On the long road to the Oscars a lot can happen. One minute, you’re hot shit (Emilia Pérez), the next you’re canceled (Emilia Pérez). Or on top at the eleventh hour. Which is precisely what happened to Sean Baker’s Anora. A film, granted, that was expected to be the new favorite after Emilia Pérez’s lead actress, Karla Sofía Gascón, biffed the campaign that was going so well due to some “vintage” tweets from 2020-2021, expressing racist sentiments directed at Muslims, as well as an unfortunate take on George Floyd’s murder. Then, of course, there was her additionally unfortunate take on the Academy Awards in 2021, when Gascón felt compelled to tweet, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”
Perhaps she didn’t think it was much “prettier” in 2025, with first-time host Conan O’Brien taking aim at the controversy about her revived tweets in his opening monologue, leading into it through Anora—the very film that would “come up the rear,” so to speak” to usurp Emilia Pérez from its “belle of the ball” status, which reached its most complete apex with the Golden Globes. So it was that O’Brien ribbed, “Little fact for you: Anora uses the F word 479 times. That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist. ‘You tweeted WHAT?!’” Tellingly, the camera did not cut to Gascón’s reaction in this moment, only in the one after O’Brien said, “Karla, if you’re going to tweet about the Oscars, remember, my name is Jimmy Kimmel.” One of many “landed-with-a-thud” moments in O’Brien’s attempt to host with humor.
And though, usually, the Golden Globes are a natural predictor of what’s to come at the Academy Awards (along with, at this point, the SAG Awards and, at least in 2025, the Independent Spirit Awards), it couldn’t have predicted just how far from grace Emilia Pérez would fall. Not only because of Gascón’s bad PR, but because of the increasing backlash against the film itself, deemed offensive by multiple groups and finally resulting in this parody movie from Mexican trans filmmaker Camila Aurora, who took aim at Emilia Pérez by parading similarly egregious and generalizing stereotypes about France while speaking in French in a very bad accent. Nonetheless, the one ace in the hole that’s been able to carry the movie’s credibility though is the continued respect for Zoe Saldaña’s performance as Rita Mora Castro, which landed her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. It’s a far cry from when Emilia Pérez first began on the awards/festival circuit all the way back in May of 2024 at Cannes. It was there that the three co-starring actresses, Gascón, Saldaña and Selena Gomez jointly won the Best Actress Award. Before the rightful condemnation about Gomez’s hideous accent and, then, Gascón’s hideous tweets came into play.
Among the other notable nominees of the night was The Substance. And yes, previous awards show precedents might have led some to foolishly believe that those wins would make it a strong contender at the Oscars. Up for five awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Makeup and Hairstyling, The Substance only managed to snag the latter award (and it would have been très insulting if it hadn’t, considering how long Demi had to sit in that chair to be made into a full-on supernatural crone). Of course, in many ways, the Academy’s decision to shut out The Substance comes as no surprise. Merely serves as a testament not only to how it still doesn’t take horror seriously as a genre, but also to how it doesn’t really want to honor a film that effectively dishonors what Hollywood is all about: women only being seen and revered when they’re “young and hot” (because young automatically equals hot, n’est-ce pas?). While Moore might have had some feeling hopeful about her chances of being able to win big on Oscar night (thanks to her Golden Globes and SAG Awards wins) where Coralie Fargeat and the script itself couldn’t, Mikey Madison seemed to prove, both poetically and ironically, that “youth is the thing” by beating out Moore in the category. And yes, Madison ascended quite quickly, in that moment of being “anointed,” from Scream cast member to Oscar winner.
To that point, apart from Scream, Madison’s only other “major” role in a movie was as Manson Family member Susan Atkins in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Which is why it was only appropriate for Quentin Tarantino to present the award for Best Director to Sean Baker, who was sure to tell Tarantino while onstage, “Quentin, if you didn’t cast Mikey Madison in Once Upon a Time…, there would be no Anora. Thank you.” True enough—but Madison was more inclined to thank Baker for making her into one of the youngest actresses, at twenty-five, to win in this category (joined by such others as Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, Grace Kelly in The Country Girl, Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry and Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook). So it was that she concluded her speech with, “This is all because of you, thank you [Sean].”
As for the Best Actor category, Adrien Brody was slightly more long-winded and more political, eventually telling the audience, “I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression, and of antisemitism. And racism and othering… And I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.” He was then played off the stage (for the second time) as he urged, “Let’s fight for what’s right… Let’s rebuild together.”
Although political “enough,” Brody and those few others like him (including Daryl Hannah, presenting the award for Best Film Editing) that chose to make mention of or allusion to the current hellscape in the U.S. that’s causing a ripple effect of hellscapes elsewhere, kept it vague. Not too audacious. That is, except for the winners in the Best Documentary Feature category, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, a Palestinian and Israeli, respectively.
Taking the award for No Other Land (which will probably still fail to get theatrical distribution in the U.S. despite this win), it was Adra who said in his part of the acceptance speech, “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” Abraham added, “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because, together, our voices are stronger… When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free, under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.” It was the most blatant and pointed jibe at the current Orange Creature treating the tools of his office like toys that can be broken and somehow easily replaced. Apart from O’Brien’s only “edgy” joke, which also paid homage to Anora’s success over the course of the evening: “Anora is having a good night. That’s great news. Two wins already. I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.”
As for “edgier” jokes still, Conan decided to have certain members of the Los Angeles Fire Department say them to the audience (including, “Our hearts go out to all of those who have lost their homes. And I’m talking about the producers of Joker 2.”) when they came out to receive a standing ovation. This form of showing respect for those who bore the brunt of quelling the still-fresh Palisades and Eaton fires continued the trend started at the Grammys on February 2nd. But the Academy wasn’t quite so “inclusive” as to offer the LAFD a chance to present the major award of the evening (as the Recording Academy did so that the LAFD could present Beyoncé with Album of the Year).
And yes, just as it was at the Grammys, but slightly less “on steroids,” there were frequent nods to the city of dreams/slightly devilish angels interwoven into the ceremony. Starting with an intro that featured Dorothy clicking her heels and saying, “There’s no place like home” (charred or not), followed by well-known scenes from movies shot in L.A., including Mulholland Drive, La La Land, Chinatown, Barbie, Licorice Pizza, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Big Lebowski, L.A. Story and Her, to name a few.
For O’Brien, however, there’s no place like not hosting the Oscars, which might have actually been better served by the deadpan stylings of Nick Offerman (instead providing the voiceover announcements for the evening). Either way, it seems there was no host—no one in Hollywood at all—willing to get markedly political this year at the Academy Awards (where the hell is Jane Fonda when you need her?). Not even in terms of giving more recognition to a film as subversive as The Substance. But one supposes that, at the very least, O’Brien acknowledged it by making it a big part of his intro feature before appearing onstage to deliver his series of flat, apolitical “jokes.”
