Phelim McAleer: Oscars dial down politics as Hollywood wants audiences back
The 98th Oscars on Sunday night ran for three and a half hours and, by the dismal standards of recent years, was strikingly restrained.
The usual political lectures were few and far between. One name in particular was never mentioned onstage: Donald Trump. There was also remarkably little dwelling on Israel or the ongoing conflict involving Iran. America is at war, yet Hollywood, for a change, stayed focused on who was winning what award.
The most memorable speech of the night came from Ireland’s Jessie Buckley. The Kerry-born actress, winning best actress for ‘Hamnet’, delivered what was arguably the evening’s most quietly political moment by not being overtly political at all.
Fighting back tears, she spoke movingly about her eight-month-old daughter Isla and her husband, declaring she wanted “20,000 more babies” with him if she could.
She dedicated the award to “the beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart”. In an industry that has for years pushed the message that career and self-fulfilment come first and that women should “shout their abortion,” Buckley’s unapologetic celebration of babies and family felt like a quiet act of defiance. It landed because it was human, not hectoring.
This political restraint by her fellow nominees did not happen by accident. Hollywood is scared – and with good reason. Many in the industry remain viscerally terrified of Trump and his administration, especially his willingness to cut funds that were previously handed out to boost the film industry and the arts. Trump has decided there is no upside in subsidising attacks on him and his policies.
Hollywood’s actors are also waking up to an uncomfortable truth: large parts of their potential audience either voted for Trump or are thoroughly sick of being lectured by multi-millionaire celebrities who clearly despise half their countrymen. The public has made its feelings plain at the ballot box and at the box office. Celebrity moralising has become toxic.
The age of the movie star is over. The biggest celebrity on the planet right now is Donald Trump. Traditional Hollywood figures have seen their cultural power eclipsed.
When every awards show, red carpet interview, and press junket becomes a platform for adopting the latest fashionable (and normally crazy) political opinion – on everything from climate to gender to Israel – it is little wonder that audiences switch off. Americans have grown tired of being preached at by people who live in mansions in the Hollywood Hills while telling the rest of us how to live.
Hollywood is finally learning that lesson.
The numbers tell the story – and they are brutal. Several high-profile Best Picture nominees cratered at the box office. ‘Hamnet’, despite critical praise and Buckley’s win, earned just $15 million domestically.
‘Bugonia’ scraped together only $18 million in the US, ‘Sentimental Value’ and ‘The Secret Agent’, both laden with social messaging, limped to under $10 million each domestically. These were not low-budget indies – they were the Academy’s chosen darlings, and audiences simply stayed away.
The American box office is in a historic slump that some insiders fear could be existential. Studios have spent years prioritising political messaging over compelling storytelling, and the public has voted with its wallet. Films that once would have been sure-fire hits are now flops because they smell too much of the lecture hall.
That is why, this year, the stars largely shut up. They are belatedly trying to win back an audience they have spent decades alienating.
The problem is, after so long focusing on diatribes rather than drama, many seem to have forgotten how to tell proper stories. The muscle memory for genuine narrative has atrophied.
Hollywood may be learning the hard way that its survival depends on entertaining the public rather than insulting it. Sunday night’s Oscars offered a glimmer of hope that Hollywood is listening.
Movies need less politics, more pictures and more Buckley, less barking. If the industry can stick to this new humility, it might just save itself. If not, the slump will deepen – and deservedly so.
l Phelim McAleer is a Co Tyrone born producer/journalist living in Los Angeles. @PhelimMcAleer