The Oscars are easily one of the most-watched televised events across the world. Though an annual award ceremony to honour the achievers in mostly English-language, West-produced movies (though the foreign language film category also honours talents from around the globe), the Oscars are also about Hollywood’s expansive soft power. It is no wonder therefore that presenters and winners, of late, have used the Oscar stage to speak about causes, endorse political stands, condemn violence, patriarchy, etc—generally give voice to a host of socially relevant issues.
At the 2015 Oscars, host Neil Patrick Harris set the tone for the rest of the evening, beginning with a tongue-in-cheek comment—“Tonight, we honour Hollywood’s best and the whitest. Sorry, brightest.”— on the lack of diversity in this year’s acting awards (actor, actress, supporting actor and supporting actress) nominations; no non-white person had received a nomination. Though Selma, a film on civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr and the struggle of black Americans in the 1960s for voting rights in the US , made it to the Best Picture nominations, Britsh actor David Oyelowo who plays King Jr in the movie, did not receive a nomination, something that critics and lay moviegoers have freely voiced their anger about. Best Supporting Actress
Patricia Arquette ( for Boyhood, a Best Picture nominee), in her acceptance speech, exhorted the assembled Hollywood heavyweights to push for equal remuneration for female actors, in the backdrop of the Sony e-mail hacking episode revealing that even top-billed actresses were receiving much lesser compensation for their work than their male co-stars. Mental health also came to the fore, with Best Actress Julianne Moore (for her title role in Still Alice, in which she plays a professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s) speaking about how greater visibility for the mentally-ill is necessary to prompt the search for cures. The other notable speech came from Graham Moore (Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game). The Imitation Game is based on the life of Alan Turing, the legendary British cryptanalyst from the World War II era, whose work influenced the development of modern computers. Turing was prosecuted for his sexual orientation, for which the UK government tendered an apology only in 2009. Moore dug into his own troubled past to encourage teenagers who are behaviourally non-conforming to “stay weird”. American director of Mexican origin Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who won the Best Director award for Birdman (which won in the Best Picture category) talked about immigrant respect and cultural diversity.
