Well, it didn’t take long for Will Smith to recover from Slapgate at the Oscars on Sunday night. After an evening in which the fresh prince of Bel-Air assaulted Chris Rock on stage, verbally threatened him twice, and then tearfully apologized (“Love makes you do crazy things”) while accepting the Oscar for Best Actor, Will decided to get jiggy with it at Vanity Fair’s after-party. He doesn’t look too upset about the incident here. I’m sure a couple shots of Don Julio helped to assuage his pain.
It was a weird but entertaining night at the Oscars. It’s always fun to watch rich, self-regarding people dress up in outfits that cost more than a full year’s earnings at minimum wage and talk earnestly about the meaning of art and being “who you are.” Hey, this is America! Lots of people turn their backs on the Oscars precisely because of that kind of bullshit, but they do so at their own peril. They miss those moments when the veil is parted.
One of the reasons we watch the Oscars is the same reason casual observers watch NASCAR or hockey or Joe Biden giving a speech — at some point, the monotony might be broken up by a crash, a fight or a gaffe that leaves heads of state scratching their heads. In a world of media where everything is choreographed, it’s always exciting to see somebody go off script. For the record, one of my favorite off-script moments was years ago when somebody asked Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda what he thought of “Dave Kingman’s performance.”
And, of course, one of the biggest and oldest hacks of the Oscars happened in 1973, when Marlon Brando won Best Actor for “The Godfather” and sent a Native American, Sacheen Littlefeather, in his place to decline the award in protest of historical abuses heaped upon America’s indigenous population. I guess today, Brando would’ve just walked up and slapped Roger Moore and then apologize by saying, “History makes you do crazy things.”
So Slapgate was the supernova of the evening. It got even better watching some of the raw feed that ABC blocked out on the live telecast in the U.S., including Denzel Washington talking him down. Will was as mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees, as we like to say down here in the Carolinas.
But there were other genuine — and much more civilized — moments during the show, which was held in the Dolby Theater in downtown L.A., made over to look like a giant living room (maybe a nod to how we watch movies today in the age of streaming).
When Questlove received the Oscar for his fantastic, historically significant documentary “Summer of Soul,” he seemed genuinely overwhelmed. Maybe he was speechless from the smackdown that preceded him, but I don’t think so. It seemed to be the authentic culmination of a long labor of love and a reflection of something bigger. “This is not about me,” said Questlove. “This is about marginalized people in Harlem that need to heal from pain.” Nice move, Q.
Billie Eilish was equally touching when she and her brother Finneas accepted the Oscar for Best Song shortly after a fantastic performance of “No Time to Die.” For a couple of kids from Highland Park who wrote most of their big hits in the bedroom of their parents’ home, it must have been a thrilling moment, and they let it show, without grandeur or pretense.
A truly cringeworthy moment came when Ryusuke Hamaguchi took the Oscar for “Drive My Car” (Best International Feature) and then got played off the stage after speaking for 30 seconds. Even worse, when he signaled to the band that he wasn’t through talking, they kept on playing. Carelessness, ineptitude, discrimination? You decide. By the way, I have no idea who the woman was beside him furiously scribbling notes the whole time.
I’m not sure about the hosting format — maybe three’s a crowd, after all. But I forgot how much I miss Amy Schumer. She’s a bright light. Just to show that the Oscars weren’t completely clueless about The Slap That Sucked All the Air Out of the Room, when she reappeared after the incident, she innocently asked “I’ve been getting out of that Spider-Man costume, did I miss anything? There’s like a different vibe in here.”
If the Academy gave out awards for performances at the awards show (too meta?), Kevin Costner would get an Oscar for Most Sincere. He introduced the awards for Best Director with a touching and completely authentic memory of watching “How the West Was Won” at a Cinerama Dome, half-a-mile down the road from the Dolby Theater, when he was a 7-year-old boy. “Little did I know that three directors were responsible for that epic moment in my life,” he recalled. “They fired my imagination and they captured my heart.”
The show ended on a grace note when two of the classiest dames in the business took the stage (to borrow a phrase I’m sure Louis B. Mayer used a lot) — Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli — to introduce the Best Picture award. Liza was in a wheelchair, but none of her spark was dimmed. Gaga was in a sparkly tux and treated Liza like royalty, which is her due. There was no agenda, no artifice, just pure love and respect. It was a great way to end an evening full of agendas and full of artifice.