The Oscars!
The Shape of Water swept the 90th Academy Awards, which were held Sunday, March 4th, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The Shape of Water, about a mute cleaning woman who falls in love with a sea creature, led the pack with 13 nominations, and earned the biggest prize of the night, Best Picture.
The other big wins were Frances McDormand, for Best Actress in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Gary Oldman, for Best Actor in Darkest Hour. Jordan Peele made history, becoming the first African American to win Best Original Screenplay for Get Out.
- The Oscars are considered to be the culmination of the awards season, and like all the other shows this year, there was an intense focus on gender parity issues, sexual misconduct and politics.
- The drama got started even before the show kicked off on the red carpet. Ryan Seacrest, who is facing allegations of sexual misconduct, hosted the red carpet for E!. He has denied the allegations and both E! and ABC (where he hosts Live! with Kelly Ripa) have stood by him, though celebrities and the public (judging from Twitter) seem pretty divided on the decision.
- Host Jimmy Kimmel wasted no time poking fun at himself and PricewaterhouseCoopers for the epic Best Picture mix-up last year (when La La Land was briefly and erroneously given the award instead of the rightful winner, Moonlight). In his opening monologue, he also lampooned Hollywood for its ham-fisted approach to sexual misconduct and gender parity.
- Kimmel joked: “If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time every other place they go.”
- Despite the serious themes brought up through the evening, there was plenty of levity as well, and it did end up being as Kimmel hoped it would be in his opener, a “night for positivity.”
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