LOS ANGELES, CA - Local barista, Kyle Rivers grew more and more concerned as the host-less Oscars ceremony played out in front of him and his group of friends who were all scoring better than he was on their Oscar prediction pools, despite Kyle having the seeming advantage of having a quarter of a million dollar film degree from the New York Film Academy.
His studious efforts seemed to be in vain early on in the evening when he thought his sure bet of Marina de Tavira from Roma would be an early win. His bets against technical awards for the blockbuster hit Black Panther were also misaligned and led him to being in last place when the Best Supporting Actor went to Mahershala Ali and not Sam Elliot for the star studded, A Star is Born.
His further predictions about Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay also fell flat as it begun to dwell on him that his life up until that point may have all been wasted. The hours meticulously watching each nominated film and critiquing each performance was all in vain, and the crippling student debt he racked up was all for nothing.
It wasn't until the best Director and Best Picture announcements were made that Rivers realized he hadn't come up with a single correct prediction the entire evening and began to cope with the knowledge that his friends who had all fared better in the pool would never ever let him forget his shortcomings. He reportedly ended the evening wondering which would come first, paying off his student loans or living down the epic failure of the Oscars watch party.
HOLLYWOOD, CA - Director, actor, writer, comedian and now Oscar winner Jordan Peele left Sunday's Academy Awards Ceremony with an Oscar statuette for his movie Get Out which won Best Original Screenplay. And he owes it all to racism.
Without the tensions high in America right now, and for the last several hundred years, this movie's impact would have never resonated with an audience. Without racism, it's just another horror movie with not enough jump scares. Thankfully, for Peele, America is a deeply divided country and racism is in nearly every nook and cranny of the greatest country of all time.
This wave of bigotry and hate was why Jordan Peele was able to connect with so many Americans, especially the overwhelmingly white majority of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scientists who felt really, really guilty after watching the movie. Some will argue that racism only played a small part in the success of Mr. Peele's film and credit is due to him for his amazing screenplay and final cut of the movie. It's just hard to ignore the fact that there is at least one black man that is surely thankful for a deeply divided and hatefully racist America.
