Canceling the Oscars, or potential winners boycotting when nothing else is preventing them from coming (as it prevents Farhadi, whose statement that he won’t attend is, again, absolutely the right thing) would deny those people their voices. Keeping it scheduled as planned gives them the opportunity to amplify their voices. While Oscar viewership is smaller than it was decades ago, the viral quality of speeches means they can reach far greater audiences than, say, Marlon Brando declining his “Godfather” Oscar through a speech by Native American woman Sacheen Littlefoot would have had, the next day.
But the show needs to be on message, across the board. Whether your movie is a powerful look at racial and sexual identity, or a relatively frivolous Hollywood-set musical like “La La Land” (which is likely, whatever happens, to win a large number of awards), the producers, presenters and more have a duty to use their platform to speak out. Oscar producers Jennifer Todd and Michael De Luca must work the issues facing us into the fabric of the show, from, say, a montage reminding us of the contribution to film of those like Billy Wilder, Mike Nichols or Hedy Lamarr who fled to America as refugees from Nazi Germany, to giving a prime presenting slot to freshly minted movie star Riz Ahmed, who’s written beautifully about his own experiences as a Muslim man at airport border control. Host Jimmy Kimmel has to show that he’s braver and smarter than the normalizing court jester of his rival Jimmy Fallon. Failing to mention the state of the world right now from anyone who speaks on stage in a few weeks would be an act of cowardice.
As for Farhadi and his film, which again shows that he’s as humane and compassionate a filmmaker as we have right now, we think and hope that the Academy will vote for it. And when the director isn’t there to accept, they should have an all-star line-up to do it in his place, and speak out against the injustice that stopped him and his cast from being there. If someone like Clint Eastwood, who’s all but come out and said he supports President Trump, wants to start to redeem himself and show he believes in the empathy that art creates, getting on that stage for Farhadi would be a good way to start.
The Oscars are a million miles away from being perfect as a launchpad for something like this. In another time and place, we’d be having an argument at whether stars should be boycotting after the nominations of Casey Affleck and Mel Gibson, which would be a valuable argument to have, and we hope if either of them win, or even if they don’t, someone speaks up about them too. And some will argue that protesting at the Oscars plays into the hands of President Bannon and his obese orange pet, who have repeatedly described the media as “the opposition” and decried Hollywood elitism.
It’s a fair argument, but not one good enough to make it not worth doing. In this era, and almost uniquely in this instance, protest and satire is utterly valuable, because the person it targets is unprecedentedly thin-skinned, desperate for approval, and needy. Every day that passes sees him become more unpopular, even among those in his supposed base, and every public protest against him chips away at his power. The worst thing about this is, with a month to go, there are surely more outrages to come, possibly somehow even worse than this, from the Bannon administration, and the key issues might have shifted come the end of February. But that makes it only more of a duty for those with the privilege of a platform to protest.
Farhadi spoke out himself when he accepted his first Oscar five years ago, despite the oppression that often follows filmmakers in his native country. “At this time,” he said in his speech, “many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because of an important award or a film or filmmaker, but because at the time when talk of war, intimidation, and aggression is exchanged between politicians, the name of their country Iran is spoken here through her glorious culture, a rich and ancient culture that has been hidden under the heavy dust of politics. I proudly offer this award to the people of my country, a people who respect all cultures and civilizations and despise hostility and resentment.” If those that the Academy honors this year are even half as brave about passing on a similar message, it’ll be as important a day as the film world has ever put on.
Remember when Michael Moore had a relatively minor rant about George Bush at the Oscars and they booed him off the stage? Just funny to see times change like this.