Entertainment
The Oscars bet big on Chadwick Boseman winning Best Actor. It really, really backfired.
There are a few things guaranteed to happen at any Oscars ceremony, even a pared-down one at the tail end of a long pandemic year. There will be cringey sketches starring game veteran actors. There will be a charming speech from an overexcited Brit. And there will be upsets.
Once Glenn Close had done Da Butt and Daniel Kaluuya thanked his parents for banging, it was hard to imagine there’d be a more awkward moment still to come. But then Best Picture was announced before the lead acting awards, and it was clear the usual night-ender had been bumped up to make room for an emotional climax that seemed a sure bet. Chadwick Boseman, the beloved actor who in his too-short career played more Black icons than possibly anyone else, died in 2020 after secretly being treated for colon cancer for years, and was up for a posthumous Lead Actor Oscar for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He’d already won the equivalent Golden Globe, and his widow Taylor Simone Ledward gave a heartrending acceptance speech.
It couldn’t be clearer that the Academy’s producers were hoping for a repeat of that moment — a teary, cathartic climax to a year of family, fans, and peers honouring Boseman — when they broke with tradition and moved the Best Actor presentation to be the last one of the night.
And then Sir Anthony Hopkins, god-tier Welsh thespian and wholesome Twitter chaos gremlin, won instead.
Hopkins hadn’t even shown up, so Joaquin Phoenix accepted the statuette on behalf of the Academy on behalf of Hopkins. (The man is 83 and it was four in the morning in the UK, folks.) And then the show was over.
Upsets are common at the Oscars: whether votes get split between multiple favourites, voters go for traditional or showy roles over understated underdogs, or some other statistical quirk, the favourite doesn’t always get the little gold dude. And as we’re reminded every year, only the independent accountants of PricewaterhouseCoopers know who’s going to win; sometimes underdog winners are seated further from the stage, or cameras not pointed at the right person, because producers and organisers have to gamble on who they think will be the centre of a particular moment.
But the fact that the show was rejigged so noticeably in order to showcase a moment that was never guaranteed and then fell flat on its face when it did not, in fact, happen…it was a huge swing and a miss.
And that is why you don’t gamble on an outcome by rearranging the awards. -H
— Heather & Jessica (@fuggirls) April 26, 2021
Look. Hopkins is great in The Father. The performance is pure Oscar bait, affecting, accurate (you know if you’ve had a loved one with dementia).The #Oscars producers cynically sought to benefit from the drama/virtue of a Boseman win, though and that was a mistake on a few levels
— Feeling Distant (@annkpowers) April 26, 2021
I dunno how to square the circle of how fantastic Hopkins was in The Father with how gutting it is that Boseman didn’t get his posthumous moment of triumph. But ending the show on Actor made it feel even worse than it would have if Actor was next to last.
— Emily VanDerWerff 🙋♀️ (@emilyvdw) April 26, 2021
WHHHHYYYY did they shuffle the categories like that if they weren’t giving it to Chadwick???????
— Kalhan (@KalhanR) April 26, 2021
Yeah the “let’s put Best Actor last so, obviously, we can celebrate the life of Chadwick Boseman” really backfired
— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) April 26, 2021
Truly the most spectacular anti-climax to an awards show of all time. Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t want to be there giving an award to someone who isn’t there. Like the ending of a New Hollywood movie from 1973. Perfect.
— Ashley Clark (@_Ash_Clark) April 26, 2021
The good thing about going with Best Picture last is that the movie always shows up.
— Linda Holmes Thinks You’re Doing Great (@lindaholmes) April 26, 2021
OH MY GOD WHAT AN ICONIC ANTICLIMAX MY PREVIOUS ASSERTION THAT THE EVENING HAD BEEN STRUCTURED KNOWING THE WINNERS WAS JUST SO DRAMATICALLY UNDERMINED YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN IT TO CHADWICK OR STEVE YEUN AND YOU DID THAT YOU 💯 DID THATTTTTT.
— Guy Branum (@guybranum) April 26, 2021
I’m just imagining Steven Soderbergh watching Anthony Hopkins get the Oscar, throwing his headset on the ground and walking off ala a pissed off coach watching his team fumble a huge lead.
— Albert Santos (Taylor’s Version) (@albertinho) April 26, 2021
well that was the al capone’s vault of Oscar endings
— Adam Sternbergh (@sternbergh) April 26, 2021
The moment was swiftly compared to the Moonlight/La La Land snafu at the 2017 ceremony…
didn’t think we’d ever see another #Oscars ending as bizarre as the Moonlight // La La Land mixup, but its like i’ve always said: if a man can form a friendship with an octopus then i guess anything is possible!
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) April 26, 2021
I can’t believe they topped the La La Land/Moonlight fuck up. Bravo, #Oscars.
— Jordan Zakarin (@jordanzakarin) April 26, 2021
The Best Picture whiff in 2017 was an honest mistake. Switching the big categories seemingly so the #Oscars could end on Chadwick Boseman’s Best Actor win only for him to lose to an absent Anthony Hopkins was a cynical pitch at a melodramatic finale that gloriously backfired. pic.twitter.com/p63PwanIhd
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) April 26, 2021
…and to other disappointing endings in recent entertainment history.
That was the most uninspiring ending of a television program I’ve ever seen and I watched Lost and Game of Thrones.
— Jeff Zentner (@jeffzentner) April 26, 2021
Stares in How I Met Your Mother
— Alex Reyes (@longhairedvato) April 26, 2021
From NFTs in the gift bags to one of the few slides in the In Memoriam segment that lasted longer than a nanosecond, the late actor was certainly remembered throughout the night. Nobody is under any obligation to vote for a deceased nominee just because it’s their “last chance”; and while Hopkins’ performance in The Father as an old man struggling with dementia is a, let’s say, traditional choice for Best Actor, none of this is to say that he didn’t deserve to win on his own merits.
But those caveats don’t make the loss any less disappointing for those who were hoping to see Boseman’s final performance awarded — nor does it make the show producers’ choice to shuffle the order in the hopes of a Big TV Moment any less exploitative.
Honestly not even stressed about Chadwick not winning, because I know Chadwick wouldn’t have been stressed about not winning.
He would, however, want us to go back to work tomorrow aiming unconscionably high in both art and humanity. So that’s what Imma try to do. #Oscars
— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) April 26, 2021
Anyway, good morning to Anthony Hopkins, whom I hope slept very well indeed.
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