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PORTSIDE CULTURE
WHAT DOES WINNING AN OSCAR EVEN MEAN ANYWAY? A BETTER QUESTION TO ASK
THAN WHO WINS THE OSCAR: WHO BENEFITS THE MOST, WIN OR LOSE?
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Aja Romano
March 8, 2024
Vox
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_ Many post-Oscar career trajectory outcomes boil down to three
things that always seem to go hand in hand with the Oscars: sexism,
racism, and the toxic combination thereof, misogynoir. _
,
Aja Romano writes about pop culture, media, and ethics. Before joining
Vox in 2016, they were a staff reporter at the Daily Dot. A 2019
fellow of the National Critics Institute, they’re considered an
authority on fandom, the internet, and the culture wars.
_____
Part of Your guide to the 2024 Oscars
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Ah, the Oscars [[link removed]]. Sunday night’s 96th
Academy Awards are the night of a thousand stars and a thousand dreams
(hello, _Moonlight_
[[link removed]]!)
— or heartbreaks, if you’re among the losers (sorry, _La La Land_
[[link removed]]).
The victorious moment can send a career careening to new heights
(hello, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck!) or nudge it in exactly the same
direction it was previously headed. (sorry to Mo’Nique
[[link removed]].)
“Winning an Oscar changed my life, but I can’t say it changed it
for the better,” Melissa Leo, who won 2011 Best Supporting Actress
for _The Fighter_, said in a 2022 interview
[[link removed]].
“Post-Academy Award, I was like, ‘Oh, this is so great! So the
work is just going to come in now, all these leading roles!’ I began
to have expectations, and I had to get over that.”
Seldom is a career trajectory a straight line; for every Daniel
Day-Lewis whose career remains ascendant after their first win,
there’s a Leo, whose unforgettable performance didn’t necessarily
translate to a career payoff. At times, the overexposure of an Oscar
campaign
[[link removed]] can
backfire; actresses like Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei have had to
suffer through years or even decades
[[link removed]] of backlash
[[link removed]] for
their Oscar wins. The backlash
[[link removed]] against
Diablo Cody for ... writing an Oscar-winning script while being a
woman ... was so intense that it not only wrecked her career for over
a decade, but shut women out of winning the screenwriting category
for a full 13 years
[[link removed]].
Many of these complicated outcomes boil down to three things that
always seem to go hand in hand with the Oscars: sexism
[[link removed]], racism
[[link removed]],
and the toxic combination thereof, misogynoir
[[link removed]].
Sometimes, though, the Oscars and the subsequent choices of the people
who win them are just weird. The ins and outs of Oscar nominations and
wins — who gets them, who benefits from getting them, and what
happens after you bring home that funny gold statuette — are so
complicated that we decided to call in reinforcements to get to the
bottom of what it all means. Here, three experts weigh in on what
makes the acting Oscars matter, and what the criteria are for a true
Oscars success story.
_The interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity._
Katey Rich [[link removed]], Vanity
Fair editor and creator of the podcast _Little Gold Men_
[[link removed]]
DO YOU THINK AN OSCAR WIN HAS ANY TYPE OF CONSISTENCY AND IMPACT FOR
AN ACTOR? I’M NOT SURE THAT IT DOES.
I think it really depends on who you are and at what point in your
career you are. _La La Land_ [for which Emma Stone won Best Actress
[[link removed]] in
2017] was made because Emma Stone was already a star. She had been in
big movies [[link removed]]. She was something you could
pin a movie like that on. But then she wins the Oscar and immediately
goes and gets cast in _The Favourite_
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which leads to this collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos [who directed
Stone to an Oscar-nominated performance in this season’s _Poor
Things_
[[link removed]]].
It kind of gives her this sheen of prestige that she wouldn’t have
had having graduated up from _Superbad_
[[link removed]] and _Crazy,
Stupid Love_ [[link removed]]. It kind of helped
her level up in this way and be able to exercise her power. Certainly
the same for Jennifer Lawrence. She won really early on in her career.
But those are also people who already had the attention of the
industry, who were already on their way to being stars. They’re
young, beautiful women. But then you have artists like Mo’Nique —
she wins Best Supporting Actress [for _Precious_], but she had
specific ideas of what she wanted her career to be and really wasn’t
trying to climb up a ladder as a result of it. I don’t think winning
the Oscar had a ton of impact on her career at all, partly because of
her choice, and partly because she did not fit the mold.
I think there’s a huge race component to that, but even Melissa Leo
had been a character actress for a long time, wins an Oscar for _The
Fighter_, continues being a character actress.
