What the Best Picture of 2021 winner will reveal about the future of the Oscars

Oscar Awards Six years after the #OscarsSoWhite movement emerged, how far has the Hollywood Academy come? Will the next winner of the statuette help us understand where the Oscars are headed?

By Radhika Seth

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At the 2010 Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow's fast-paced war drama The Hostile Land became the first feature film directed by a woman to win Best Picture. More than a decade later, at the 2021 ceremony that will take place on April 25, the poetic Nomadland, a road movie directed by Chloé Zhao, aims to become the second film to do so. It is a contemplative, moving and moving story about a woman who travels through the United States after the great economic crisis of 2008. The film addresses issues that are especially relevant after this year of intermittent lockdowns and social upheaval: loneliness, economic uncertainty , the ability to endure and the importance of having a community that supports us even in our worst moments. It is hard to imagine a more appropriate choice (or, directly, a better choice) by the Academy, although perhaps when the time comes they will not opt ​​for it.

The most optimistic remember Parasite, the wonderful South Korean satire by Bong Joon-ho that swept the 2020 Oscars. His victory in the category of Best Picture, the first for a foreign-language film, was received as proof of that the Academy's efforts to have a more diverse voting body were paying off. But was this surprise milestone an exception? Or does the fact that this thriller prevailed over more conventional options (such as Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, 1917 or The Irishman) shows that the Oscars have chosen to move towards a more inclusive and progressive future?

Almost everyone agreed that it would take at least another year to find out. Without a doubt, if Nomadland wins, it would imply that things have changed. After all, it is a film starring a woman over 50 years old —played with subtlety by a Frances McDormand who has never been better— and directed by a racialized woman, two sectors of the population who Academy often ignores. But it's important to remember that, too often, Hollywood has proven out of step with the times. Before Parasite, the grand prize winner in 2019 was Green Book (Peter Farrelly), a complacent and clichéd film about racism. In the list of winners of the last twenty years, Moonlight appears in 2017, but also Crash in 2006. Every time we have predicted the beginning of a new era, it has turned out not to be true.

“Two steps forward and one step back”

April Reign shares that feeling of discontent. In 2015, seeing that all the nominees in the acting categories were white, she created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, which quickly became a social campaign thanks to which the Academy has started to do things better. Now, it has not been a straight line progress. "The Oscars lurch from year to year, they're like a pendulum," says Reign, who says she was at the gala the year Green Book won. “That night they awarded several people of color and, right at the end, it was as if someone pulled the rug we were on. It was like taking two steps forward and one step back."

She also points out that despite the Academy's efforts to double the number of women and people of color among its members, it remains a "predominantly white and male institution and, since it does not require its voters to see every movie to vote, in the end we are talking about a popularity contest between white and old men. While the lineup of 2021 nominees is the most diverse in history, with nine non-white actors and actresses on the shortlist, the same cannot be said for the Best Picture category. Although there have been several critically acclaimed films starring black actors this year, including One Night in Miami... (Regina King), Da 5 Bloods: Brothers in Arms (Spike Lee) and Mother of the Blues (George C. Wolfe ), the only one to be nominated for Best Picture was Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King).

And while she thinks the latter is more than deserving of the nomination, Reign would rather she didn't have to carry the weight of representation alone. "There are so many movies that reflect different aspects of what it's like to be black or LGBTIQ+ that I don't want to think there's only room for one," she says. One way to soften the blow would be for this gritty 1960s drama, in which Daniel Kaluuya plays Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, to win the award. His exploration of systemic racism and police brutality certainly speaks to our troubled present as well.

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There are many other candidates who would also deserve the award. Among them is Minari, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, a tender story about a Korean-American family that moves to rural Arkansas. The heart of the film is Steven Yeun, who deftly portrays a patriarch in search of his dreams and has become the first actor of Asian descent to be nominated for Best Actor. There's also Sound of Metal, from director Darius Marder, a visceral portrait of a drummer beginning to lose his hearing. The film has also earned its leading man, the magnetic Riz Ahmed, a Best Actor nomination (the first for a Muslim).

Another of them is A Promising Young Woman, the incendiary story of revenge in the middle of the #MeeToo era that has made its creator, Emerald Fennell, the first British woman (and the seventh woman to be dry) to be nominated for Best Direction in the 93 years of history of the Academy. For Jennifer Siebel Newsom, founder of The Representation Project—a global organization dedicated to fighting gender stereotypes that has been advocating for films made by women for years—this nomination is hopeful. Referring to Fennell and Zhao's nominations for Best Director and the presence of their films in the premier category, she says that “it is undeniable progress. The Oscars rarely recognize stories about women, so the fact that there are two women nominated for Best Directing for films starring women is very remarkable, even if we are still far from reaching parity.

These three releases are far from being the classic “Oscar” project due to the themes they deal with, their magnitude and their execution (not to mention that they focus on the experience of female and racialized characters). Giving the Oscar for Best Picture to any of them would be a step forward and would serve to redefine the concept of "Oscar movie", opening the way to more intimate, risky and personal films.

The other three titles that are up for the prize, on the other hand, will appeal to those voters who are inclined to maintain the status quo. The father, by Florian Zeller, represents from surrealism the dementia of a man and is very ambitious on a formal level, but it also stars two much-loved Oscar winners: Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. For its part, Aaron Sorkin's courtroom drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, with its heated speeches and predominantly white male cast, seems very old-school even though it touches on current issues such as the importance to manifest. Hot on Nomadland's heels, he could very well take the victory, hinting that the Academy prefers to stay as it is rather than move forward.

But the most conservative victory would probably be Mank's. David Fincher's ode to the golden age of Hollywood is a monumental technical feat, and it would still be a rare Best Picture winner in a year like this. The industry loves to see itself reflected on screen (just look at La La Land's six awards in 2017 and The Artist's five in 2012, including Best Picture), but opting for an epic black-and-white drama black and rooted in nostalgia rather than a more contemporary film would confirm the swing of the pendulum after Parasite and show that older voters have regained control of the Academy. The proof that it is possible? That Mank, with 10 nominations, is the most nominated film of the year.

An atypical or portentous year?

Regardless of the outcome, Reign warns against taking too many reads. “We've been celebrating the Oscars for more than 90 years and there's still no way of knowing which direction they're moving in,” he explains. Siebel Newsom, however, is "optimistic that the progress of women directors is a symptom of things to come, especially if Zhao or Fennell take the Oscar."

It should also be noted that the winner of Best Picture in 2021 could be an anomaly, considering that streaming platforms have dominated the industry. Big studio movies — which have been delaying their releases — could make a big splash at the 2022 ceremony. Still, this year's winner is more likely to pave the way for what comes next. She will not help us to predict the future, but it will give us a clue of what lies ahead.