Is wild Academy Awards race between ‘La La Land,’ ‘Moonlight’ racism?
Barry Jenkins arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
This thought — commonly attributed to the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud — suggests that occasionally we read just a little too much into things.
That turned out to be the case on Sunday night, when the Academy Awards telecast ended with a mixup that initially awarded Best Picture to ”La La Land” … only to reveal that ”Moonlight” actually won. It was the most entertainingly awkward moment since Steve Harvey briefly crowned the wrong Miss Universe.
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Having not seen either of the films in question — or, for that matter, any of those involving the five major Academy Award categories — I believe I’m singularly qualified to offer my two cents here.
For those of you who might have missed it, confusion reigned briefly when actors Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway presented the final award of the night, for Best Picture. Beatty opened the envelope, but clearly didn’t want to read the card inside. Dunaway, who thought her friend and former co-star was just trying to be funny, looked at the card and blurted out “La La Land.”
The “winners” were midway through their acceptance speeches when it all started unraveling. Come to find out, Dunaway and Beatty had been given the wrong envelope — the one for Best Actress, already presented to Emma Stone for “La La Land” — by the soon-to-be-unemployed Oscars accounting firm of PricewaterhouseBloopers.
Dunaway apparently saw the “La La Land” part on the card and, not wanting to belabor the suspense any longer, went ahead and announced it. Eventually, the wrong was righted and the actual winners were coaxed onstage.
Long before Hollywood celebs were nursing their Monday morning hangovers, pundits were already analyzing the deeper meaning of Sunday night’s blunder. In a “well-of-course-it-would” moment, the error just had to have all sorts of racial overtones attached to it — because let’s face it, nothing happens in this country these days without it somehow being tied to race.
“Moonlight” is a coming-of-age film about a gay black man, featuring an all-black cast. “La La Land” is the story of two white lovers, set against the backdrop of the Los Angeles jazz scene in a film one columnist at TheGuardian.com said “undeniably rests on the appropriation of black culture.”
That columnist went on to write: “What some people saw in this mistake was again a cultural bias against black art, unconscious though it may be,” and “Mistakes however — when we slip up or misspeak — often reveal what is going on unconsciously.”
So then, the true motivation behind Sunday night’s foul-up? Racism.
And of course, all of this just happened to occur in the final days of Black History Month.
In honor of that month, I had the pleasure to interview four leaders in the local black community — Good Company Theatre owners Alicia and Camille Washington, Weber State University assistant professor Nicola Corbin, and NAACP Ogden branch president Stanley Ellington. All four are interesting, eloquent people whose thoughts caused me to examine my own attitudes and assumptions.
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For example, I grew up thinking I was not supposed to “see” color. The idea was that you regard someone for who they are on the inside, not on the outside. But after talking with these local black leaders, one thing is clear: More than anything, they want the rest of us to regard race — to see their color, to acknowledge it, to celebrate it. (I’m thinking about getting a bumper sticker that reads “Start Seeing Motorcycles and Color.”)
In the pressroom after the Academy Awards, “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins exhibited no hard feelings about the mistake.
“Things just happen, you know?” he said.
And he’s right, you know. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here, people. We still have a long way to go in the fight for equality for all; there are plenty of intentional, significant acts of discriminatory harm to go around.
Think about it: If “La La Land” had won the Best Picture Oscar on Sunday night, would that have proved racism exists? Probably no more than a “Moonlight” victory confirms it doesn’t.
Because sometimes, an Oscar is just an Oscar.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.