What Mattered at the Oscars? (Hint: Not EnvelopeGate)

Awards shows are generally free-wheeling vehicles for fantasy fashion, edgy monologues, and tear-jerking "In Memoria." The 89th Academy Awards, held Sunday in Los Angeles – the first Oscars ceremony held during the administration of President Donald Trump – promised to be all that, and more, particularly following on the heels of the Grammys, which dripped with political commentary.

The old saying about certain has-been celebrities showing up to the opening of an envelope was revisited when the awards themselves were upstaged by the opening of the *wrong *envelope. The resulting distraction aside, however, it’s clear that the Oscars didn’t quite hit the level of political discourse at the Grammys -- but there were moments during the show that referenced the president, some of his behaviors and his policies. Here are some of the highlights:

Trump’s penchant for Twitter, starring Jimmy Kimmel
Host Jimmy Kimmel, whose eponymous late-night show often features celebrities reading "Mean Tweets" about themselves, took the opportunity to poke fun at Trump’s love of Twitter as a platform by tweeting the president from the stage, quipping that it seemed odd that the show had gone on for nearly two hours with no commentary from Trump. The audience laughed at the gag, particularly when Kimmel followed up on an initial tweet with #Merylsayshi, referencing Trump’s criticism of actress Meryl Streep’s criticism of him while accepting a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Golden Globes.

A nod to transgender rights, starring Barry Jenkins and Tarrell Alvin McCraney

In accepting the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, the two writers of eventual Best Picture winner Moonlight dedicated their award to youths of color, and Jenkins, who also directed the movie, seemed to directly speak to the president’s recent rescinding of former President Barack Obama’s guidelines that aided transgender students in the use of appropriate bathroom facilities. Said Jenkins:

"But I really wanted this result because a bajillion people are watching, and all you people out there who feel like there's no mirror for you, that your life isn't reflected, the academy has your back, the ACLU has your back, we have your back. And for the next four years, we will not forget you."

Protest of Trump administration’s travel ban, starring Asghar Farhadi
The award for Best Foreign Language Film generally goes unremarked unless it has achieved mainstream popularity and success (the 2000 awardee Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon *may be the most recent example of this). This may have held true for this year’s winner, *The Salesman, *an Iranian interpretation of the Arthur Miller classic *Death of a Salesman – but for Trump’s recently suspended travel ban. Asghar Farhadi, director of The Salesman, boycotted the ceremony in protest of the executive order that blocked travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Anousheh Ansari, an engineer, and the first Iranian in space, accepted the award on behalf of her fellow countryman, reading a statement from Farhadi that read in part:

"Dividing the world into the us and our enemies categories creates fear. A deceitful justification for aggression and war. These wars prevent democracy and human rights in countries which have themselves been victims of aggression. Filmmakers can turn their cameras to capture shared human qualities and break stereotypes of various nationalities and religions. They create empathy between us and others. An empathy which we need today more than ever."

Blasting the need for a border wall, starring Gael García Bernal
Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and have the Mexican government pay for it has been shunted aside somewhat by more immediate actions such as the now-defunct travel ban and the president’s Cabinet appointments.

But Gael García Bernal, a noted Mexican actor who has earned critical acclaim for his role on Amazon Studio’s Mozart in the Jungle, took the time to bring the wall question back into the spotlight.

Appearing with actress Hailee Steinfeld to present the award for the year’s best animated film, García Bernal was blunt in his disapproval of the idea, stating, "A lot of actors are migrant workers. We travel all over the world, we construct stories, we build life but cannot be divided. As a Mexican, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I'm against any form of wall that separates us."

And after his statement, García Bernal and Steinfeld announced that the winner of Best Animated Feature was *Zootopia, *a film widely praised for its message about diversity, tolerance, and people of different backgrounds living together in harmony.

-- Erin Wright

(Photo Credit: Global Panorama via Flickr/Creative Commons)