The Oscars are [not] here.
A Conversation with Margot Harrison
The vacant skeleton of the Roxy cinema sits dormant on the corner of S. Winooski and College St. Its windows, dark and clouded in dust. The now closed art-house cinema was a beacon for the exhibition of independent film in Vermont.
With the closing of the Roxy, Vermonters’ access to indie film has significantly shrunk. “I mean, it’s just Majestic [now],” says Margot Harrison, a film and literary writer formerly with Seven Days, in reference to the more commercial theater in Williston, “and it’s just not showing a lot of indie films”. The Roxy was one of the only theaters to show independent films, documentaries, or short films that were being recognized by the Oscars.
I recently sat down with Margot to talk about the Oscars and the reactions to the nominations from this year. She displayed indifference saying, “I’ve gotten disillusioned with the Oscars…I just can see that I have different priorities from the Oscar voters.” Margot shares a similar sentiment to a lot of voices online of being disillusioned or disconnected to the awards show. Viewership of the ceremony has dropped drastically in the last couple years.
“A lot of indie films obviously are not on there. Like, I Saw the TV Glow, like Janet Planet, The People’s Joker,” Margot emphasizes that there are a lot of really great films that aren’t getting much attention every year by awards shows and, in turn, general audiences. “People just aren’t watching them because they don’t know that they exist.”
Much of what’s being written about the Oscars this year has been localized around the controversies plaguing a few Best Picture nominees. The use of artificial intelligence is a point of contention, as Emilia Perez and The Brutalist have confirmed the use of generative AI in their post-production. Inclusion of AI in any form of art has been worrisome to many artists, fearing for their jobs. Themes explored in The Brutalist “had interesting things to say about the relationships between capitalism and art”, the perspective of a refugee architectural artist butting heads with corporate America.
The Brutalist has 10 nominations this year, just second to Emilia Perez with 13. The late release date of The Brutalist made it difficult for some to see. Margot tells me, “it only came to Burlington a week ago,” by the time she had seen the 3 and a half hour epic, she had already voted in her own critics awards.
Emilia Perez has been facing backlash from Mexican and transgender communities, both saying the film was an inaccurate representation of their cultures. In her review of the film, tied in with a review of Spencer director Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Margot’s opinion on the film was fairly neutral. When I asked her which nominations the film did deserve; she said she appreciated the actors’ performances, but “it just didn’t feel like it was there in the writing.” In a now infamous viral musical number from the film, the lyrics read:
Zoe Saldana: Hello, very nice to meet you… I’d like to know about sex change operations…
Doctor: I see, I see, I see… Man to woman or woman to man?
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Zoe Saldana: Man to woman,
Doctor: From penis to vagina.
In this scene, Zoe Saldana’s character researches a cosmetic surgeon to perform gender-reassignment surgery. The delivery of the lyrics have led many to parody the musical number as well as the film as a whole. Audiences and critics alike have both voiced similar neutral or negative opinions on the film.
Despite the debates on the best of the Oscar nominees, “It has nothing to do with what we think is a good movie,” Margot says, referring to how the Oscars choose their nominees. The idea of what is a good film is subjective, as is all art.
The Oscars are used to leaving out or “snubbing” movies, even if they are popular. For example, leaving out Challengers for the Best Original Score category. The soundtrack was produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails and went viral early in the summer. This can be seen from the usual lack of representation of the horror genre. In an argument by Zach Schonfeld for the New York Times, he argues that recently, the horror films being awarded at the Oscars are films with “a pointed social message, an obvious allegorical lesson, [or] an actor’s overdue comeback narrative.” Examples of this kind of storytelling can be seen in recent wins by Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Fraiser and the push for Demi Moore for best actress at the upcoming Oscars for her performance in the extreme body-horror satire, The Substance.
“It would be nice to be able to recognize newcomers,” Margot says, when asked if she had any changes for the Oscars. She expresses love for Filmmakers like TV Glow’s Jane Schoenbrun, who collected a ton of social media buzz around her debut gender horror film. “But they’re not going to get an Oscar because they haven’t ‘paid their dues’ yet.” referring to how the ceremony gives out ‘legacy’ awards, to award the entire career of the winner, not the performance they win for.
Margot left with hope that, “People will look beyond [The Oscars], I mean, the Oscars are very easy to get obsessed with… I hope people will get beyond that and check out other movies that weren’t nominated at all.”
A brief list of acclaimed movies not nominated for the 97th Oscars:
