Oscar Best Movie Poll - Who *Should* Win

[Valmy]

That probably varies from place to place. "Being gay" as a HS kid isn't the same here in Toronto in 2015 as it was in 1980, but I have no idea what the situation is like in other places - Toronto is an extremely gay-friendly place overall.

Is it: a super cold version of San Francis....wait

This being the case, what was your point again?

[Admiral Yi]

Strangest hijack ever.

[Valmy]

Strangest hijack ever.

Come now we have had much stranger hijacks than this.

[The Brain]

I never saw any bullying in my HS. We would have considered it incredibly childish.

[dps]

I never saw any bullying in my HS. We would have considered it incredibly childish.

So you adopted a "see no evil" stance?

[The Brain]

I never saw any bullying in my HS. We would have considered it incredibly childish.

So you adopted a "see no evil" stance?

No.

[Valmy]

Obviously his stance is "speak no evil".

[Eddie Teach]

Marty hijacks his own threads quite a bit. Though perhaps in his mind Oscars and bullying gay schoolkids both fall under "gay issues" and this isn't a hijack at all? 

[The Brain]

If you want to read the outraged, oh so outraged, opinion of an unhinged Guardian columnist on this year's Oscars regarding race, sexuality, politics and more, here you have it!

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/23/academy-strange-relationship-with-race-on-display-oscars-2015

This year's Oscars unmasked Hollywood's most dubious views

Despite stirring support for the spirit of Selma, and big prizes for Hispanic film-makers, it was the unfortunate throwaway remarks which will linger longest after the 87th Academy Awards

"Who gave this sonofabitch his green card?" Sean Penn demanded before presenting Mexican film-maker Alejandro González Iñárritu the best picture Oscar for Birdman, giving a whole new political dimension to the racism of the 87th Annual Academy Awards.

Penn, who starred in Iñárritu's 21 Grams all the way back in 2003, probably thought it was a funny joke with an old friend. But racism from friends assumed to be benign can be the worst kind, especially at an awards show: just ask black author Jackie Woodson, whose "friend" used presenting her with a National Book Award to make a watermelon joke.

The incident highlighted Oscar's uneasy relationship with race, which was on full display throughout last night's ceremony. Along with Tinseltown's fraught relationship with American militarism, Penn bookended a politically awkward and often uncomfortable evening, which started with host Neil Patrick Harris making a joke about Hollywood celebrating its "best and whitest".

Four hours later, Penn reminded the world that white supremacy is never far away in America, and it's at its most insidious and powerful when wielded by self-proclaimed Hollywood liberals – like Penn.

Right before Birdman won, it seemed as if some of the racial tension I had anticipated going into the evening would be muted. Selma, the biopic of Martin Luther King, had been snubbed for its director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo. But, it had won for Glory, its politically charged theme song (which beat out the vapid Everything Is Awesome) and gave John Legend the chance to say: "We live in the most incarcerated country in the world." Legend then excoriated America for allowing incarceration to be more prevalent for black men now than slavery was in 1850. As Deray McKesson, one of the main organizers in Ferguson, tweeted: "@johnlegend tonight gave us a one-person protest. And I'm all for it."

The Academy honored the black, pacifist film for its aspect which most directly linked the civil rights movement of 1965 to Black Lives Matter movement of 2015. Meanwhile, American Sniper, the incredibly jingoistic bio pic of Navy Seal Chris Kyle (which has appealed to America's most base prejudices as a box-office hit) only one won Oscar. As did Boyhood, a film I had a lot of white supremacist reservations about, even though I loved it.

In fact, as the evening wore in, it became apparent that neither white nor black but Hispanic film-makers behind the camera for Birdman were the breakout stars of the night. Mexican director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki won for Birdman (after winning last year for Gravity), and Iñárritu won for writing, directing and producing Birdman (following up Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón winning for Gravity).

It was a big moment when Birdman won best picture – and Sean Penn took a big dump on it when he said: "Who gave this sonofabitch his green card?"

Iñárritu was gracious in saving the moment, making light of two Mexicans winning back to back as meaning the Academy needed to look at its immigration policy. He then championed political reforms for Mexicans in Mexico and immigration reform for Mexican Americans in the United States.

Iñárritu later called the joke "hilarious". But as a Hollywood director, he isn't likely to feel the fallout of increased racism Americans will wage against more vulnerable Hispanics, armed with justification from the likes of a good liberal like Penn. And it was only the final slight of presenters treating artists of color poorly. Neil Patrick Harris made an odd joke about Oprah being as big as American Sniper's profits (though he tried to say he was talking about the size of her wealth) at the top of the night, before engaging Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer in a cringeworthy and unfunny bit about why she needed to keep watch over his Oscar predictions; he even went so far as to tell her she couldn't eat or go to the bathroom to watch his stuff. In those predictions, he made a joke about mispronouncing Chiwetel Ejiofor's name – when he mispronounced it again! And he also weirdly referred to David Oyelowo as a nominee when he wasn't, before involving him in an unfunny bit.

