Global Diversity at the 92nd Oscars

Cover photo of the cast of “Parasite” from Wikimedia Commons. The movie won Best Picture and is the first film not in the English language to win the prestigious award. 

Vera van Nuenen
Contributing Writer

The 92nd Oscars: what a moment! 

As always, the Oscars select the most interesting and phenomenal movies of its year. This year, it was “Once upon a Time…in Hollywood,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Joker,” “Little Women” and “1917” that made major appearances. With some of the movies having more than six different nominations, they are all fantastic in many different ways. But this year, there are some new interesting things going on. 

“Parasite” (Bong Joon-ho and Han Jin-won), one of the most popular ones of the evening, won its first Oscar of the night for Original Screenplay. Then it went on to win for Best International Feature Film, Directing and Picture. It added to the diversity of Hollywood films and put South Korea on the movie industry map. 

Along with established actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Antonio Banderas and Joaquin Phoenix, newcomers such as Adam Driver, Margot Robbie and Scarlett Johansson were nominated. Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”) and Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a time…in Hollywood”) won for their supporting roles, and Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”) and Renée Zellweger (“Judy”) won for lead actor and actress, respectively. 

But the evening is not only about which actor, producer or movie wins what. It’s also recognizable for its performances during the show and the famous red carpet moments.

The opening performance by Janelle Monáe and Billy Porter set the tone for the evening because of their enthusiastic performance. Not only did they introduce the whole show, they gave awareness to black history month and, as always, Porter and Monáe struck the audience with their non-gender defining extravagant outfits. 

But this Academy Awards was all about globalization and emancipation, which was made clear in the performance of “Into the Unknown” from ‘Frozen II” by some of the different spoken language singers of the song, along with Idina Menzel – the original singer.

We saw Eminem perform his iconic song “Lose Yourself.” 

And let’s not forget Billie Eilish, one of the most popular artists of today, who struck again with a beautiful performance of a cover of “Yesterday” by The Beatles in memory of deceased members of the film industry. 

And let’s not to forget the winners of Best Documentary Feature – “American Factory” – giving a shoutout to Dayton! 

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