If the presenter Neil Patrick Harris strutting around in white underpants was a shocker at the Oscars, the infusion of black politics actually made it an awards night to remember. The audience was moved to tears during the rendering of the song Glory from the movie Selma, which captures the historical moments of the powerful civil rights movement of Martin Luther King.
The lyrics rang loud but the words were even more cutting as award-winning singer John Legend said, “We say that Selma is now. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men incarcerated today than were in slavery in 1850.”
The fractures of society were laid bare as best supporting actress Patricia Arquette called for equality for women; and in pay as well. This was a thinking man’s Oscars, with the spotlight on race and gender equality, not only in the US but all over the world. And then there was best screenplay winner Graham Moore calling upon young people who are ambivalent about their sexuality to “stay confused”.
The immigration issue came up too as the best director, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman, spoke for fellow Mexicans. A planned protest against the lack of diversity in judging the Oscars — exposed by estimates that the academy is about 93 per cent white, 70 per cent male — was called off at the request of the lady director of Selma. The issues brought up should be an eye-opener for a world getting increasingly lopsided in its elitist bias.
