This Sunday’s Academy Awards will be a litmus test of whether Hollywood can uncouple itself from the political agenda of young woke radicals that is proving so unpopular in the US. Joe Biden had a stab at it during his State of the Union address, criticising the ‘defund the police’ movement for fear of a Democrat wipeout in the midterms, and the New York Times did an astonishing volte-face last week, publishing an editorial in defence of free speech. A bit rich from the paper that recently forced out its most distinguished science reporter at the behest of its junior staff for using the n-word in a discussion about the appropriate use of the n-word.
But will the luvvies be able to resist trotting out all the usual fashionable platitudes about sex, race and gender? The producers of the Oscars certainly hope so. Last year’s telecast only attracted 10.4 million viewers, down from 23.6 million in 2020, and various initiatives have been introduced to boost the audience figures.
Any winner who expresses support for a political cause during their speech should have to forfeit their award
For instance, this year’s hosts are three potty-mouthed comedians: Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes. Schumer has said she intends to emulate Ricky Gervais, whose politically incorrect monologues as host of the Golden Globes have attracted huge audiences on social media. ‘I’m going to get myself in some trouble,’ she said earlier this month. ‘I’ll burn every bridge.’
Then there’s the addition of a new ‘fan favourite’ category, voted for by Twitter users. This is to give the producers an excuse to show clips from some of the most commercially successful films of last year – such as Spider-Man: No Way Home, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and No Time to Die, none of which has been nominated for Oscars in any of the major categories.
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