In 2005, Crash was widely celebrated by the Academy. The film earned a total of six nominations and three Oscars, including Best Picture. However, the win in 2005 was overshadowed by a major scandal: The cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain was nominated for an Oscar in the same year, and many assumed that the Academy did not want to give an Oscar to a queer film at the time.
Crash has been described by some critics as the worst film of the decade, and director Paul Haggis himself also felt the film was not worthy of an Oscar. Various plot strands, which are presented Love Actually style, each stand for a political theme and are all unoriginal and stereotypically realized. The drama has also been criticized for its stereotypical portrayal of racism and racist themes as well as its under-complex portrayal of multicultural relationships.
Oscars 2013: Dallas Buyers Club
DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, from left: Jared Leto, Matthew McConaughey, 2013. ph: Anne Marie Fox/©Focus Features/courtesy Everett Collection©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection
In 2013, the two leading actors of Dallas Buyers Club, Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey, were celebrated for their physical transformation for the film. Both starved themselves down to a few pounds to play people with AIDS, and Jared Leto also played a trans woman. Why producers didn’t cast an actual trans woman as the character was the subject of much debate then and now.
In the drama, Ron (Matthew McConaughey) sells unauthorized drugs to HIV/AIDS patients due to his own illness. One of those patients is Rayon, who holds up a mirror to the homophobic Ron. Unfortunately, this is her only role in the movie: She is supposed to make him a better person and stand as a negative example of how to deal with an AIDS diagnosis. Ron changes his way of life and survives, while Rayon continues to work as a prostitute and dies at the end. On top of all that, she’s addressed with male pronouns throughout the film. Good representation for trans people looks different than this, simply put.
Oscars 2019: Green Book
GREEN BOOK, from left: Mahershala Ali, Viggo Mortensen, 2018. Patti Perret/ © Universal /Courtesy Everett CollectionPhoto Credit: Patti Perret
