Photo courtesy of Flickr
Viewers’ growing resentment towards the Oscars and the Academy that decides what is deserving of acclaim in the film industry has been a steady fixture for a while, but apparently nobody learned from past mistakes this year. In fact, it seemed like they wanted to make things even worse. While there were some good moments during the 2021 Oscars – Daniel Kaluuya’s Best Supporting Actor win, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson winning Best Hair and Makeup for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (the first time any Black woman has ever won that category), Chloé Zhao breaking the glass ceiling as the first Asian woman (and woman of color) to win Best Director for “Nomadland” – there was much controversy around the Best Actor award’s unexpected result.
To kick off the horrible night, the overwhelmingly white Academy decided to honor beloved actor Chadwick Boseman, who unfortunately passed away last year, by gifting all the nominees with a non-fungible token (NFT) of the late actor. An NFT is basically any type of digital art that is unique and cannot be replicated, serving as a digital version of an auction. NFTs have grown in the last few years alongside the cryptocurrency technology that fuels them, and they are proving to be a disastrous development for the world’s ongoing ecological downfall. Many climate activists and even digital artists have shunned NFTs, but the fact that the Academy – a considerable cornerstone in the arts world – thought it would be good to add one to every Oscar nominee’s goodie bag reflects how unconcerned rich, white elites are about anyone other than themselves.
The NFT in question is a digital animated bust of Boseman created by the artist Andre Oshea. Moving past the egregious error of commercializing a deceased Black person’s likeness – an issue America has seen much of recently – the 3D model itself wasn’t even Oshea’s original creation. It was taken from a royalty-free website where it was listed for $50 (reportedly uploaded onto the website without the original artist’s license), on top of which Oshea added a few filters and redesigned. The final product is listed at $1.2 billion, and Oshea was set to auction it off on the blockchain e-commerce platform Rarible. After backlash, he has since taken it down, and reports state that the 50% of the money received will be donated to the Colon Cancer Foundation.
To go along with this disgusting commodification, the Oscar producers also switched the order of awards, placing the Best Actor announcement at the end. Boseman was up for the award posthumously, and the switch increased anticipation for his win, which is why it was a major shock to everyone when the award was given instead to Anthony Hopkins for his role in “The Father.” To add insult to injury, Hopkins wasn’t even there to accept the award, as he has a higher risk for contracting COVID-19. The Academy would not give him provisions to attend via Zoom or even pre-record a speech in case he won, leaving him to post his thank-you the morning after via an Instagram live, where he also commemorated Boseman.
The Academy is guilty of many things: the horrible mistreatment of Chadwick Boseman’s image, the commercialization of Black death, supporting ecological degradation and disregarding COVID-19 safety measures, to name a few. This overall selfish disrespect is a systemic symptom of rich, white elites unwilling to care for anyone beyond their peers. This past year has given us ample opportunity to cultivate compassion for others, of which that weekend’s events show no evidence. The calls to dismantle the Academy, or at least revamp it, have been echoed for years – and it’s high time we are heard.
