A year of firsts at the Oscars
However the winners play out, 2021's nominations are going to make history
At last year's Academy Awards, comedian Chris Rock joked that Cynthia Erivo, the only Black actor to receive a nomination in 2020, had done “such a good job ... hiding Black people” in her role as Harriet Tubman that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “got her to hide all the Black nominees.”
This year, Black actors are represented in nearly all of the top categories, and — for the first time in the 93-year history of the annual awards show — all the acting accolades could go to people of colour.
There are other milestones to celebrate, including breakthroughs for actors of Asian heritage and for female directors.
The striking contrast between last year's ceremony and the one airing Sunday has lent an air of hope for change in an industry that, like other institutions, has been forced to reckon with its racism and sexism. Here are some of this year's historic achievements:
ACTORS OF ASIAN DESCENT HAVE A BREAKTHROUGH YEAR
Last year, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite picked up trophies across the awards-show circuit before sweeping the 2020 Oscars ceremony, where it became the first non-english-language film to win best picture. But amid the many accolades, the film's actors — widely praised by critics — were overlooked in the acting categories. That reflected a pattern: Only a handful of actors of Asian descent have been nominated in the acting categories.
This year marks several historic nods for Asian and Asian American actors. Steven Yeun, as the patriarch of a Korean American family in Lee Isaac Chung's Minari, made history as the first Asian American to receive a best actor nomination.
Yeun's Minari co-star, veteran South Korean actress Yuh-jung Youn, earned a best supporting actress nod, making her the first Korean woman to be nominated for an acting Oscar.
The best actor category also includes Riz Ahmed, as a drummer losing his hearing in Sound of Metal. He is the first Muslim nominated for best lead actor, also the first person of Pakistani descent to be nominated in an acting category.
THE BEST-DIRECTOR CATEGORY INCLUDES TWO WOMEN FOR THE FIRST TIME
Before Kathryn Bigelow's 2010 win for her visceral war drama, The Hurt Locker, just three women had received best director nominations: Lina Wertmüller, for the 1975 Italian-language film Seven Beauties; Jane Campion, for the 1993 romance drama The Piano and Sofia Coppola for her semi-autobiographical 2003 film Lost in Translation. In the decade after Bigelow's triumphant win, only one woman made the best director category: Greta Gerwig, for 2017's Lady Bird.
But she was not a best director nominee last year for Little Women, even as her acclaimed adaptation landed in six categories, including best picture and best adapted screenplay.
This year, which saw a record 70 women nominated for Oscars across 23 categories, marks the first time in Oscars history that two women are in the running for best director.
Nomadland filmmaker Chloé Zhao, who is Chinese, is the first non-white woman to be nominated as director. And Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) is on an exclusive list of filmmakers nominated for their directorial debut and is the first woman to be nominated for a solo directorial debut.
AN ALL-BLACK FILMMAKING TEAM IS NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE
Judas and the Black Messiah, director Shaka King's historical drama, is nominated for six Oscars including best picture. That makes its production team — King (who also co-wrote the screenplay), Ryan Coogler and Charles D. King — the first all-black filmmaking team to receive a nod for the ceremony's top honour.
TWO BLACK WOMEN ARE NOMINATED FOR BEST ACTRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN NEARLY 50 YEARS
In 2015, when Viola Davis became the first Black woman to win lead actress in a drama at the Emmys (for her turn as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away With Murder), she offered Hollywood a poignant and electrifying challenge in her acceptance speech: “The only thing that separates women of colour from anyone else is opportunity,” she said. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
Fittingly, Davis — already an Oscar winner for her supporting role in Denzel Washington's 2016 adaptation of Fences — faces historic odds at Sunday's ceremony, where she's nominated for best actress alongside Carey Mulligan, Frances Mcdormand, Vanessa Kirby and Andra Day. Day's nomination, for her haunting turn as the blues singer in Lee Daniels's The United States vs. Billie Holiday, makes this the first time in 48 years that two Black women have been nominated for best actress. (In 1973, Cicely Tyson was nominated for Sounder, while Diana Ross earned a nod for playing Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues.)