The moment the best actor winner smacked Chris Rock on stage overshadowed the awards themselves, writes Nicholas Barber, and symbolised everything wrong with this year’s event.
The 94th Academy Awards will be remembered for Coda’s wins in best picture, best adapted screenplay, and best supporting actor, making it the second best picture winner in a row to be directed by a woman and the first to be… who am I kidding? The Oscars ceremony on Sunday night may be remembered for those reasons. Let’s hope so. But it will be remembered most for the almost unbelievable moment when Will Smith stormed onto the stage, slapped Chris Rock across the face, and yelled, “Keep my wife’s name out of your [expletive] mouth!”
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That did, in fact, occur. If you weren’t watching the ceremony, you might think the reports were exaggerated or that the whole thing was staged. Even if you were paying attention, Smith’s rage was difficult to comprehend. But it is correct. When Chris Rock took the stage to present the documentary award, he made a snide remark about Jada Pinkett Smith’s short hair, which is the result of alopecia, reminding him of Demi Moore’s shaved head in GI Jane, and Smith abruptly reminded us all of his Muhammad Ali biopic. A shaken Rock continued with the presentation, and the ceremony itself continued, but there was more surrealism to come. Smith won the best actor Oscar for his performance in King Richard, as was widely predicted. And so, just a few minutes after he had been on stage assaulting someone on live television, he was back on the same stage, receiving a standing ovation, and tearfully declaring: “I want to be a vessel for love”. Seriously. Who knows what he’d be like if he wanted to be a hate vessel.
Other incidents might have received more attention if it hadn’t been for Smith’s violence. When Ariana DeBose won best supporting actress for West Side Story, she celebrated being a queer woman of colour in her speech, and Troy Kotsur, who is deaf, won best supporting actor for Coda, it was heartwarming. Jane Campion, the director of The Power of the Dog, became the third woman to win the award for best director. It was heartwarming to see Billie Eilish’s giddy, giggly joy when she and her brother Finneas O’Connell won best original song for No Time To Die, as well as Lady Gaga’s support when she was on stage with Liza Minnelli to present best picture.
The three hosts were off stage for such long stretches that you forgot all about them. Instead of bringing the ceremony together, they made it more disjointed
However, these sparkling highlights made up only a small portion of the ceremony’s three hours and forty minutes. The rest of the show was a dispiriting jumble of botched introductions, ill-timed commercial breaks, insensitive music choices, creaking comedy, and uninspired production. Smith’s slap only added to the feeling that the evening had gotten out of hand.
There was so much that was wrong. The show began with a Beyoncé musical number, with a crowd of dancers and a live band dressed in matching tennis-ball-colored outfits. The number, however, was staged on a tennis court in Compton with no audience present, so it didn’t add any energy or party atmosphere to proceedings. The hosts were then introduced as Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes, only for DJ Khaled to charge on stage and introduce them again. The Oscars had been without an overall host (or hosts) for the previous three years, so their selection indicated that the Academy was regaining its confidence following last year’s low-key, mid-pandemic award-giving. It didn’t stay that way for long. The women made some clumsy jokes about wanting to grope the best-looking actors in the room and being unable to finish The Power of the Dog, but they were off stage for such long stretches that you forgot about them. Instead of connecting the ceremony, they made it more disjointed.
The biggest issue was that eight awards were presented before the live broadcast began, and the acceptance speeches were then edited into the ceremony at various points. This was ostensibly a failed attempt to shorten the running time, but its main effect was to disrupt the evening’s flow. The same was true for the addition of two Twitter-voted-for categories. The winner of the #OscarCheerMoment category was: The Flash enters the speed force in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, despite the fact that this sequence wasn’t even the best “Cheer Moment” in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, let alone in cinema history. Army of the Dead, also directed by Zack Snyder, was the #FanFavorite. So the two choices demonstrated nothing other than Snyder’s fan base is extremely well organised.
We had Samuel L Jackson, John Travolta and Uma Thurman presenting an award to celebrate the 28th anniversary of Pulp Fiction. Are we really celebrating 28th anniversaries now?
These time-wasting categories were an insult to the Oscar winners, who had their own hard-earned victories relegated to the pre-broadcast slot, not to mention those who had to rush through their acceptance speeches as part of the live broadcast. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the director of Drive My Car, was literally pushed off the stage after his first few sentences when it won best international film.
The lack of imagination was also pitiful. A tribute to James Bond on the 60th anniversary of the series was understandable, but why a montage of film clips introduced by three extreme sports athletes? The Godfather’s 50th anniversary tribute was equally rudimentary. Then there was Samuel L. Jackson. To commemorate the 28th anniversary of Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Uma Thurman present an award together. Is it true that we’re now celebrating 28th anniversaries?
The night’s big story was always going to be Smith’s slap, but if everything else had been more enjoyable and professional, it might have seemed like an unfortunate blip rather than a symbol of everything that was wrong with the event. Schumer began by making a joke about the Golden Globes, which were once an important, high-profile awards ceremony but are now so tainted with scandal that they were held in private this year. The Academy Awards couldn’t afford to be so arrogant three and a half hours later. If this is the best the producers could come up with, perhaps next year’s Oscars should be held in private as well.
