This past Sunday, all eyes were turned toward Hollywood’s biggest night, the 88 annual Academy Awards. It was a night filled with laughter, love, and plenty of satirical language from comedian host Chris Rock.
Many were curious to see how Rock would address the biggest controversy of the award show this year: lack of diversity. Not one person of color received an acting nomination for the second year in a row, and no African American was nominated for an award all together. Because of this realization, many decided to boycott the Oscars. Celebrities spoke about their outrage and the hashtag #Oscarssowhite trended across social media for weeks.
But Rock handled this scandal in the way that any comedian would- with a joke. He addressed the racial issued with comments like, “This year, in the In Memoriam package, it’s just going to be black people that were shot by the cops on the way to the movies” and “We were too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer in the 1960s.”
Once the award show officially kicked off, it became clear which movie was the evident winner of the night, Mad Max: Fury Road. The film took home six Oscars in total, for the following categories: Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Editing, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.
Rock then won back some goodwill by bringing out Girl Scouts to sell cookies to the assembled celebrities and moguls. He later revealed that the scouts had earned a total of $65,243 from cookie sales to the attendees.
Of the musicians of the night, Oscar-nominated artists The Weeknd, Sam Smith, and Lady Gaga all took the stage to perform their hit songs. In the end, it was announced that Sam Smith had won his first Oscar for “The Writing’s on the Wall”- his hit song for the recent James Bond film.
For the four most prized categories of the night, the Oscars went to Alicia Vikander for Best Supporting Actress for her work in “The Danish Girl” and Mark Rylance for Best Supporting Actor for “Bridge of Spies”.
The award for Best Actress went to Brie Larson for “The Room” and Best Actor went to everyone’s favorite- Leonardo DiCaprio for ‘The Revenant”.
This was DiCaprio’s first win from six previous nominations. He received his first nomination in 1994 for his role in “What’s eating Gilbert Grape?”. His win sparked a buzz from many, with over 400,000 mentions on Twitter. Stars like Adele and Kanye West all showed their love to DiCaprio across various social media.
The award for Best Director went to Alejandro G. Iñarritu for his work on “The Revenant”. This win marked his second consecutive win in the Best Director category, previously winning for “Birdman”.
The most coveted award of the night- Best Picture- went to “Spotlight”. This was a shock amongst many as “The Revenant” and “Mad Max: Fury Road” were big contenders for this category.
Rock ended the night by inviting the entire room to the BET Awards this summer and then said “Black Lives Matter” and the show was done.
It was a celebratory night for many and a tragic end to all of the Oscarless Leonardo DiCaprio jokes 1994-2016.
