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As I have written before, it is demonstrably silly to think that someone who is attracted more to a movie with which he or she personally identifies is somehow prejudiced or bigoted against another group. Teenage girls are drawn to movies about teenage girls, and old white guys to movies about them, just as gay men enjoy watching movies with a gay theme. To reduce these people into thoughtless buffoons simply because their choices do not reflect some sort of diversity that pleases our own aesthetic or politics, is not very thoughtful.

To be sure, it is the case that diversity of thought should be encouraged. If the Academy simply becomes a self-congratulatory machine, they will become irrelevant, as I wrote, simply because they will not speak to anyone of any race or gender or color or profession or walk of life or occupation or religion or national origin or socioeconomic status, other than their own.

What the Academy did with the Moonlight win was something genuinely impressive. They were willing and able to look beyond themselves and reward stories that were not about them. How often do most of us do that in real life, I wonder? Not me, certainly, who identified very little with the story of Moonlight (despite having similar experiences as a gay man). My favorite movie of the year was Arrival, it is the one that spoke most to me on a personal level.

The Academy did this while still responding to their base demographic - the two Oscar wins for Manchester by the Sea and Hacksaw Ridge show as much. But that they were finally willing to look past each other for the end result while still having a pull to the familiar is even more impressive.

It will take us a while to know what exactly this turn outward means to the future. Surely, it was helped and pushed ahead by the Academy’s effort to speed up the diversification process - the one good thing that came out of #OscarsSoWhite - which netted in particular many international and younger people. That the Moonlight win was more than a fluke can be seen in other bolder, unconventional choices like giving Makeup to a non-prestigious movie in Suicide Squad.

In reality, the Academy had been well on a road to modernity for a while. Despite being about themselves, the choice of Birdman, for example, was pretty impressive in its narrative and unsatisfying ending style. And the large Oscar hauls for sci-fi movies like Gravity and Mad Max show that they are adapting. Moonlight’s win was the culmination - a historical, grand coronation - that will be celebrated by all those who love to see different types of stories told and celebrated each year, not because they check off facile boxes of race or sexual orientation, but simply because they open our collective eyes to stories we had never experienced in our own skin. Isn't that the whole point of the movies???

In other words, the failing of #OscarsSoWhite is that it seems to actually elevate race over substance. Diversity matters because telling different stories is more fun, and it helps us learn more, and advance common truths more. That is what the Academy is actually doing, and it is pretty remarkable to watch.

Predictions Peril?

So does this mean that the Prognosticator is in peril? That we won’t be able to call races quite as accurately with new members? Not quite.

I did do laughably bad in my predictions this year, but if you count my second place votes, I actually got 21 correct (missing on Best Picture, however!). Obviously my actual score was embarrassingly low, but that most categories can be predicted in second or so place tells us that we still have a pretty good understanding of the game. There were no surprises in any major acting, writing, or feature film category, except of course the monster one at the end.

So, I will not hang my hat up just yet.

Thanks for reading us this year! Before you know it, the Fall Film Festivals will be upon us, and we will do the whole horrid exercise all over again.

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