I FEEL LIKE THE SUPPORTING CATEGORY IS OFTEN RESERVED FOR ONE-HIT
WONDERS — WHICH IS NOT TO DISPARAGE THOSE ACTORS BUT JUST TO
DESCRIBE HOW WE THINK ABOUT THE PARTS THAT THEY PLAY. YOU CAN GIVE A
SUPPORTING ACTOR THE KIND OF QUIRKS THAT YOU DON’T NECESSARILY GET
FROM A LEAD ROLE. THAT DOESN’T NECESSARILY LEND ITSELF TO CAREER
LONGEVITY.
The one-hit-wonder aspect comes in those categories more for nominees
than for wins. Barkhad Abdi who gets nominated for _Captain Phillips_
[[link removed]]_ —_ everyone’s like, oh,
he’s this Somali refugee, he’s breaking out. And then because
he’s not someone who Hollywood was going to be able to find a lot of
spots for, they continue to not find a lot of spots for him after
that.
But the winners — I don’t know if it’s a chicken or an egg
thing, but the winners can often be more in the “beloved character
actor who now gets to be a slightly more beloved character actor”
category. Like J.K. Simmons had been “that guy” and
then _Whiplash_
[[link removed]] [for
which Simmons won the Oscar in 2015] breaks him out, and now he’s
“that guy” who you recognize but is playing a lot of similar
parts. But I bet if you ask J.K. Simmons and his agents, he’s
getting paid better. He’s getting better offers. There’s a subtler
difference between what you’re seeing as a moviegoer and the
differences in their fortunes.
Alece Oxendine, director of industry and festival outreach, Columbia
University Film Program
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE OSCAR MEANS, IF ANYTHING, AND HAS THAT MEANING
CHANGED OVER TIME? HAS IT NEVER REALLY MEANT ANYTHING AT ALL?
I think that it’s always meant something for different types of
people. It’s always been something that was the culmination of your
career, but I think the biggest [change]
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been because of the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite campaign
[[link removed]] with
April Reign, who really pushed for this new way of thinking about what
it means to achieve this if you are from a marginalized community.
What it has meant all these years is excluding extremely talented
people because of who they are, who they love, who they represent,
what color they are, or what country they’re from. So I think this
is a bigger question of what are the Oscars than just like, oh, this
is a pretty gold statue.
IT SEEMS LIKE THE AWARDS NIGHT ITSELF IS PART OF THE PERFORMANCE. THAT
MEANS THAT THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IS ALSO PART OF THE PERFORMANCE, RIGHT?
THE MARKETING CAMPAIGN, THE PROMOS, THE INTERVIEWS, ALL OF IT.
Oh yes, it’s a machine. And there are specific companies dedicated
to this machine, the companies that help service the campaigns. You
can’t buy an academy vote. But in a creative way of getting people
excited and talking about these films, watching these films, whether
it’s via screenings or having the actors there. That always makes a
difference in how the voters feel about the film.
THE MECHANISM BY WHICH YOU WIN THE OSCAR IS ALMOST LIKE A COLLECTIVE
GROUP EFFORT.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That’s why people say I couldn’t have done
this without my team. And the team is massive. It’s massive, and it
goes so much deeper than you can ever imagine. People really
supporting everybody. That’s why people always say — like an
actor, especially — doing the campaign is a business in and of
itself.
I THINK THAT’S REALLY INTERESTING, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT
SOMETIMES THIS DOESN’T ACTUALLY EVEN YIELD THAT MUCH FOR THE ACTOR
IN THE LONG RUN.
Well, it does and it doesn’t. I think the three buckets I see are
the Stalwarts. They’re the Meryl Streeps, the Anthony Hopkins,
Daniel Day-Lewis, Helen Mirren, Cate Blanchett, Viola Davis. These are
super A++ stars. They won multiple awards. The benefit they get after
winning an Oscar is like, I am confirmed that I’m the best, I can
command any role at any price. I’ll always be assumed to be
top-billed. This is Oscar with a capital O.
And then the next category I think of is your Rising Stars. These are
the breakouts. These are the ones, the first time they ever do a major
motion picture, they’re winning. Lupita Nyong’o, Jennifer Hudson,
Emma Stone, Jared Leto. I would even include Mahershala Ali in this as
well. So they worked hard at what they wanted to do. This is who
we’re rooting for. Lily Gladstone, Colman Domingo
[[link removed]], America
Ferrera
[[link removed]], Da’Vine
Joy Randolph
[[link removed]] —
that is my personal favorite to win forever.
