The Academy, like so many institutions that get their clout from dangling glamor to the hoi polloi via long-standing awards ceremonies, has come under fire in recent years not only for the frequently bandied #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, but for its hypocrisy in the wake of the #MeToo and Time’s Up reckoning. However, it has managed to evade even half as much condemnation as the Golden Globe Awards, once deemed the “edgier” of the two ceremonies before it became mired in scandal primarily as a result of its voting members showing no sign of anyone who wasn’t, well, white.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association vaguely scrambled to placate the outcry in order to televise the 2022 ceremony, which ultimately wasn’t on NBC, where it had always previously been broadcast before the network said they wanted no part of it until the HFPA amended its policies and practices. As for this year’s Academy Awards, to be held on March 27th at the Dolby Theater, it will continue its 94th Annual ceremony on ABC.
With Jane Campion’s truly masterful The Power of the Dog garnering the most nominations, The Academy is making a statement, as best as it can, that, believe it or not, there’s a small place for women in major roles in film beyond just “actress” (this, too, was alluded to when Emerald Fennell won for Best Original Screenplay last year). And, speaking of that title, The Academy also showed its superior sagacity above all other cinephilic institutions by, first and foremost, not nominating Lady Gaga for an Oscar for her horrendous attempt at playing an Italian woman in House of Gucci. While her co-star, Jared Leto, certainly takes the cake for providing the worst accent and representation of Italians in the movie, Lady G is perhaps worse for genuinely believing that she put in the work to sound “authentic” just because she gave her version of Method acting a go. Nonetheless, it was Leto who got nominated for a Razzie, not Gaga. And yet, as far as Lady G is likely concerned, not getting a coveted Oscar nom at all is pretty much tantamount to being told she’s Razzie-worthy. And, make no mistake, she is.
The actress who isn’t, yet has been acknowledged the least up until now during this season’s barrage of awards ceremonies, is Kristen Stewart. In her simultaneously subtle yet overpowering and affecting performance as Princess Diana (or rather, Diana Spencer), Stewart achieves what Gaga only feigned doing with her interpretation of another public figure. Perhaps because there’s so much footage to go around of Diana, it was easier, in a way, for Stewart to study her, to be able to capture every nuance of her mannerisms without overly caricaturizing those blinking eyes the way Emma Corrin did on The Crown.
In Spencer, directed by Pablo Larraín, many expected a standard-issue, straightforward biopic, only to be met with the surprising specificity of that final Christmas in 1991 that Diana spent with the Royal Family at Sandringham. Other surprises for the audience included the often surreal, fantastical portrayal of Diana’s rightful paranoia, frequently dredged-up childhood trauma and, of course, her evermore-addressed-in-the-present eating disorder. An instance that bubbles to the surface (literally) a few times throughout the film, most iconically when she’s hovered over the toilet in her elegant ballgown (creating the movie poster shot) and when she proceeds to imagine herself ripping the string of pearls off her neck at the dinner table and then eating the beads in front of the family.
All of this is to say that what Stewart did with her performance—and for the “character” of Diana—is filled with far more grace and skill than Lady Gaga relying on costuming and catch phrases to attempt duping audiences into buying into her “skill” as an actress. But, in an increasingly rarer and rarer moment, The Academy has proven why it is still classified as the “highest” (read: most elitist) source when it comes to identifying what is truly the best of the best in cinema. To this end, it was also pointed when they chose not to nominate Madonna for Best Actress (though she was given that accolade at the Golden Globe Awards the same year) at the 1997 ceremony, despite granting “You Must Love Me” with the award for Best Original Song (which is why Madonna bothered to show up and sing it despite being snubbed). On a side note, Academy favorite Frances McDormand won the Best Actress award that year for Fargo.
To augment its stance on this particular Ridley Scott movie, it seems only too telling that The Academy offered just one nomination to House of Gucci, and that was the, let’s face it, pity nomination of “Best Makeup and Hairstyling.” Which is perhaps even more effective than giving the movie no nods at all. After all, it’s nominated with Coming to America 2 in this category, a snarky coup de grâce to anyone who can read between The Academy’s lines to see the message: House of Gucci is trash. Since, evidently, the masses still needed it spelled out for them. Needed one lone source in a sea of sycophants to finally come forward and announce, “You know, this movie really isn’t that good.”
One can only take comfort in the fact that, despite other award-giving entities, including the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, showering House of Gucci with recognition, the only institution that really still matters has pointedly opted not to. In addition to being the only institution that has given Kristen Stewart her rightful praise, to boot. And praise that means more because, unlike the Golden Globe nominees this year, Gaga wasn’t lumped into the same category as Stewart for Best Actress.
