In 2005, Crash was widely celebrated by the Academy. The film earned a total of six nominations and three Oscars, including Best Picture. However, the win in 2005 was overshadowed by a major scandal: the queer cowboy love film Brokeback Mountain was nominated for an Oscar in the same year – and many assumed that the Academy did not want to give an Oscar to a queer film at the time.
Crash was described by some critics as “the worst film of the decade”, and director Paul Haggis himself also felt that the film was not worthy of an Oscar. Various plot strands, which are presented à la Love Actually, each stand for a political theme and are all unoriginal and stereotypically realised. The drama has been criticised above all for its stereotypical portrayal of racism and racist themes and its over-simplified portrayal of multicultural relationships.
Oscars 2013: Dallas Buyers Club
In 2013, the two leading actors of Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey, were particularly celebrated for their physical transformation for the film. Both starved themselves down to a few pounds to play characters with AIDS, and Jared Leto also played trans woman Rayon. Critics now point that a trans woman should have been cast for the part.
The drama is about the cowboy Ron (Matthew McConaughey), who sells unauthorised drugs to HIV/AIDS patients due to his own illness. One of the patients is Rayon, who holds up a mirror to the homophobic Ron. Unfortunately, this is her only role in the movie: she is supposed to make him a better person and stand as a negative example of how to deal with an AIDS diagnosis. Ron changes his lifestyle and survives, while Rayon continues to work as a prostitute and dies at the end. In addition, she is addressed with male pronouns throughout the film.
Oscars 2019: Green Book
One of the most controversial Oscar winners in recent years is 2019’s Green Book. The film was a commercial and critical success and also took the awards season by storm. But looking back, the film is hardly as progressive as it pretends to be.
The story of the movie is based on the true story of Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his bodyguard Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen). The family of the real Shirley strongly condemned the cinematic portrayal, whereas the executive producer of Green Book is the real son of Tony Lip.
Mahershala Ali portrayed a stereotypical Black man whose only task was to teach a white man a lesson. Furthermore, the film was criticised for its “white savior” narrative, in which a white man seemingly ends racism just by being there. Director of BlacKkKlansman Spike Lee tried to leave the hall in disgust after the announcement of Best Film.
This article was originally published on GLAMOUR Germany.