But here’s the problem that they have. They’re going to struggle
to command the respect and the money afterward. They’re the ones who
take the biggest risk on their future projects, but sometimes it takes
time for them to get back to that level. They’re the ones who are
most affected by the Oscar curse.
And then you have your Comeback Homies, and those are like your J.K.
Simmons, your Chris Plummer
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even Morgan Freeman. These are the ones who have been formerly
snubbed, who’ve had decade-long careers, and they’re finally
getting their due, literally finally getting the recognition they
deserve. We cheer them on the hardest because they represent us.
There’s a sense of the audience that they represent that if they can
do it, I can do it too.
IF I’M ON A TEAM AND I WANT THE BEST FOR MY CELEBRITY, HOW DO I PUSH
THEM INTO THE NEXT TIER BUCKET?
It’s hypnotism. It’s putting a rune on somebody, a book of spells,
that kind of thing.
Saying, I believe in you. I believe in your work and I believe you
make the right decisions for your next project. Because ultimately it
does come down to their decision and encouraging them.
Or, well, what’s the old saying? Make a deal with the devil.
Michael Schulman
[[link removed]], New Yorker
staff writer and author of _Oscar Wars_
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I THOUGHT THE ACTOR CATEGORIES WOULD BE THE EASIEST OSCARS TO
QUANTIFY. BUT AS I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR CONSISTENCY IN TERMS OF WHAT
HAPPENS TO THE WINNERS AND THEIR CAREERS AFTER THAT, THEY’RE NOT
VERY EASY TO QUANTIFY AT ALL.
The inconsistency is kind of the theme. Some people have complete
upswings after their big Oscar moment, and some people fall prey to
the Oscar curse. Every once in a while it doesn’t add up in the way
that you think it would. Austin Butler
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been doing great since he was nominated last year for _Elvis_
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but that was also a star-making role, so I’m not sure you can
separate the two. It’s hard to parse. I don’t think anyone would
say that Charles Melton
[[link removed]] being
in the mix this year was bad for him, even though he didn’t get
nominated
[[link removed]].
Obviously, his star’s rising and the Oscar conversation helped.
There are so many counterexamples as well. Two that come to mind
immediately to me are Anne Hathaway in 2013, when she won for _Les
Miserables_ and faced the Anne Hathaway backlash
[[link removed]] period.
And in my book, I also wrote about Halle Berry in 2002. She had
this historic win
[[link removed]] for _Monsters
Ball_, and the next movie she did was _Catwoman_ and she won a
Razzie award, and there was a big backlash to her as well. Maybe the
theme is that this happens to women.
In a way, winning the Oscar isn’t as important as getting nominated
or even being discussed. The meta-narratives around campaign season
can sort of crystallize an actor’s public image in a way that is or
isn’t helpful to them. Also, there’s a big difference between an
Oscar nomination or win putting someone on the map and a veteran actor
getting the career award, the sort of —
THE “I’M HERE TO COLLECT MY OSCAR” AWARD.
The Brendan Fraser Comeback Award. Yeah. And that’s also different
between men and women because historically, Best Actress winners tend
to be younger, and they tend to be ingenues, whereas Best Actor
winners are always a little bit older. It’s very rare that you get a
young, up-and-coming hot new actor in the acting categories, but that
always happens for actresses. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s
just the obvious — that there’s this perception that women peak
earlier in their careers than men, which is obviously terrible. And
then they come back when they’re 60 or 70, Annette Benning, and have
another go at it.
SO DOES THAT MEAN THAT THE “OSCAR CURSE” IS ANOTHER WAY OF FRAMING
MISOGYNY AGAINST WOMEN IN THE INDUSTRY?
I think so. There are male Oscar curses for sure. Bradley
Cooper might be walking into
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Oscar curse right now — he’s sort of in the Anne Hathaway role
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year where we’re all going to need a break from him, fairly or not.
But there’s certainly a strain of misogyny in how an actress can win
an Oscar and then everyone decides they hate them the next day.
Some of these people were just going to be on a different trajectory
anyway because that’s not what they want. I don’t think we’re
going to see Sandra Hüller in the next Marvel
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Germany and be in a play. That’s what she was going to do. But we
all know who Sandra Hüller is now
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and she probably will have a lot more opportunities to do whatever she
wants, and I think she’s going to make interesting, weird choices,
and that’ll be great. But I don’t think that she’s necessarily
after a big Hollywood career.
In the best-case scenario, an Oscar gives you more clout to make the
choices that you want in a very constrained industry. But I don’t
think that is what happens to everyone.
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* Oscars
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* sexism
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* Racism
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* misogynoir
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