This year’s Oscar Awards recognized the most prevalent titles, directors, producers, and other creatives, with “Nomadland” and women in the field receiving the majority of the praise. The quality of the prizes distributed to the winners exceeded last year’s.
The number of women wins scattered in one year. One-third of the 39 winners were women, with 76 Oscar nominations and 23 out of 235 nominee wins, an equivalent of 23.3%. Acting categories saw 9 out of 20 nominee actors of color, including Black, Asian and Pakistani descent. Three out of five nominees for the Best Actor category were minorities.
Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” set in the American West, won Best Picture. China native Zhao became the first woman of color to win Best Director, and a historically diverse group of winners took home awards. “I have always found goodness in the people I’ve met everywhere I went in the world,” said Zhao when accepting her award. “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on to the goodness in other no matter how difficult it is to do that.”
The film’s win was unexpected as it executed the production on a limited budget of $5 million, featuring a cast populated by non-professional actors. The Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures production, “Nomadland,” premiered at a drive-in, in theaters, and on Hulu, where it garnered most of its viewers. Its accessibility has led it to become one of the “most modest-sized movies to win Hollywood’s top honor.”
Anthony Hopkins was one of the contestants who took home a Best Actor award to contribute to the drama “My Father.” David Fincher’s “Mank” entered the evening with 10 Academy Award nominations, with two minor wins. Other wins include Emerald Fennell, for her original screenplay “Promising Young Woman,” Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson, who became the first Black women to win for best makeup and hairstyling, for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” H.E.R. and lyricist Tiara Thomas for their original song “Fight for You” for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Dana Murray, producer of Best Animated Feature “Soul,” and Ann Roth, costume designer for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” among others. “Please watch our movie on the largest screen possible,” McDormand said, who won a Best Actress award for the third time. “And one day very, very soon, take everyone you know into a theater, shoulder to shoulder in that dark space, and watch every film that’s represented here tonight”.
In delayed fast national ratings results in the United States, released by Nielsen, the 93rd Academy Awards were watched by a mere 9.85 million, with a dismal rating of 1.9 among the 18-49 demographic. That is an all-time low for Hollywood’s biggest night, by a huge margin. In fact, it is a drop of about 58% in terms of audience from what the previous low of the 2020 Oscars snared on February 9 last year. In terms of the key demo, the 2021 Oscars is down a crushing 64.2% in the earlier ratings from the 2020 Oscars.
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