Oscars 2023: Five Key Takeaways

Published 16 March 2023

Author

Brynn Valentine

3 min read

While still chastised for its ivory-tower elitism, this year’s Academy Awards (Sunday March 13) planted several notable stakes in the ground. These included tackling ageism, advocating for asylum as part of the American Dream, championing LGBTQ+ communities, a pop megastar rocking barefaced beauty in the spirit of ‘post-perfectionism’, and accessible additions (via sign language) for the first time ever.

Addressing Ageism: Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian to win Best Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once. The 60-year-old’s speech flagged intersectional ageism – a nod to the fact that 80% of roles for characters over 50 in Hollywood are played by men (Geena Davis Institute, 2021), and almost half of women globally aged 45-60 say they feel invisible to the public eye (Noon, 2022).

For a recent pop cultural response to ageism and erasure, see Julia Louis-Dreyfus Presents Mic to Women over 70 in the Pop Culture Pulse: February 2023.
Asylum & The American Dream: Yeoh’s co-star, fan-favourite Ke Huy Quan, won Best Supporting Actor, making him the first person of Vietnamese descent to do so in Oscars history. Referring to himself as an embodiment of the American Dream, his acceptance speech reflected on his journey from escaping the Sino-Vietnamese War as a refugee in the late 70s to winning an Academy Award.

Quan’s underdog story and timely acknowledgement of the importance of protecting asylum-seekers – an issue that has dominated conversations in the UK in the past week – merited him as a social media sensation and gained him praise from the public. He has been trending on Twitter (395,000 mentions) and TikTok (500 million views) since the ceremony.
Defending the Art of Drag: Daniel Scheinert, co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once, followed Quan in marrying the personal with the political onstage. He paid tribute to his parents for accepting his creative exploration in drag as a child, “which is a threat to nobody”, at a time when Republicans across eight states continue to push for anti-drag legislation.
Beauty Ideals in the ‘Post-Perfectionism’ Era: Pop icon Lady Gaga’s live performance saw her wipe off all her make-up worn on the red carpet to sing Hold My Hand from Top Gun: Maverick completely barefaced. Her deliberate showcasing of the duality of beauty highlighted the trend for ‘post-perfectionism’ – a growing resistance against altering or concealing so-called ‘flaws’ during a time of filtered faces and contorted social media selves (see The Brief for more). For further insights, read Pop Culture Pulse: March 2023.
New Accessibility Offers: Previously under fire for “choosing exclusion over compromise” (in terms of being perceived as dismissing chronic illness), some first-time advances were made to increase accessibility, both internally and externally. On the red carpet, American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters were available to translate those working and walking, while a livestream including ASL was hosted on YouTube’s homepage. The stream had 1.8 million views, marking a jump of 443% over last year's edition, which recorded 331,000 clicks (Variety, 2023).

For those with visual impairments, a blind audio describer delivered an in-depth narrative during the TV broadcast, while QR codes were available for in-person guests to watch a zoomed-in version on their phones in real time.

Lady Gaga

Ke Huy Quan

Lady Gaga

Ke Huy Quan

Lady Gaga

ASL Live Feed, YouTube