Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Universal / A24 / Searchlight Pictures
The Academy Awards are known for several things. (Glamour! Speeches! Scandal!) But if “What are the Academy Awards known for?” had been a Family Feud survey prompt, there’s one thing that certainly would not make the board: getting it right.
In the nine decades that the Oscars have been around, who didn’t win has become the subject of more conversations than who did. And with the industry discourse as spicy as ever this year, we’d be willing to bet on outrage over the voting results being the most common reaction to Sunday night’s telecast on ABC. Everyone has an opinion about which films deserve to win, and everyone gets irrationally angry when they don’t.
Already, there has been controversy over the Best Actress category, in which dark-horse nominee Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie) incited an official investigation into whether campaign rules were broken to secure her nomination. Meanwhile, the fact that presumed sure-thing contenders Viola Davis (The Woman King) and Danielle Deadwyler (Till) were snubbed continued the conversation about systemic, institutionalized racism and the lack of opportunity for people of color in the organization.