A clip from winner of best picture “Anora.”
COURTESY | Universal Pictures UK
Best actor Adrien Brody, best actress Mikey Madison, best director Sean Baker, and best picture “Anora” triumphed in the 97th Annual Academy Awards ceremony. It was a big night for celebrating indie filmmakers — and for reaffirming the unwavering degeneracy of Hollywood film standards.
On Sunday, March 2, a distinguished roster of film industry heavyweights, actors, and artists packed into the Dolby Theatre for the ceremony, hosted by comedian and former late-night host Conan O’Brien.
From its glamorous stars to O’Brien’s signature wisecracks to Ariana Grande’s and Cynthia Erivo’s room-shaking “Wicked” performances, the night tried to offer much, despite the few awkward hiccups of long acceptance speeches and the orchestra playing them off to get on with the show.
However, the Academy Awards was still a let down by its elevation of works promoting woke, degenerate, and even anti-Christian themes.
For one, this Academy Awards ceremony was the first dictated by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Under guidelines introduced last year, films that lacked certain gender, race, or sexual representation were officially declared ineligible to compete for the Academy Award of best picture.
For example, criteria says that “at least one” of the actors submitted for Oscar consideration must be from an “underrepresented racial or ethnic group.” Another states that at least two “creative leadership” positions in a film must include one individual from an underrepresented group such as LGBTQ+, women, or “people with cognitive or physical disabilities.”
While the Academy downplayed the new guidelines on stage, its fruits were evident in the ceremony’s nominees and winners.
The top contenders for best picture and best screenplay included “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” and “Anora” — in other words, a DEI pope, a transgender musical comedy, and a stripper drama, respectively.
Hosts and award winners alike did not hide these facts on stage but proudly touted them.
“If you haven’t seen ‘Conclave,’ its logline is ‘a movie about the Catholic Church’ —
but don’t worry,” O’Brien joked.
In another bit, he touted the fact that “Anora,” a rom-com about a Brooklyn stripper who falls in love with the son of a Russian oligarch, uses the f-word a whopping 479 times in its 138-minute runtime.
In her acceptance speech for best actress in “Anora,” Mikey Madison honored the “sex worker community” and declared she would “always continue to support and be an ally” of it.
One might notice that all three front-runners for the highest honors of this Academy Awards ceremony fit the Academy’s new DEI criteria to the letter, and then some.
In the end, the wins by “Emilia Pérez” and “Conclave” paled in comparison to those garnered by “Anora,” which won five out of its six Oscar nominations.
Sean Baker, the mastermind behind “Anora” and definitive winner of the night, who in 2015 shot his breakthrough movie, “Tangerine,” using only iPhones, took home four Academy Awards for directing, producing, writing, and editing “Anora” — the most Oscars won by one person for a single film.
The Academy had spoken: the female pope and transgender musical comedy ultimately lost to the profanity-laden stripper drama, and it wasn’t even close. “Anora” won the night in a landslide.
However, I could not help but think that nothing would have been much gained if “Conclave” or “Emilia Pérez” had won instead. Given their themes and values, Hollywood left no good options between the three front-runners. Considering how they rigged the system in favor of DEI, this is how they intended it to be after all.
One thing is clear: if this is the standard of greatness in our film industry, the bar must be on the floor. And unfortunately, affirming and rewarding bad art will only encourage more bad art.
Although the ceremony had its worthy moments — namely, the audience’s recognition of the firefighters and emergency personnel who provided aid during the Los Angeles fires, the resounding wins of indie studios and filmmakers, and Kieran Culkin’s notably authentic exchange with his wife after winning best supporting actor — its best awards and highest moments went to movies built around some of the worst themes. The system in place now intends to keep it that way.
As the final speech ended and the curtain closed on this long, occasionally-awkward awards ceremony, nothing could hide the fact of what this night was: the reaffirmation of Hollywood’s shameless degeneracy and the elevation of wokeness to the highest places of the film industry.
