# And the loser is … politics: why was this year’s Oscars so reluctant?

Taking place in the middle of a chaotic time for the US and the world at large, this year’s ceremony was light on statements and devoid of the Trump word entirely.

## Two years later, when Fahrenheit 9/11 might have been similarly honored (and almost certainly would have been, as it became the highest-grossing non-music doc ever in the US, a record it still holds after two decades), Moore wasn’t on stage. Months earlier, he had decided not to submit his movie for consideration, nominally because he didn’t feel like he needed to steal focus from other, less widely seen docs, and also because he was negotiating an airing of the film on TV, which would scotch its eligibility anyway. By the time the  rolled around, however, the presidential election Moore had hoped to affect with that television airing was long over; Bush won again, and maybe a documentary designed to prevent this from happening wouldn’t have seemed worth all the fuss, anyway. The administration’s worst policies were still in place, but protesting them seemed less urgent. Better to just put on a fun show.

## Politically speaking, this year’s 97th Academy Awards felt more like that ceremony 20 years ago: we lost; let’s forget about it. But considering that the second Trump administration is embarking upon the most destructive and illegal government purge seen in modern US history while also shifting alliances toward strongman figures overseas, it felt conspicuous that it was barely commented upon, beyond host Conan O’Brien’s joke that Anora was well-received because it featured a character actually standing up to Russians. Even this felt more like a typical (if barbed) current-events laugh than a direct rebuke of fascism, a remnant of Brien’s dutiful-late-night-monologue days.

## Admittedly, these gestures don’t necessarily affect much, if any, change. In the past, some of them have been downright clumsy or self-important. But movies are about image-making, and at a time when so much rightwing radicalism is being passed off as normal, there were plenty of opportunities to refute that narrative, rather than just referring vaguely to “divisive” times. Though there’s something charming about Sean Baker’s single-issue campaigning on behalf of the theatrical experience, certainly an appropriate topic to address at the Academy Awards, it’s also a bit mordantly funny that the director of Anora, one of the more provocative best picture winners in recent history, has so little appetite for controversy (regardless of his much-discussed-online Twitter habits). And for those addicted to bragging about their 65-inch TVs providing a better experience than a giant movie screen, “take your kids to the movies for real” could still read as controversial anyway.


*The directors of No Other Land accepting their award. Photograph: Rob Latour/Rex/Shutterstock*

## Perhaps appropriately,  was in Moore’s old category, best documentary feature. The Academy awarded No Other Land, a film that sounds, on paper, like an act of healing: it was made by a collective of both Palestinians and Israelis, about the friendship between a Palestinian activist and a Jewish Israeli journalist. But the movie is also about the displacement of the Palestinian people by Israel, and its pro-Palestine point of view was considered radioactive enough that (despite months of acclaim and awards) , instead booking its showings through its PR handlers. The Academy, not always known for their bold choices in this category, will most assuredly bring more eyes and ears to No Other Land, more so even than the platform the film-makers received as winners on the telecast.

## That’s ultimately the kind of Oscar politics that can make a difference; any movie fan should know that actions do often speak louder than words (or, specifically: movies are louder, and more memorable, than most acceptance speeches). Yet it’s still possible to take something chilling away from this year’s ceremony: “politicizing” the Oscars with a speech is known as something that typically has no greater consequence than, well, more complaints about politicizing the Oscars. Yet even with the risk being far lower than for, say, anyone who works for the government right now, most were too cowed, or maybe too exhausted, to bother speaking up. Actions speak louder, but the silence can still be pretty deafening.

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