I think it would be silly to ignore one great thing about the Oscars last night and it that was the glorious display of diversity and representation that graced the stage on several occasions. These weren’t awards handed out to just prove a point and be inclusive. These were winners who deserved their wins because of the remarkable showcase of their talent.
Three out of the four top acting awards were won by non-white actors as Regina King, Mahershala Ali and Rami Malek triumphed for their roles in If Beale Street Could Talk, Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody, respectively. For Ali, who won Best Supporting Actor for the second time, he becomes only the second black actor to win two Oscars — following Denzel Washington who took home Oscars for Glory and Training Day.
On the behind the scenes side of things, we had production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth Carter becoming only the second and third African American women to win non-acting Oscars for their work on Black Panther. Both were also the first black winners ever in their categories. Another night of firsts includes Peter Ramsey becoming the first black person to win the award for best animated feature along with his co-directors Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón scored the best directing and cinematography awards for Roma, which also took home the Foreign Language Film prize. Remarkably, Cuarón’s win for best director marks the fifth time a Mexican director has won that award in the past six years. Also scoring his first Oscar was Spike Lee, who took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman.
A record 15 women won Oscars on the night, beating the previous record of 12 in both 2014 and 2016. Free Solo‘s Documentary Feature winners included Elizabeth Chai and Shannon Dill, while Kate Biscoe and Patricia Dehaney were among the winning team for Make-Up and Hairstyling, and Nina Hartstone was a co-winner in Sound Editing. Lady Gaga jointly won for Best Original Song, while Domee Shi and Becky Neiman-Cobb won for Animated Short. Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton scored in the Documentary Short category.
I’m not saying that this instantly makes things better for diversity, inclusion, and representation in Hollywood but I think it’s important to celebrate these strides and continue to be better. A lot of people at home got to see so many different faces that didn’t represent one group and that is important for someone out there watching who hopes to be in that position one day. It was a beautiful sight to see and I hope we continue to see it moving forward.
