I feel like every year the Oscars has a new controversy – usually justified. And this year is no different between a very longgggg show without any film clips to strange music trivia to the Anthony Hopkins upset for Best Actor (which many believed should have been awarded to the late Chadwick Boseman). Not to mention the very strange camera angles and cinematography that caused all the guests to constantly crane their necks to see the presenters giving out awards.
And while this was all strange, what I want to talk about is something Indiewire reported on from the Oscars: Oscars Rejecting Anthony Hopkins’ Zoom Was a Slap in the Face to This Viewer with Chronic Illness. The article describes how Anthony Hopkins’ team had pleaded with the Academy to give an acceptance speech over Zoom, but they did not allow him to do this. They didn’t want to have the weird framing and clips, and the low quality of the Zoom portal. While this is understandable, it meant the last award of the night was “given” without any acceptance speeches and abruptly ended the show.
Aside from the strange optics, what the Indiewire article pointed out that really hit the nail on the head for me is “They chose exclusion over compromise, and in the process reinforced Hollywood’s shameful tendency to treat accessibility as more trouble than it’s worth.” Anthony Hopkins is a 83-YEAR OLD actor who didn’t want to travel across the world in a global pandemic. And rather than make accommodations to account for the health risks they wanted him to take, they just excluded him from the awards show altogether.
Hollywood has deep ageism and ableism running through it’s veins, and this is yet another classic example of this. Everyone is tired of Zoom in this pandemic, but rather than acknowledge that this is a reality of our times, the Oscars turned their back on this accommodation at all. And if the great Anthony Hopkins can’t get the Academy consider his health, then there’s no way that anyone else can have that conversation either.
While I’ve seen strides in the last few years in the industry around creating opportunities for all genders, races, and sexual orientations, I have yet to see a space for the differently-abled community. With 1 in 4 Americans living with a disability, why isn’t Hollywood making greater strides for this huge group of people?
