It was inevitable, but Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” took him the big prize last night at the 93rd Academy Awards … and absolutely nobody cared. The numbers aren’t in yet, but I’m being told that this was the lowest rated Oscar telecast ever— look for official viewing tallies to be released later today.
Last night’s hostless Oscar ceremony was lifeless. Barely any jokes were made, the mood was somber and stilted. This kind of self-seriousness on the part of the A-list in California is why much of America is tuning out of these types of awards shows. Take, for example, the meltdown that occurred within the media and Twitter when the late —recently sainted— Chadwick Boseman lost the Best Actor Oscar to Anthony Hopkins. You’d think the pope had just died.
For all the inclusive aspirations the Academy seemed to promote pre-ceremony, Hopkins beating Boseman and Frances McDormand beating Viola Davis turned out to be a worst case scenario for them. Ironically, the much-maligned Golden Globes, ridiculed as racists these last couple of months, ended up with two black actors winning in lead, and the SAG ended with all four acting winners being people of color. It makes you wonder if what we’re being sold as as an inclusive and all-encompassing and utopian Academy, at the end of the day, is actually a voting body that is 84% white and not that interested in virtue signaling its winners based purely on race.
And so, after last night’s debacle, what we were left with is an Academy in a state of limbo — a major identity crisis, if you will. The worst case scenario happened.
EDITED — Via THR: The 93rd Academy Awards drew 9.85 million viewers and a 1.9 rating among adults 18-49 on Sunday. That's a steep drop from from last year's 23.64 million viewers and 5.3 in the key ad demographic — both of which were the previous all-time lows.
The theatrical version runs 108 minutes, so we're talking a nearly 2-hour-10-minute cut of a movie that works because it's lean, and I'm not sure anyone needs that.