When I found out that Jordan Peele had lost the 2018 Academy Award for Best Director to Guillermo del Toro, the first thought to spring to mind was that the distinction of "first black director ever to win an Oscar" was still very much up for grabs, which I jokingly put up on Facebook. I initially contemplated putting up a hashtag for Black Panther, but that seemed a little too fanboyish of me, so I thought better of it.
Then, this morning, I read that the ratings of this year's Oscar program were particularly low, to the extent that Donald Trump made one of his typically infantile tweets poking fun at Hollywood because of it (only to get Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel to point out that Trump is the most reviled president in U.S. history). It hit me pretty quickly: next year's Oscars could use a shot in the arm, and what better way to get it than from a worldwide conversation starter, particularly one that tackles issues of race from a perspective other than the whole "white man's guilt" dynamic? They already took a significant step in that direction by nominating Peele's surprise hit Get Out for Best Picture, even though they eventually wimped out of handing it the big prize.
As big as Black Panther is, the jury is still out, given how early it is in the year, on what kind of pull it can have on awards-giving bodies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences most of all. It's more than just another blockbuster, though; as has been noted by many others, it's a cultural phenomenon.
But really, does being a movie du jour immediately make one Oscar-worthy? It didn't do anything for Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, after all, or Joss Whedon's The Avengers, or, for that matter, any other movie based on a comic book, including the movie that arguably got the Academy to expand the field of Best Picture nominees to as many as ten, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. That's a glass ceiling comic-book movies have yet to shatter. As a fan of the genre, and of Black Panther, I'd have to recuse myself from answering the question of what makes a movie "Oscar-worthy" as I am hopelessly biased.
I would, however, like to invite attention to some of the Academy's choices for Best Picture. Titanic was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet,Shakespeare in Love was a gender-bending romantic comedy, Gladiator was basically a revenge movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was an unabashed, unapologetic good-triumphs-over-evil fantasy, and Argo was a spy thriller that leaned pretty heavily on some racial caricatures and some pretty outrageous script contrivances towards its climax to generate tension. In short, anyone who thinks that Academy Awards are reserved only for barely-seen, profound reflections on the human condition would be wrong. If a movie hits the right buttons, the Academy can fall in love with popcorn flicks just as much as the next Joe Average does.
Black Panther has so much going for it other than having captured the zeitgeist, though. It boasts stunning work by history-making, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, gorgeous costumes by two-time Oscar nominee Ruth Carter, and prominent, if not quite ostentatious performances by Oscar winners Lupita Nyong'o and Forest Whitaker, as well as by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett. (Then again, Ben Kingsley was in Iron Man 3 and Anthony Hopkins was in Thor: The Dark World, so make of that what you will). And then, of course, there are the glowing reviews. In short, the Academy wouldn't have to rationalize nominating (or heck, even awarding) this movie, as it already ticks so many of their boxes, even on a superficial level. They'd just have to get over their allergy to comic-book adaptations, though they already took a step in that direction as well when they nominated the Wolverine sequel Logan for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Will the Academy nominate Black Panther for Best Picture and a bunch of other Oscars? Time will tell, and if history is any indication, probably not, but personally, I think they'd be fools not to do so, and they can almost certainly look forward to another dip in viewership ratings if they just trot out another passel of little-seen art flicks.
Oh, and he could have just been speaking tongue-in-cheek, but apparently Christopher Nolan feels the same way.
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