This Had Oscar Buzz
On the gaps between what we watch, what we love, and what gets to be the "Best"
Though in many ways I consider myself a New England native, my relationship to the movies was forged during my childhood in Los Angeles, where I lived until age nine. I fell in love with old Hollywood even as a little kid, consuming the entire universe of MGM musicals and trying (unsuccessfully) to be worthy of them via countless tap, ballet, and singing lessons (none of which proved much genuine musical talent, but were all great fun for me to try on). Yet the Disney canon of musical films proved my entry point into the blood sport of the Academy Awards, specifically in 1991 when Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film nominated for Best Picture. I was seven years old, and in my mind, no single competition had ever mattered more, or could have a greater reflection on whether the world would ever care about and validate my interests. Of course it didn’t win—Silence of the Lambs did—but the film’s elevation for the top prize did lead the Academy to create the category of Best Animated Feature, so not a total loss for so-called children’s cinema (Though this year’s likely winner, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, is hardly designed as a family-friendly flick, such a shift in filmmaking reflects the legitimization of the underlying complexity of children’s narratives, and the adult impulse to use children’s stories to better understand the darkness in everyday life.) From then on, the Oscars became my Superbowl—worthy of themed dishes, family gatherings, and edge-of-the-couch moments. I was hooked.
As a historian, I find it hard to look at the Oscars as evidence of our national cultural evolution, as in most years it’s nearly impossible to view the Best Picture winner as an indication of larger trajectories of tastes. (Countless critics assumed that Chicago winning in 2003 would actually herald a new golden age of movie musicals—sadly, with the hit-or-miss releases in the last twenty years, I’m still waiting on that big breakthrough success.) Save for a rare blockbuster film like Titanic taking the top prize, what earns significant audience praise rarely aligns with what dominates in critics’ associations and industry confabs. And even on the rare occasions when it does, the films that create a genuine pivot in the kinds of stories that will shape the future of cinema often only win in smaller categories such as Best Original Screenplay, reinforcing the notion of the singular auteur rather than the possibility of stories that were already circulating in the world finally coming to the surface. (Since 1990, see: Callie Khouri, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Pedro Almodovar, Sofia Coppola, Charlie Kaufman, Jordan Peele, Bong Joon-Ho, Emerald Fennell…and yeah, leave Green Book out of my analysis please.) Moreover, the question of tabulating what people actually like and want is now so diffuse that the criteria of a sweep across “awards season” in is no longer sufficient to deem something a widespread success. The analysis of the “four-quadrant” audience framework, either at the box office or at the Academy Awards, suggests that consensus and cohesion in tastes, rather than a vast range of artistic expressions and ideas, is far more meaningful for getting a snapshot of what the American “public” wants. (This even after, in 2009, the Academy expanded the Best Picture field to ten films, creating space for films that would otherwise be siloed to the Animated Feature, Foreign Language, or Feature-Length Documentary categories. Oh, if we could only go back and give Wall-E the Best Picture win it deserved in 2008.)
Why do we still bother with a national film award season as a snapshot of cinematic culture? After all, can we really look at American restaurants and actually claim that they represent American tastes? There is a vast distance between what we elevate to the place of high culinary art and what we consume on a daily basis, and though we might crave a degree of synthesis in articulating what constitutes our “national appetite” (apart from whatever can be made fast, cheap, and generous in portion size), we generally don’t expect our everyday meals to look like. Insisting on a national cuisine is not only impossible, but inherently prohibitive to the continuing evolution of American food—a category that only emerges at the intersection of several, often contradictory, culinary impulses and traditions. So by the very nature of what it is to create a national cuisine, we can’t arbitrate over its best expression—even the James Beard Awards doesn’t bother with a “Best Restaurant” category, instead diffusing its accolades across multiple regions, types, and longevities of dining institutions. As with cinema, identifying the “best” isn’t supposed to be a reduction to a singular entry; it’s meant to be a celebration of a plurality of choices, proof of the extraordinary range of perspectives and experiences we get to have. Believe it or not, it is an honor just to be nominated.
So why then do I (and an increasingly smaller audience) still bother tuning in to the Oscars year after year? At least for me, there’s something that still feels suspenseful about watching to see if the cinematic cognoscenti’s tastes will eventually align with my own—whether they too get excited about stories that defy easy genre, audience, and commercial categorization, and whether they might be willing to acknowledge that part of great filmmaking should be a great viewer experience. Perhaps it’s a sign of my age, or perhaps a nostalgic return to my youth, but when I see a film that not only challenges, but genuinely delights and moves me, I think that’s worthy of a momentary celebration, if not canonization.
Recommendation: I’ve been playing catch-up on work since getting back from DC, but I did have time to squeeze in one more Best Picture nominee, Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness. While I can’t say that I’d recommend pairing this film with any themed foods (seriously), I love the way it puts the subject of productive labor and meaningful compensation front and center in a story about class privilege, rather than simply skewering those at the very top of the food chain. It also reaffirmed for me what I’ve known for a very long time—that if for some reason I was washed up on a desert island, I would be one of the very first to be eaten. (And on that note, really looking forward to the next season of Yellowjackets.)
The Perfect Bite: As much as I love cooking, it’s always a joy when the best thing I’ve eaten in a given week came from someone else’s house. My father-in-law served up an extraordinary batch of cassoulet, blending together three different recipes—Julia Child, Melissa Clark, and Martha Holmberg—into an impossibly delicious dinner. Even though we’re finally starting to exit the colder, drearier days of winter, I think we still have a few weeks left of stick-to-your-ribs meals, and this dish reminded me that I can still get a little more use out of my stockpot before I stash it away for the season.
Cooked & Consumed: It took a few days to get back into the home cooking groove, but this Melissa Clark recipe for cumin-and-brown-sugar-rubbed pork chops and brussels sprouts was really rewarding (and a fantastic use of my favorite weeknight cooking technique, the one-pan meal). It also used up the last of a bunch of sage in my fridge, which adds a really subtle but valuable contrast in this dish to the sweetness of the seasoning and the caramelized texture of the Brussels sprouts.