The 93rd Oscars were the most “inclusive” ever, with female and non-white thespians winning most of the major awards and many of the minor ones, too.
The plot twist: However, the Academy Awards ceremony concluded with an unsatisfying surprise for advocates of social justice and race- and gender-based representation.
- In a major upset, Anthony Hopkins won the best-actor Oscar for “The Father” — denying Chadwick Boseman a widely anticipated posthumous victory for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”
Hopkins, 83, who was not at the COVID-19-modified ceremony, posted a video acceptance speech online Monday from his native Wales.
- He repeatedly said he did not expect the best-actor award, the second of his career, and paid tribute to Boseman, a “Black Panther” star who became an icon of black empowerment following his death last year from colon cancer.
The reaction: Many liberal commentators on Twitter expressed shock and outrage that the Academy had failed to deliver their desired Hollywood ending.
Buzzfeed’s Spencer Althouse called the last-minute twist “the most chaotic and unhinged thing I’ve ever seen.”
“How could any voter not choose Chadwick Boseman? What the hell?” asked transgender activist Charlotte Clymer in a series of angry tweets.
- “Anyway, tonight is bullsh*t.”
If not Boseman, then why couldn’t best actor have gone to one of the two other non-white nominees, some wondered.
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid was among those who lamented that non-white actors weren’t awarded all four of the acting awards.
Other disappointed Twitter users declared that the Oscars don’t matter.
That, at least, was a point conservatives could agree with.
