people as "natives" is stereotypical and offensive. In Apocalypse Now, the indigenous people among whom Kurtz has become a god are incapable of initiative, of determining their own fate. They are either at the mercy of the warlord Kurtz or the enlightened Willard (Marin Sheen's character) who overcomes his own nihilism to offer them a path to peace. The film offers no alternative to white savoirs.
Similarly Hawke plays the white hero, Jake, in Training Day. While the residents of South Central are not necessary portrayed as evil, they are shown to be disposed to violent behavior, and unable to deal with Washington's corrupt cop, Alonzo, who exploits them in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the way in which Kurtz "goes native" in Apocalypse Now. Finally Jake is able to intervene and allow the people of South Central to deal with this corrupt cop in a final violent catharsis. Things work out fine in the ghetto as long as you have enlightened whites like Jake to see things through.
To be clear, i'm taking it for granted that the quality of the performance is of little concern in deciding the winner of a best acting Oscar (and i think the same holds true for all the awards.) It's entirely possible that Washington gave the year's best performance (although i didn't see all of the other films for which actors were nominated, and there can not possibly be a best in a subjective, aesthetic judgement, but i digress.) But every year, the critics who make predictions discuss a host of other factors that play into the Academy's decision process, and i'm only suggesting that race may be one of them.
I've only provided a few examples above, but i think it is enough to suggest the kind of bias that the Academy shows towards actoresses and actors of color. I'd welcome any additional comments about this. One can also point to forms of sexism in the awarding of Oscars. It has been widely commented on that women are more likely to win awards for roles in which they appear naked, and of course Berry acted in a famously racy scene in Monster's Ball, for which she won her best actress award.
***
The 2005 Oscars did have a bit of an edge, as would be expected from the host, Chris Rock. There was a pre-taped bit where Rock first asked filmgoers in a predominantly black neighborhood what they thought about some of the films nominated for best movie, and then asked them about the comedy White Chicks staring the Wayans brothers. Almost none of the interviewees knew about the films nominated for Oscars, but all told him that they had seen White Chicks and liked it.
I suppose that this could be a subversive comment on the classist and racist nature of the Academy Awards and the film establishment in general as it reveals the gap between critically lauded and celebrated films with those that "average" people, or in this case ostensibly middle-class black people, go to see. But doesn't the context (this is a comedy bit being shown at the Academy Awards) and the deliberate choice of White Chicks, a critically reviled film, which has a premise that virtually precludes the audience from taking it seriously as a film, actually serve to poke fun at these filmgoers themselves, and their, by implication, low brow taste in movies?
There was a much better moment that occured when Jorge Drexler accepted his award for best song Al Otro Lado Del Rio from the motorcycle diaries. Every year, popular musicians, occasionally the composer(s) and/or performer(s) themselves, play each of the nominated songs at various points throughout the broadcast prior to the award being given out. This song was performed by Spanish singer/actor Antonio Banderas and Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana. At first i mostly enjoyed the perfomance. I was somewhat surprised to find that i liked Banderas's singing (i had no idea he was a "real" singer until i looked it up later on) although i felt that Santana's characteristic bluesy soloing was completely out of place in the song, which sounded more like a Latin American folk song to me. I admit i know next to nothing about Latin American music, so feel free to lacerate me on this point, but i'm sticking to my guns when i say that Santana's contribution was distracting and superfluous.
But you can't appreciate the full meaning of this event until you learn the backstory. Jorge Drexler is a big star in Latin America (he's from Uruguay), writing and singing on his own albums. He had requested that the Academy allow him to perform the song that he had written at the awards. Apparently he wasn't a big enough star for them, and apparently there were no stars from Latin America big enough to perform on the Academy's stage, because they recruited Banderas and Santana. I don't mean to denigrate either as a musician or a person, but i find the academy's decision shameful. It would obviously have been relevant to have a Latin American performer sing this song about a Latin American Revolutionary who fought on the side of poor countries against the hegemony of the United States. But it just wasn't in the stars.
Drexler responded in a very graceful way, giving no acceptance speech, instead singing one of the uplifiting lyrics from his song. I guess i'd have perferred a fiery denunciation of the academy, and American liberals in general, but his way worked too, if you were listening and watching, critically.
posted by Chris at 7:23 PM
4 Comments:
I felt weird about the Chris Rock/Magic Johnson theaters bit too, like it was custom-made to appease everyone who thinks the oscars are snobby; it was a little too easy. But i did think one woman interviewed in the scene held her own pretty well, didn't get flustered by being around the Rock star.
i agree about the song thing. maybe ethey could have had shakira do it. or bacilos a colombian band or cafe tacuba. there's your latin am music lesson as well as i can do it. quiz tomorrow
aside from all that stuff you said--isn't every awards ceremony the most fucking boring thing you've ever seen in your life? people are getting little figurines in recognition of how much money they can make in a year for having a job they actually enjoy, which will allow them to get even more money and more enjoyable jobs in the future. eventually they will become the biggest assholes in the world.
occasionaly people say interesting things, in between the drawn-out stage appearances of the presenters and their awful cue-card banter, plus the 50% commercial:program ratio.
no thanks.
The Apocalypse Now / Training Day comparison is really quite apt; I'm surprised I've never heard it before. Both movies also have a touch of the surreal, partially induced by hallucinogens, and Brando / Washington's characters have a similar way of twisting words to shape the heroes' outlook on the world around them.
OT, isn't it about time we did away with this silly notion of character names in fiction film? It occurred to me while I was trying to remember Denzel's character's name (Alonzo) how useless it is to try and convince us that Denzel Washington is someone other than Denzel Washington for two hours, and I have absolutely no idea what the name of his character was in "Glory," or "Virtuosity" which I have seen many times. I think the fictional character name is a holdover from the days of the play as the only option for staged visual drama, when the script itself was the definitive creative work that linked different interpretations, stagings, and casts. Now, though, the single staging of a screenplay, enshrined on film and containing a single cast, is considered the definitive version. Consequently the ability of an actor to disappear into a role has become impossible for major stars, especially when the actor's face and name are used as marketing tools to bring an audience in. Why not have Denzel Washington be named "Denzel Washington" in every movie in which he appears? I guarantee you, no matter how many times his character's name is being said onscreen, 95% of the audience is calling him "Denzel" to each other and thinking of him as Denzel Washington in their heads. An argument could be made that this practice would "break the fourth wall," and I would refrain from doing it for adaptations of stories that already exist in some other form. Actually, doing this in a film might constitute some kind subversive and subtle commentary about this same problem. Movies suck.
word, jenny. most of them are already the biggest assholes.
and good point on the name thing, jon. everytime i write about a movie, i have to imdb the characters' names. it did always seem like a waste of time...
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