Arts & Life, Events, Film & Television

‘Moonlight’ makes waves at Academy Awards

Last year, the Academy Awards hit America with the low point of #OscarsSoWhite and the high of Leo finally winning, but without all the hooplah, Hollywood’s biggest night still managed to draw in crowds to their TV’s by the millions on Sunday.

The question on everyone’s mind this year was: will the awards be less white? And, is “La La Land” going to have a repeat performance of its Golden Globe sweep? The answer is yes – well, sort of.

“La La Land” won Best Picture. Oh wait, scratch that, wrong envelope. “Moonlight” won best picture. So no, “La La Land” didn’t sweep, but the Oscars were less white.

Though “Moonlight” only won thrice and the musical took home six wins, it couldn’t take home the top prize — but not for lack of trying. It wasn’t until after the whole cast of “La La Land” took the stage that the clerical error was corrected and the real winner announced.

The cast and crew of “Moonlight” then arrived on stage to claim what was rightfully theirs. On top of Best Picture, it also received Best Adapted Screenplay and earned Mahershala Ali best supporting actor.

Zackery Sharp, a junior English literature and film screenwriting major at Cal State Long Beach, only missed out on seeing “Hidden Figures” and “Lion” of the Best Picture nominees, and did a fairly good job at predicting how the night would play out.

“‘La La Land’ is definitely going to win all kinds of awards and that’s a very good movie, so I’d be happy to see it win, but my favorite personally of the best picture nominees is ‘Moonlight,’ he said. “I just think it’s a very timely movie, and one that takes its subject matter as human and explores that in a very human way.”

He was also sure Emma Stone was going to win Best Actress, but was hoping for Isabelle Huppert for “Elle” — wishful thinking. In fact, most people were expecting Stone to take it.

“I think that Emma Stone is going to steal the show; everything for ‘La La Land,’” said Jules Starnes, a freshman film major.

She also said she expected Ryan Gosling to win Best Actor for “La La Land,” but was rooting for Denzel Washington for his performance in “Fences.” Sadly for her, both were wrong. Much to Sharp’s delight, Casey Affleck won Best Actor in a leading role, for “Manchester by the Sea.”

“I think Casey Affleck is going to win and I think he deserves it most,” he said. “Casey Affleck does a great job of being really wryly funny and at the same time very depressing in a gripping way, and I think the range he shows in that performance is totally deserving of that win.”

So were the awards less “white?” “Moonlight,” the chronicles of a young black struggling to find his place in the world was a large indicator that, yes, it was.

Though best actor and actress were to a pair of white folk, Mahershala Ali and Viola Davis — a black Muslim actor and black actress — took home the Oscars for Best Supporting roles.

The wins were the first for both Ali and Davis.

“I know they did all kinds of additions so it’s a more diverse set of people that are in the academy now. I think this year it’s about expanding that pool so I think the nominations reflect the expanded pool,” Sharp said. “If it’s a larger group of people where you get talented people — like Mahershala Ali who was fantastic in that role, and Viola Davis who’s been fantastic in many roles — as long as it goes to worthy people, I don’t know that it matters beyond that.”

Anastasia Mungaray, sophomore criminal justice major, noted that it was great to see more diversity, but also agreed that what’s most important is the quality of the performance being honored.

“You can’t just [have a diversity quota] to make amends, because then everyone is going to be like ‘those are pity wins.’ So, I just really hope they pick the ones that most deserve it,” she said.

She also noted that in 2017, we saw a lot of films which provided powerful roles for actors and actresses of color, and quoted Viola Davis’ 2016 Emmy acceptance speech.

“You can’t win an Emmy for a role that’s not there,” Davis said.

Sharp added that Hollywood has been whitewashing roles for years, while stating “that’s not like a liberal viewpoint – that’s just factual.”

Regardless of what happens at the Academy Awards — including almost robbing a gritty, complex drama of Best Picture for a musical about Hollywood — people are still going to chime in year after year.

“The reason why I love watching the Oscars is because you get to watch a bunch of rich, pretty people jerk each other off for a few hours,” Sharp said. “But In all seriousness, I love seeing the people on screen and seeing them be funny or be sad, it’s just kind of entertaining. They have their hypocrisies at times — almost always — but it’s still entertaining to watch.”

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