One of the phrases I’ve
heard in Hollywood in the last decade in particular has been a call to battle
by so many performers of color, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community:
“Representation Matters!” It is their cry of resistance in America in the era
of Donald Trump, their fist in the air towards everything he and the
conservative movement stand for.
And I do agree
representation does matter…to those creative people of color, women and
members of the LGBTQ+ community of Hollywood. In the grand scheme of all the
problems facing America and the world today, it is a dot so insignificant it
could not be seen from space, certainly compared to the many far larger
problems that all of these minorities outside of Hollywood – and if
we’re being honest, outside the rank-and-file of Hollywood.
One of the problems
that Hollywood has never been able to come to grips with throughout its
existence – and particularly in the last decade – is that they seem to believe
they represent a larger underrepresented community when in actuality they have
far more in common with the one percent than the characters they usually
portray on screen. They seem to think they are part of a higher calling when in
fact they are essentially members of a wealthy community. They think the films
they make and the TV shows they create are more important then they are, not
just to them but to America and the world. All they are is in entertainment.
To be clear – and I can
see some people sharpening their knives already – I love a lot of what they
produces and that is particularly true of the work where this representation
takes place. I believe themes are universal and a great work of art transcends
racial, gender or sexual barriers. Pose resonated with me even though I
am neither African-American or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Beef resonated
even though I’m not an Asian American of any time and I could certainly find
joy in Ramy and Dark Winds even though I’m not anywhere near
either of those minorities. And while it’s irrelevant to me because I’m not a
fan of comic book movies. I understand why Black Panther and Wonder
Woman would matter to their audiences. But all of that being said, I know
all too well that they are just works of entertainment, end of story. And I
also know the only reason any of them got made was because the studios though
there was money to be made in them. I don’t deny that Shonda Rhimes and Ryan
Murphy are titans in the industry of television and that their presence in the
industry is substantial, but anyone who says they have the societal impact of
Rosa Parks or Harvey Milk is, in my opinion, delusional. They made groundbreaking television and
opened doors for many actors of color and in the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood.
Don’t pretend that either of them are working class schmoes.
Now let’s move to the
Academy Awards. As long as I’ve been alive it has been accused of every bigotry
under the sun, all of which basically comes down to them being exclusive. Duh.
They’re an awards show. By definition awards shows are exclusive. There are
winners and losers and the standards they have for what is considered
award-worthy is always subjective. It’s not there to give participation
trophies for every single movie that gets made in Hollywood or the awards would
have no meaning at all.
This actually brings me
to another basic canard I’ve had with so many people in Hollywood, as well as
those who want to trend things like OscarsSoWhite. Don’t you have anything
better to do? Not everything in America is a reflection of the bigotry,
patriarchal system that has been part of it. And I’ll be honest, you should be
concentrating on fixing the things that assuredly are. If what happens
in Hollywood is microscopic compared to the rest of the society, the Academy
Awards – really any awards show at all -
could not be seen with the kind of scientific equipment they use at CERN. I am
very aware of that fact, and it frankly stuns me how many outsiders take the Oscars
this seriously, but so many insiders do.
It used to be fun to
comment about which films were snubbed by the Academy and it used to be
relatively harmless. Now every year whenever certain films are excluded in critical
categories it somehow is now considered an impact on whatever systemic flaw a
certain group wants to make it about. And it’s increasingly clear that even
though the Oscars keeps doing everything in its power to make the membership
more inclusive, particularly in the last decade, it has done nothing to abate
the criticism. If anything, it keeps getting harsher.
The Academy Awards give
an Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. Every year there’s a
mark of how many female directors aren’t being nominated. African-American
directors get nominated once or twice? Suddenly they have to be nominated every
year. The Oscars recognize a record number of Asian-Americans in Everything
Everywhere All At Once. Women are outraged because Sarah Polley was ignored
for Best Director; African-Americans by the fact not enough African-Americans
were nominated for acting. And of course last year the outrage that Greta
Gerwig was ignored for Barbie and how the Academy is sexist again. I
guess no one noticed Justine Von Triet’s groundbreaking nominations that year.
