When awards season rolls around, the same online discourse gets recycled year after year.
Should celebrities speak about politics? When celebrities like Billie Eilish and Finneas get on stage to talk about stolen land, is it using their platform for the betterment of the world or is it a tone-deaf approach towards people who actually have to face the consequences of this harsh reality?
The answer is more difficult than the takes we might see on social media would suggest.
Two things can be true at once. It might be irritating to see celebrities get on stage to share sentiments and truths about the world that money might prevent them from truly understanding.
However, all artists engage with politics in some way. It’s important to know this and expect voices to emerge when given a platform at awards shows.
During the Oscars, a few things happened. Jimmy Kimmel went on stage and made a joke about CBS and the spinelessness of media corporations, something that affected him personally. The winners for “Best Documentary” went on stage and compared the realities of what is happening in Russia to what is happening in the United States.
Sometimes, looking at Hollywood celebrities on our screens talking about politics feels dystopian, but it would be even more dystopian if they didn’t say anything at all.
This is because all art is political. It’s always sending a social and cultural message.
Take “Sinners,” for example. The film takes place in the 1920s, but it draws on themes we can see emulated in our present reality such as racism, an immigrant diaspora and social hierarchies.
You can watch movies like “Sinners” and documentaries like “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” without a political lens, but to do that is to refuse to genuinely engage with the media the way the cast and crew intended you to. You would be doing a disservice to yourself and the films’ creators.
Now take that understanding and apply it to awards shows. A room full of artists making work that is inherently political calls for those same artists to use a world stage to share the same messages inherent in their work.
If you don’t think politics has a place in art, you’re mistaken. Although it might be hard to digest, each piece of media you enjoy is saying something necessary about the times we’re in.
