“This is a night for positivity,” Jimmy Kimmel said, at the start of the
ninetieth Academy Awards. For the most part, it was—all the way up
through the moment when Guillermo del Toro, accepting the award for Best Picture, told
aspiring filmmakers, “This is a door. Kick it open and come in.” Much of
what came in the intervening three and a half hours struck a similar
chord: inclusive and inspirational, in the safe, prepackaged mode that
Hollywood tends to prefer. Instead of the spiky, rude
danger of the Golden Globes, we got an endless montage celebrating the magic of
the movies and a blandly nonconformist anthem from “The Greatest
Showman,” with the lyric, “I’m marching on to the beat I drum.” Even the
joint appearance of three of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers—Ashley Judd,
Annabella Sciorra, and Salma Hayek—went for the conciliatory language of
“a new path,” a far cry from the had-it-up-to-here snarl of “Time’s Up.”
After a year of upheaval and revolt in Hollywood, it all felt awfully
safe and devoid of spontaneity.
With two exceptions. The first was Tiffany
Haddish,
presenting two short-film awards with Maya Rudolph. Haddish missed out
on a nomination for “Girls Trip,” but she put her indelible stamp on
this year’s Oscar season—first, when she announced the
nominations,
in January, hilariously mangling the names Luca Guadagnino and Daniel
Kaluuya. Last night, she stole the show again, riffing on white people
with clipboards (“I’m always wondering, What are they writing down about
me?”) and telling Rudolph, “When you took a dookie in the street in
‘Bridesmaids,’ it changed my life.” Haddish had a freshness and an
in-the-moment comedic spark that leaped off the television screen. If
the Academy doesn’t nab her as next year’s host, they’re fools.
The other burst of spontaneity came from Frances McDormand, who gave the
most memorable speech of the night. Up to and including her role in
“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” for which she won her
second Best Actress award, McDormand has made a career playing brash,
unconventional, rough-hewn women. She’s a true original who doesn’t fit
into any Hollywood archetype—even that of a grieving mother seeking
justice. McDormand cuts into her characters like a chainsaw: no time for
apologies, vanity, or small talk. She’s like Hollywood’s cool, eccentric
aunt who does community theatre and sneaks you a joint on your birthday.
A month before she was nominated for “Three Billboards,” she was singing
Shaker spirituals in a Wooster Group
show in SoHo. Talk
about marching on to the beat that you drum!
So who better to give this impolite year its defining Oscar moment? When
she won, she hopped onstage, gave a tiny little lunge-kick, and shook
the hand of the guy who brought out the statuette. Her hair was short
yet unwieldy, and her dress looked repurposed from some weird drapes.
She let out a nervous whinny-laugh and motor-mouthed, “O.K, so I’m
hyperventilating a little bit if I fall over pick me up ’cause I’ve got
some things to say.” By “things to say,” she had slowed into an
I-mean-business deadpan. Then: curveball! “I think this is what Chloe
Kim must have felt like after doing back-to-back 1080s in the Olympic
half-pipe. Did you see that?” Practically everyone had McDormand on an
Oscar ballot, but no one predicted a snowboarding metaphor.
She thanked her director, Martin McDonagh: “We are a bunch of hooligans
and anarchists, but we do clean up nice.” She thanked her sister,
Dorothy, and her “clan”: her husband, Joel Coen, and their son, Pedro.
“These two stalwart individuals were well raised by their feminist
mothers,” she said, making clear that she’s a feminist mother par
excellence. “They value each other, themselves, and those around them.
I know you are proud of me, and that fills me with everlasting joy.” If
you didn’t already want to spend a weeknight eating spaghetti and
meatballs at the McDormand-Coen household, you do now.
Then, she informed us, it was time for “some perspective.” She placed
her Oscar on the floor and gave it a friendly tap on the head. Putting
her hand to her chest, she asked all the female nominees to stand with
her. (“Meryl, if you do it everybody else will.”) Up shot Greta Gerwig
and Lesley Manville and Octavia Spencer and dozens of others, as
McDormand let out another crazy laugh and yelled, “C’mon!” The room
was utterly hers. “Look around, ladies and gentlemen,” she continued,
“because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.
Don’t talk to us about it at the parties tonight.” She tapped a
nonexistent wristwatch. “Invite us into your office in a couple days, or
you can come to ours—whichever suits you best—and we’ll tell you all
about them.” Did you hear that, money people? Frances McDormand doesn’t
need your party talk. Get real.
She concluded, “I have two words to leave you with tonight, ladies and
gentlemen: inclusion rider.” Then she gave a brief little stare that
said, “No, I’m not going to explain what that means—you’re going to look
it up, and you’re going to like it.” (An inclusion rider, as Stacy Smith
explains in this TED Talk,
is an equity clause for contracts that insures diversity on film sets.)
With that, she picked up her Oscar, curtsied, and left.
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