The latest straw – not yet
the last one, but it’s close – came in a Saturday op-ed in the New York Times.
Now as a reminder a record number of women of color were nominated this year,
including one for Karla Sofia Gascon, the first transgender woman nominated in
this category. Fernanda Torres, a Brazilian was nominated for I’m Still Here,
another international film. Cynthia Erivo was nominated for Wicked and
Colman Domingo has become the youngest African-American Actor nominated for
back to back Academy Awards. Emilia Perez became the most nominated
international film in Academy Award history with thirteen nominations. And look
in Best Director Coralie Faregate is nominated becoming the eighth female director
to ever receive a nomination. Aside from Fox News, who could have any problem
with the nominated films this year?
Well according to Zach Schonfeld,
the Oscars is still failing in its biggest blind spot horror movies. Now to be
clear he does acknowledge that The Substance is a horror film and a gore
fest, something that is rare for Hollywood. But to be clear, he doesn’t think
that the nominations for this film the
first horror movie since Get Out to be nominated is truly a positive step.
Let me quote him directly because it needs to be seen to be believed:
Yet ‘The Substance
continues a tradition in which the Academy members embraces horror only when
voters can focus on anything but the horror, a pointed social message, an
obvious allegorical lesson, and an actors overdue comeback narrative.
All of these, of
course, are part of what makes the majority of almost every single Oscar
nominated film in my lifetime. One wonders if Schonfeld has ever seen anything but
horror movies or any Oscar nominated films at all - or if he believes films are nominated because
of merit.
He argues, convincingly,
about the lowbrow tradition of horror which is true but its worth noting that
more or less applies to almost every movie not nominated by the Oscars
over the years. Their biggest blind spot is comedy. Then he chooses to make
that age-old argument that horror is a guaranteed box-office draw “one of the
few that can reliably lure audiences to see original, non-franchised movies to
the big screen.”
Schonfield is ignoring
his own genre as anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s is well aware: some
of the most successful horror movies are franchises. The fact that he
chooses to mention Nosferatu, I Saw The TV Glow and Longlegs in
his article – but omits A Quiet Place Day One and Smile 2 shows his willingness to cherry pick to
make his metaphor work.
The crowning insult, in
my opinion, comes when he announces that when Demi Moore and Hugh Grant were
nominated for Golden Globes (Grant for Heretic) they were nominated in
the Best Musical or Comedy category the sort of absurd mischaracterization
that illustrates how ill equipped the awards season apparatus is to honor
worthy work in the horror genre.
I have encountered few
remarks – certainly in professional publications – that show the kind of
bigotry and exclusive that Mr. Schonfeld illustrates by that statement. Just a
few paragraphs earlier he argues that horror films are a vital part of the
Hollywood box office and show be included; not a few paragraphs away he
is essentially more or less advocating that inclusion in a comedy category is
beneath horror and a form of bigotry as well.
He’s aware of this to
be sure – he acknowledges that Get Out and The Substance are the
kind ‘of vehicles for social commentary that’s consistent with the kind of film
that the Oscars tend to celebrate’ but in his mind that ‘renders the
institution blind to the artistry of other exceptional horror films.” So by
that logic the Oscars should honor movies like the Saw franchise in
recognition both of his economic success and the artistry of the gore. To be
clear the Saw films are a type of body horror as much as The
Substance is.
And there’s some kind
of insulting to the institution that is supposed to be honoring great films
that Schonfeld makes it very clear that by failing to honor films he considers
the best in its genre makes them worthy of recognition. That the Academy
Awards is not there to recognize the best in any genre film but rather ranks
them overall in the same group doesn’t enter into his thinking.