And, despite having a black woman, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, as its president, and no shortage of black performers, the Academy has a long history of having an overwhelmingly white membership, having few minorities in positions of power, and for only rewarding black actors for playing subservient roles.

The Academy's relationship with gay rights had a couple of interesting moments. Though the host, Harris, is openly gay, he is as tall, blond and heterosexually oriented as any Hollywood leading man ever has been – whether he's singing opposite Cinderella, starring in How I Met Your Mother, or parodying himself with Harold and Kumar. The evening's interesting gay moment was when screenwriter Graham Moore, who wrote the biopic The Imitation Game about gay mathematician Alan Turing, won and said: "When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself ... And now I'm standing here ... for that kid out there who thinks she's weird or she's different or she doesn't fit in anywhere. Yes you do."

The role of militarism in the US, and how both Hollywood and the American news media facilitate through both mindless and deliberate propaganda, was tensely played out. On the red carpet, I was kind of appalled at how Taya Kyle, widow of Chris Kyle (the subject of American Sniper) was attending the Oscars, as if Hollywood was wrapping itself in war as shamelessly as politicians do.

But Hollywood's ambivalence about the military was a bit more nuanced. Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 won the documentary short award, and Harris chose to follow up the film-maker's touching speech about her veteran son committing suicide by making a joke about her dress. (Patricia Arquette's call for women's civil rights was enough to bring Meryl Streep to her feet, but I guess Reese Witherspoon's call to #AskHerMore and not reduce women to their clothes wasn't enough to keep Harris from reducing a mom talking about her dead son to her dress.) Then, Citizenfour won best documentary feature. As Guardian alumnus Glenn Greenwald took the stage, it was hard not to think the Academy wasn't embracing a critique of US militarism at least as probing as when it award Moore his Oscar.

The politically conscious high point of the night to me was when Selma's song Glory won. Everything is Awesome is still the year's most memorable movie song. But despite its original mission to critique if everything is awesome, it's became as bland a ballad as last year's most memorable nominated song (Happy) to maintain the status quo. Hollywood likes to think it is cutting-edge on social issues, but it's usually very conservative. So it was good to see Glory's musicians provide at least reference to what the hell has been happening in America between Happy and Everything is Awesome.

And Penn's penultimate moment of the broadcast was its lowest point, when he brought to the fore not just the simmering, weird way race was near at hand with several African Americans who weren't nominated. He showed that white supremacy in Hollywood needs to assert itself even in the face of minority exceptionalists who are nominated and actually win – that it needs to remind a brown film-maker receiving the Academy's highest honor that he is still a sonofabitch with a green card, ostensibly stealing work from good white folk.

In a way, Penn did us a favor: he exposed Hollywood's faux liberalism for what it truly is. Hollywood has an uneasy relationship with racism, feminism and militarism because it will exploit all of them to keep making money. It is not concerned with diversity or economic justice, except to the extent it can feign interest in any of them to perpetuate its own power.

• This article was amended on 23 February 2015. An earlier version said that Chris Cooper was the Navy Seal in American Sniper. It was further corrected on 24 February 2015 to remove an incorrect statement that Michael Moore won an Oscar in 2005 for his anti-Iraq war documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

Steven W Thrasher is a weekly columnist for Guardian US. He was named Journalist of the Year 2012 by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, BuzzFeed, the Advocate and more.

LOL I just saw that this was posted in earnest as "omg horrible racism" on Paradox OT.

[The Larch]

LOL I just saw that this was posted in earnest as "omg horrible racism" on Paradox OT.

Where do you think I found it?  But it was not posted seriously there either.

[The Brain]

LOL I just saw that this was posted in earnest as "omg horrible racism" on Paradox OT.

Where do you think I found it?  But it was not posted seriously there either.

That famously retarded Communist wasn't serious? Broken clock I guess.

[Valmy]

It is kind of too bad they cannot just write an article saying 'I found a few problematic things in the Oscars that Hollywood might want to consider'.  Instead it has to be "Hollywood is false and full of sin.  REPENT'.

[Grallon]

Three things:


- Scarlett looked gorgeous

- John Travolta is a creep

- Gaga was magnificent



G.

[celedhring]

It is kind of too bad they cannot just write an article saying 'I found a few problematic things in the Oscars that Hollywood might want to consider'.  Instead it has to be "Hollywood is false and full of sin.  REPENT'.

Such an article wouldn't probably be posted on forum boards generating traffic for its author.

[Valmy]

It is kind of too bad they cannot just write an article saying 'I found a few problematic things in the Oscars that Hollywood might want to consider'.  Instead it has to be "Hollywood is false and full of sin.  REPENT'.

Such an article wouldn't probably be posted on forum boards generating traffic for its author.

Yeah that is what I was trying to get at.  Click bait and all that.