The yellow brick road ahead of the Oscars

By Bryce Johnson •

Fin Films, a student-run film club, will host a viewing of the 97th Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, on March 2 at 7 p.m. through Zoom. Elena Gonzalez, senior elementary education major and co-president of Fin Films, watches the Oscars ceremony every year.

“It’s nice that there’s an award ceremony that really recognizes film, and that’s why I care a lot for it to be well done,” Gonzalez said.

The Oscars is an annual ceremony that awards films for multiple categories, such as Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Original Song. This year, the host is Conan O’Brien.

“I hope with Conan O’Brien hosting that we’ll have a better host, because the last few years the main problem has been that the hosts maybe aren’t as funny or that the show takes too long,” said Joshua Guyton, junior law major with a minor in film studies.

Yair Solan, assistant professor of literature and film in the Department of Humanities and Politics, thinks multiple movies nominated for Best Picture have a good chance at winning, including “Wicked,” “A Complete Unknown” and “Nickel Boys.”

“‘Wicked’ and ‘Emilia Pérez’ are both musicals, and I think they both have nominations in the double digits,” Solan said.

This year, Gonzalez is happy seeing “The Substance” get nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, as well as “The Wild Robot” for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score.

“Usually with the Oscars, they don’t tend to recognize horror, so it was nice that [‘The Substance’] got nominated for Best Picture,” Gonzalez said.

At the same time, Gonzalez is disappointed in this year’s Oscars ceremony. She wishes movies like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” were nominated. She is also disappointed with “Emilia Pérez,” a French movie set in Mexico about a transgender cartel leader. It has 13 nominations, making it the non-English film with the most nominations in history.

Gonzalez feels “Emilia Pérez” is inauthentic to the lives of both trans and Mexican people.

“My biggest offense really is that they didn’t cast Mexican people for the roles that are supposed to be Mexican people,” Gonzalez said.

Karla Sofia Gascón, an actress from Spain who plays Emilia Pérez in the film, is the first openly transgender person nominated for Best Actress. After Gascón’s nomination, some of her social media posts from 2019 to 2021 resurfaced, where she criticized Muslims and the Black Lives Matter movement.

“All this offensive material from her social media came up recently. And then her reaction to that has essentially led Netflix to cut ties with her and basically not include her anymore in the promotion for the Oscars,” Solan said.

Students can watch the Oscars live on March 2 at 7 p.m. on ABC. For those interested in watching the films nominated for Best Picture, including “Anora” and “Dune: Part Two,” AMC Aventura 24 is holding a Best Picture Showcase marathon on Feb. 22 and March 1.

“It would be cool to see ‘Dune: Part Two’ get Best Picture. I think it’s really good and really deserving,” Guyton said.