Now I acknowledge that
there have been many extraordinary horror directors in the last decade. He
mentions Ari Aster and Robert Eggars and an argument could be made about the
bigotry that has led to, say, Hereditary and Nosferatu being
omitted from the major categories. I have my own grievances in this category to
be sure – I was infuriated by the Oscars ignoring Lupita Nyong’o for her
incredible work in Us and I’m annoyed in hindsight about how Emily Blunt
was ignored for her work in the first Quiet Place film. But the difference
in both cases I didn’t think it was a grievous offense against humanity and
there were other worthy contenders in both categories that I thought were
included as well as excluded.
I’ve written in other
work that historically the Oscars has a type of film it recognizes and it has
always been difficult for most films that are not that type to get inviting.
They have been improving in subtler ways in the last decade – the nominations
of Top Gun: Maverick two years ago, films like The Martian and Dune
receiving Best Picture nods, Black Panther Best Picture nomination
in 2018 and the wins for Everything Everywhere all at Once. None of
these are nominations or films that I could see the Oscars nominating even a
decade ago.
Get Out and The Substance are
similar leaps forward in that respect. It took more than forty five years into
the Oscars history to nominate a horror film – William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.
Jaws was nominated two years later and while I have my issues with this
classification Silence of the Lambs is one of only three films to sweep
all five major awards. Progress is being made.
But Schonfeld’s article
makes it very clear what is one of the bigger problems with so many people in
Hollywood overall: no matter how big the progress it will never be enough for
the fans of a genre. The fact that Schonfeld chooses to look at a significant moment
for everybody involved – women and his genre – and still fundamentally
finds this not nearly enough speaks to a larger nature of so much of both
Hollywood and the often political movements at its center: no matter what an
institution gives or how generously, it’s never enough.
This is made clearest
in a paragraph where Schonfeld argues about Jeff Goldblum’s performance in The
Fly being passed over “because it was a horror film and not a film with an
obvious social conscience.” Based on the way Schonfeld phrases it there has
been no advancements for his genre in the last forty years and the nominations
for The Substance are just scraps. One wonders if he intends to boo the
screen at home if the film wins any awards as it very well might. Would he
consider Moore’s triumph for Best Actress a victory not for his genre because
it is acknowledging her comeback? This is what the Oscars has done almost
during its entire history.
And by that logic even
if The Substance won Best Picture it would be an empty victory because
the Oscars didn’t have the courage to nominated or give the award to a real
horror picture. To Schonfeld this is not representation but tokenism and
not something he approves of. Is he still angry the Oscars never gave Best
Picture to any of the movies in Friday The 13th? Does he
think Robert Englund deserved a special Oscar for his work as Freddy Krueger?
These may seem like ridiculous questions but they are all but crying out to be
asked from Schonfeld’s article.
It is criticisms like
this that, honestly, make my job far more difficult. I long since accepted that
awards shows will rarely nominated the works I love and they will inevitably
give it to the wrong people and actors. But that’s how awards shows have
always been and always will be. When I was younger I will admit I took it
far more seriously but I let it go by the time I was in my late twenties.
Schonfeld’s in his forties. You’d think he’d be over by it now.
The Oscars are not to
be taken seriously, just by and large like most of what Hollywood says and does
about them. They are not a microcosm for society, America or the Federal
Reserve. They are not a resistance movement in the march to freedom. They are a
show where the richest people in an industry get together to give a shiny gold
trophy to an exclusive few. They will always make more people upset by who is
left out and who doesn’t win then they ever will based on their winners. And no
matter what they may think, no matter how many wins Emilia Perez gets it
will only show how inclusive Hollywood is and only to people in Hollywood.
Horror films were
recognized in a record number by the Oscars this year as Schonfeld might very well
know if he actually studied the history of the Oscars. The fact that he says
nothing about Margaret Qualley’s exclusion - one of the most glaring on Thursday - shows that he doesn’t even care about the
films that get nominated as much as the ones that don’t. That is the nature of
awards show. Whatever inclusion you might want has to have a limit.
And that’s what I see
Schonfeld’s op-ed as a larger metaphor. His genre got a lot of representation.
To him, that doesn’t matter because it wasn’t enough. There is a pointed social
message in this, of course, but since Schonfeld doesn’t think they should count,
why should I be any different then him?
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