The State of the Race — The Oscars in the Time of Trump

There is no question that the Trump presidency has had a major impact on the Oscar race. The Obama presidency represented the way the Left most wanted to see itself: smart, educated, inclusive, open-minded, progressive. We liked who we were under Obama. The films that ran in the Best Picture race, for the most part, represented that. Under the Obama presidency, we saw a potential future that was a healthy and vibrant mix of all different types of people. The musical Hamilton really represented the kind of future Obama’s reign reflected.

There was trouble brewing, however. Not just on the Right — which was and remains plainly obvious — but also on the Left. Had we liberals remained harmonious and unified, we would have skated through to a virtual third term of the Obama presidency, wherein he would have bestowed onto the country not just the first black president, but in his footsteps, the first woman president. On the far Left, however, emerged division and strife, a hot streak of purity that judged even Obama by standards that almost no person can meet. The financial bailouts, lack of single payer healthcare, military engagement abroad — those sins were chained to Hillary Clinton. And with a little help from Putin, Cambridge Analytica, and Steve Bannon, the legacy of Obama came tumbling down. In an instant, it was all taken away as three branches of government fell into the hands of a hostile, radical GOP. Traditional American norms that had held fast for centuries were deliberately dismantled — and with that chaos, standards of liberalism itself began to falter. In short, we lost our collective minds. We’re still losing our minds.

Donald Trump as our president (and all he represents) sent waves of what can only be described as mass hysteria on two main subjects: sexual harassment and/or assault and racism. Any trace of either of these issues had to mean that Trump’s influence was present, like the devil visiting the Puritans in Salem. Many of the accusations were justified, a few were not. With Twitter there to amplify every accusation, to bolster every panicked tweet, tens of millions of us are living in a perpetual state of either fear or outrage.

The Oscar race, ever sensitive to the ways the winds are blowing, switched gears fast. A film like Vice probably could never have made the cut in the Obama era, where good people doing good things still ruled. Where people doing those good things could even occasionally be white people. Where those people could even be white men — written and directed by male filmmakers, starring honorable male protagonists. Now, not even good people doing good things resonates with the industry now. No, because somehow all white men are suspect. Following a year when Winston Churchill himself was put through the wringer, 2018 wasn’t a good year to be a white man in the Oscar race. Not unless somehow you were portrayed as a failure (A Star Is Born) or an evil person (Vice). White heroes failed to strike the right chord, like Neil Armstrong in First Man. First Man seemed offensive to some people just because it was a movie set in a mostly white male agency, made by white men, starring a white male hero. That was a vehicle was always going to be hard to get off the ground, regardless of how good the film was, and especially when the white men neglect to wear American flags as capes.

Now, this isn’t to say “boo hoo, poor white men,” nor is it to make the absurd “reverse racism” claim. It simply has to do with which films resonate right now and which ones don’t. Clearly, an underlying hum of reaction to the Trump presidency is infused in almost all of the Best Picture contenders. Movies that would have been way too dark to be considered in recent years are now practically mainstream. On the upside, inclusivity rules the day. It rules the day because it is the last gasp of what Obama represented. Ten years from now, after much of the outrage has died down, maybe even when there is another president in the White House (if ever), we will look back on this year and admire a fact that anyone can plainly see: women, gay men, and people of color populate the Best Picture race, to an extent never seen before, with the faintest echo of what used to be somewhere in there, almost as vestigial remnants.

Green Book and A Star Is Born are the only two films in the Best Picture race with a straight white male protagonist — though neither of the two so-called heroes are very heroic, and both of them are rightfully bested by their scene-stealing co-stars. If anything, they represent wrong-headed guys who either adapt to better attitude or die trying. Can you think of anything more vivid as a symbol of the Oscars under Trump than how Green Book, arguably the only film in the race with a white straight male hero, is being pummeled within an inch of its life? No, it’s not a good time to be a white man in the Oscar race.

To many, this year’s Best Picture lineup exemplifies success achieved at long last. The ultimate inclusive Oscars: two films in the lineup directed by African-American directors and an abundance of complex female-driven stories. The only thing missing from the perfect vision of what the dream Oscars would look like for an industry that rightfully pines for Obama’s America would be more movies made by women. But with so many this fine films year by America’s best female directors, it seems we couldn’t choose which one to rally around. So none of them got in.

And now, two of the films that sit atop the Best Picture category are both direct indictments of Trump himself. One is BlacKkKlansman, which illustrates the kind of violent racism the country saw in resistance to the Civil Rights movement 50 years ago, we now see going mainstream under Trump. The other is Roma, a portrayal of Mexican people rarely seen on USA screens — as families, children, companions, caring for one another, just making it through another day — and the unseen women who hold society’s foundation steady, who quietly run the world. It’s a depiction that’s in stark contrast to Trump’s deranged portrayal of Mexicans as invaders, rapists, murderers, and animals. Both films flank the Trump presidency as pure expressions of both what we yearn for, and what we hate about the monster who’s been installed in the Oval Office.

No, this is a touchy time for a movie about white man who was raised in a racist environment and is asking the audience to forgive him, a movie that wants us to understand that being a white male in America in 1960 meant a certain mindset. For that mindset to be shaken, for a different point of view to emerge at end of a journey through the deep South, wasn’t going to fly with some moviegoers. For some, there can be no forgiveness for such a thing because the rot goes to the core. No forgiveness. No understanding. No compassion. Even now, though Green Book failed to get a Best Director nomination, many are still in outrage mode that it is even in the Best Picture lineup at all. Funny, though, how the film that charmed its way to the audience award in Toronto has now passed the test of the Producers Guild, the largest group of voters yet to weigh in, as they named it the best of the year last Saturday.

Why didn’t Roma win the PGA? Why didn’t BlacKkKlansman? That’s an interesting question that might prove irrelevant now that the new members of the Academy have given an industry group a shot of diversity in the arm that no individual guild has gotten. Of course, the Academy is always going to be different from the PGA. Many of the new members were invited to intentionally diversify membership, to break the chokehold on 90 years of white men voting for stories by and about white men.

BlacKkKlansman would probably have this in the bag if it weren’t for Roma. Roma is a film that can’t be criticized for being too white. This can’t be framed as Driving Miss Daisy vs. Do the Right Thing. Who can criticize Roma for any reason? The worst people can say about it is that they don’t watch movies with subtitles (and when they say that they’re not slapping the movie; they’re slapping their own faces). So Spike Lee’s film will have to go up against the one movie that no one can hate. And that is a daunting prospect indeed.

As for the traditional white male hero, might he re-emerge someday when the shadow of Trump’s stubby little fingers finally fades, and his stench is purged from American culture? Or has the reputation of white men been shredded, gone forever, existing now only on the Right, among red state Americans, who still believe that nobody but white men can be heroes.

It’s a crazy time to be alive and the Oscar race is a crazy reflection of the times. Let’s hope that the movies themselves can rise above the craziness. The best films find a balance between artful method and powerful message. But nothing makes high profile tweeters happier than seeing troublesome films nominated for them to bring down. It lets them feel that they stand on the right side of justice, and makes them think they have the power to turn the Oscars into a wrench to fix the wrongs of a broken country.