The feverish speculation over how badly Donald Trump would get hit at the Oscars was on par with all the prognosticating about which actors and films would come away with the top awards.
But ultimately there was no political moment to match the movie mixup that resulted in hot favorite La La Land winning the Best Picture Oscar for a minute or so before it was revealed that Moonlight had actually won.
Hopes were high after a hit-and-miss opening monologue from host Jimmy Kimmel that skewered Trump. “I want to say thank you to President Trump,” Kimmel said. “I mean, remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? That’s gone thanks to him.”
Aside from a statement read out on behalf of Asghar Farhadi, director of Iran’s The Salesman, which won Best Foreign Language film, attacking the Muslim ban, and Mexican actor presenter Gael García Bernal criticizing the Mexican wall, there was little in the way of political protest.
The night was summed up by Gael García Bernal saying: “As a Mexican, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of a wall that wants to separate us…and these are the nominees for Best Animated Feature Film.”
In November, the cast of Hamilton created political theater when it laid into Vice-President Mike Pence during a show. But on Sunday night, it turned out the Oscars needed Trump—or any prominent Republican at all—to be in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles in order to do effective battle.
Evidently as bored as the rest of us were with his Matt Damon jokes and clips of actors talking about old movies they loved, Kimmel at one point even tweeted at Trump to elicit a reaction. It all got very desperate.
The most effective political comment came from an African-American man named Gary, one of the passengers on a tour bus who crashed the Academy Awards midway through the ceremony. Kimmel introduced him to front-row actors, only to then observe: “I feel you’re ignoring the white celebrities.” Gary replied, ‘I am.”
It was a revealing, unpredictable and hilarious remark from Gary on a night when the celebrities remained muted and polite in their resistance.
A recent survey for Fox found that a combined 46% of Americans said celebrities should “stay out of politics” or “shouldn’t talk politics.” The saving grace for the Academy Awards is that following a boring ceremony and a farcical climax, a restrained performance from acting royalty against Trump means the backlash against Hollywood politics won’t grow to more than half the country wishing actors would shut up.
At least if it does, it won’t be because of this year’s Oscars.
