The good: The world was not forgotten
Hollywood’s biggest night often focuses on celebrating talent in ways that can be tone-deaf to political realities, but last night, even though nobody took a serious shot at Trump, plenty of people realized that their skills got to shine on the backs of the nameless. Viola Davis, while tearfully accepting her statuette for Best Supporting Actress, seemed to obliquely refer to racialized violence when she said, “there’s one place where all the people with the greatest potential are gathered, and that’s the graveyard.” Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian filmmaker whose movie The Salesman won Best Foreign Language film, sent a statement to be read out for his acceptance speech because he himself was not in attendance as a conscientious protest to Trump’s travel ban. Many stars, including Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ruth Negga, wore blue ribbons to show support to the ACLU’s efforts against said travel ban while Best Actress winner Emma Stone wore a Planned Parenthood pin: in all, the political statements were there if you went looking, and they may have been mild, but in the current climate, I guess we’ll take what we can get.
