Oscar is a man's name, after all

I once again stayed up on Sunday evening to watch the elegantly dystopian Academy Awards into the early hours of the morning. Usually, I have a lot to say about the “snubs” and my disagreement with the outcome of each category. Unfortunately this week, the week of International Women’s Day, I am unsurprised and disappointed with both the results and my mispredictions.

Many fans online have sparked up controversy over the Best Actress in a Leading Role award being awarded to Mikey Madison for her role in Anora over Demi Moore in The Substance. Demi Moore had swept the awards season this year, similar to Lily Gladstone last year, winning the Golden Globe, SAG, and the Critics’ Choice Award. Mikey Madison had only won the BAFTA. Others are similarly angry that the award did not go to Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres for her brilliant performance as a mother and activist in I’m Still Here. After Cynthia Erivo’s staggering performance at the beginning of the evening with Ariana Grande, some felt that she was more deserving of the award.

Many have been quick to point out that Madison’s win over Moore feels awfully ironic, even a direct parallel to the plot of The Substance – a younger actress replacing the older one in a sex-appeal driven performance. I cannot say that I disagree, but this has always been the case. The average age of the youngest Best Actress winners is 24; the youngest ever Best Actor winner was 29.

I was more disappointed by the lack of women winning in the other categories, especially behind the camera. Of the 23 categories in the ceremony, 20 were won by men, and nine were won by women. Of the 23 categories, 14 categories were won solo by men, three were won solo by women. This includes the Best Actor and Best Actress categories. The lone category won by only women not by default on Sunday evening was Best Documentary Short, with The Only Girl in the Orchestra. This is not to say that I think the men who won on Sunday were undeserving, but it is to say that I think the Academy and the film industry is deeply sexist towards women who cannot be paraded naked or cry tears on the silver screen.

Sean Baker broke the record for the most Oscars won for the same film in one evening, taking home four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing for Anora. To say the least, it would have been nice if a film about a young female sex worker had more female creative control in it (perhaps then we would not have had to hear Anora say a man has “rape eyes”!).

The Academy and the film industry is deeply sexist towards women who cannot be paraded naked or cry tears on the silver screen

Adrien Brody won his second Best Actor in a Leading Role award (the first being for The Pianist in 2003) for The Brutalist and gave the longest acceptance speech in Academy Awards history, clocking in at five minutes and 40 seconds, throwing his gum across the stairs, and telling the academy to stop the music so he can continue. “I’ve done this before,” he said. Zoe Saldaña, the winner of the Best Supporting Actress award, gave a similarly long speech. This unfortunately meant that the winners of the other categories afterwards were rushed and cut short. This was yet another reason for the watchers to dislike Saldaña after she beat out fan-favourite Ariana Grande in Wicked for her vocal AI-assisted performance in the widely critiqued Emilia Pérez. This vocal AI-assisted performance went on to win Best Original Song.

Overall, a demoralising evening. The 97^th Academy Awards made the historic wins of the three women winning Best Director feel like showy pity prizes with a reluctance to change any of the other categories or the industry.