The Oscars, Green Book, and Race

I'll be honest.

I didn't expect Black Panther to win Best Picture. It's a really good movie, but it's not literary enough to please the Academy.

But there was a good slate of nominees this year. Now, to be fair, I only watched Black Panther. As usual, the Oscars rewarded movies in genres and styles I don't much like.

The full slate:

Bohemian Rhapsody - reasonably decent, but not fantastic biopic about Freddie Mercury.

The Favourite - period piece lesbians

Black Panther

BlacKkKlansman - a movie about a black guy and a Jew working together to infiltrate the KKK, which I'm told was quite excellent.

A Star Is Born - a musical that while it isn't queer, starred Lady Gaga, which automatically makes it queer. Sorry, but it does.

Vice - a biopic about Dick Cheney.

Roma - a Spanish language movie (it won Best Foreign Language Film) that, I am told, deftly handled issues of race and class in Mexico and hired an indigenous unknown to play an indigenous character, which gives it massive points.

and finally.

Green Book - a story about the travels of a famous black pianist and his chauffeur.

You have probably already heard the howls of anguish when Green Book won.

I have a good number of black friends, acquaintances, and professional contacts. Only one of them liked Green Book, and he's very religious and highly conservative and tends to deny we still have racism issues.

Because...and the quick explanation.

Green Book is about pianist Don Shirley. But Mahershala Ali, who played Shirley, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Green Book is a "black" movie that's really about the black character's white friend.

It's 2019. We should be past that. Inspired by a true story and written by the driver's son, it is entirely about the driver "getting over racism" while Shirley "learns about southern black culture." Yes, there are fried chicken jokes.

The movie is purely performative white back slapping about how we were so bad back then, but look! We can learn! All we need is a black friend.

Yeah.

This movie has black friends. And it won. Over two stories that put black voices truly front and center and one which dealt with other race issues well.

It made the entire awards show become a symbol of how race and racial issues are currently viewed in America. By white people.

I'm not knocking the achievements of any of the award winners, but by choosing Green Book as best picture, the Academy made the achievements of Ruth E Carter (first African American to win Best Costume Design) feel almost like a sop. Something given to the black people to keep them in their place and shut them up.

It's 2019. We need to stop even making movies that use black friends as props for white achievement, let alone awarding them.

(They did, however, recognize the animation genius of Into The Spider-Verse).