A battle cry for inclusion at 90th Academy Awards
LOSANGELES: The Shape of Water, a romantic fable about a janitor who falls in love with a sea creature, has swept top honours at the Oscars in a ceremony that turned into a battle cry for inclusion and female empowerment.
Guillermo del Toro’s cold warera fantasy about the triumph of outcasts fended off the satirical horror Get Out and the drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri , to take best picture and director.
“I am an immigrant,” said Del Toro in a veiled rebuke to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. “The greatest thing art does and our industry does is erase the lands in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.”
The 90th Academy Awards turned Sunday night’s ceremony in Los Angeles into a celebration and exhortation of representation and inclusion, after a year marked by seismic cultural change in Hollywood that rippled across the world.
Frances Mcdormand, who won the best actress award for playing a grieving, furious mother in Three Billboards, created one of the night’s most memorable tableaux by asking all the female nominees in the Dolby theatre to stand up. “Look around,” she said. “We all have stories to tell and projects we need financing.”
Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd and Annabella Sciorra, who went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against the disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, jointly presented an emotional montage that channelled the anger and hope of the #Metoo and Time’s Up movements. The movement’s leaders had decided to stand down for the night, in contrast to the Golden Globes, whose attendees expressed solidarity by wearing black, but Hollywood’s mood of reckoning still permeated proceedings.
Along with jewellery, the traditional gift bags for top nominees included pepper spray and a “phobia-relief” therapy session. On the red carpet, most stars shunned the E! News presenter Ryan Seacrest because of sexual harassment accusations.
Host Jimmy Kimmel joked in the opening monologue that the Oscar statue set an example for Hollywood: “He keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and literally doesn’t have a penis.” This was the year that men screwed up so badly “women started dating fish”, he said, referencing The Shape of Water.
A jarring moment came when retired basketball star Kobe Bryant won an Oscar for an animated short based on his farewell letter to the sport, prompting accusations of double standards, given a rape accusation made against Bryant in 2003.