Award snub of J.Lo strips its relevance

The Academy Awards have no credibility. The alleged benchmark for film excellence announced Monday that Jennifer Lopez’s electrifying performance in “Hustlers” wasn’t worthyofanOscarnominationin the supporting actress category.

Which lies somewhere between a howler of a joke and an airtight rejoinder to any suggestion that the Oscars mean anything in the year 2020.

Seriously: What in the blazes was the awards committee watching?

Four years have passed since people started trashing the Academy for steering its honors into white hands. Whether Lopez’s snub is an #OscarsSoWhite moment or a reflection of retrograde attitudes toward strippers, this shouldn’t have been close.

When all the nominees for the honor are white, and when the category hasn’t gone to a Latina in more than a quarter century, the fact that Lopez got snubbed smells especially foul.

Let’s go back to summer. You went to the theater, you grabbed your popcorn, and Lopez entered the picture. She prowled around the screen like the queen of Seedy Street, in command of anyone around her, an almost superhuman presentation of power.

And then you went home and talked about how, holy snap, J.Lo was amazing.

“J.Lo is the only reason to see it,” reviewer Rex Reed wrote in The New York Observer. For most of us, that was reason enough.

It’s hard to blame people for turning against movie authorities trying to tell us that Margot Robbie’s (still good!) performance in “Bombshell” (underrated movie!) was more impressive than J.Lo’s in “Hustlers.”

Lopez left jaws agape. She stole every scene she graced in “Hustlers.” But Monday, it was Lopez who got robbed.

The Bronx-born actress getting the cold shoulder is an affront to our collective intelligence. It’s almost like the committee slept through the summer and only shook itself to consciousnesswhenOscarseasonarrived.

Tyler Perry, for one, boiled with rage Monday.

“J.Lo didn’t get nominated, are you kidding me?” the actor said, speaking for everyone, in a video published by TMZ. “J.Lo and Awkwafina — they didn’t get nominated. … She should have gotten nominated. That’s crazy.”

Fully bananas. (Awkwafina’s appearance in “The Farewell” was also neglected by the Academy.)

Granted, the Golden Globes did give Lopez some love in their best supporting actress category, though she lost to “Marriage Story” actress Laura Dern.

But frankly, the Golden Globes are just a platform for Ricky Gervais to blow off steam for three hours. The Oscars are supposed to mean more. They have heft.

Sure, they’re subjective; they’re supposed to generate controversy and debate. But come on.

If there was a must-see performance in 2019, it was Jennifer Lopez in “Hustlers.”

The Oscars wouldn’t even tag her as a top contender. That’s like leaving LeBron James on the bench at the All-Star Game.

The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus labeled “Hustlers” a “career-best performance from Jennifer Lopez.”

Her 2020 snub has to be considered a career-worst performance for the Academy Awards. These folks are out of touch. They have no credibility.