A Big Oscars Night in the #MeToo Moment

LOS ANGELES — Kobe Bryant is now an Oscar winner: “Dear Basketball,” which Bryant made with former Disney animator Glen Keane, overcame questions about Bryant’s past to win the trophy for best animated short at the 90th Academy Awards — as some members of the audience exchanged incredulous looks. #MeToo activists had said that a 2003 sexual-assault case against Bryant was reason not to reward the movie. (The case was dismissed.)

“As basketball players, we’re supposed to shut up and dribble,” Bryant said in an apparent reference to Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s recent criticism of LeBron James for speaking out against President Donald Trump. Bryant went on to thank his wife and daughters.

Disney continued its Oscars dominance, as Pixar’s “Coco” was named best animated feature, Disney’s sixth straight victory in the category. “Representation matters!” shouted its co-director, Lee Unkrich, a reference to the characters and storyline of the film, which is centered on Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration.

The first hour and a half of the Oscars ceremony honored a wide variety of films Sunday, with no contender emerging as dominant.

“Phantom Thread,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s period romance about an obsessive dressmaker, won for costume design. Best hairstyling and makeup went to the World War II drama “Darkest Hour.” The Oscar for production design was given to “The Shape of Water.”

“Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s layered war epic, collected Oscars for sound mixing, sound editing and film editing. “Blade Runner 2049” proved victorious in the visual effects category.

As expected, Allison Janney completed her awards-season winning streak, collecting the supporting actress Oscar for her performance as figure skater Tonya Harding’s hard-bitten mother from hell in “I, Tonya.”

“I did it all by myself,” Janney said, arriving at the microphone, to prolonged applause. She then added, “Nothing is further from the truth,” and ran through a list of names at light speed.

“A Fantastic Woman,” from Chile, was named best foreign film. Rita Moreno, who won a supporting actress Oscar in 1962 for “West Side Story,” presented the prize. In keeping with the telecast’s theme of looking back at celebrated performances, a clip highlighted Moreno’s performance in “West Side Story.”

In a surprise, the Oscar for best documentary went to “Icarus,” a Netflix film about systematic Russian doping at the Olympics. (Russia was banned from the recent Pyeongchang Games, though some of its athletes were still allowed to compete.) It was Netflix’s first Oscar for a feature film, having won last year’s prize for best documentary short, for “White Helmets.”

The expected winner had been “Faces Places,” a lighter, more nuanced film about Agnès Varda — known as the grandmother of the French new wave — and the environmental photographer JR. Netflix mounted a lavish campaign for “Icarus,” raising eyebrows in the rather staid documentary filmmaking community.

The first Oscars of Hollywood’s post-Harvey Weinstein era took care of its serious business first. As the 90th Academy Awards got underway on Sunday night, the host, Jimmy Kimmel, addressed the sexual harassment scandals that have rocked Hollywood in recent months.

“That’s the kind of men we need more of in this town,” Kimmel said, pointing to a colossal Oscar statue on the stage, noting that the figure “keeps his hands where you can see them” and has “no penis at all.”

He then grew serious for a moment and talked about the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements, which started in Hollywood after the revelations about Weinstein and have reverberated across the globe, challenging the entertainment industry to make good on its promise to reform itself. “The world is watching us,” he said. “We need to set an example.”

With that, the ceremony swerved into its usual piquancy, lightly teasing nominees like Meryl Streep, up for her 21st Oscar, and naming Sam Rockwell best supporting actor for his performance as a racist dimwit of a police officer in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” He thanked “everyone who’s ever looked at a billboard.”

Rarely had more pressure been placed on an Oscar telecast. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had the burden of trying to keep ratings from falling, while celebrating films that have, for the most part, not been widely seen. The ceremony was expected to acknowledge the appalling sexual harassment scandals that have engulfed Hollywood in recent months — and then go back to gazing lovingly at the history of moviemaking to mark Oscar’s 90th birthday.

Other conflicting pressures included poking fun at last year’s envelope mix-up, which found “La La Land” mistakenly named best picture instead of “Moonlight,” while taking the recognition of cinematic achievements like sound mixing and film editing supremely seriously.

The tonal tug-of-war between frothy self-celebration and serious discussion of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements made for some awkward red carpet moments. ABC veered from a raucous interview with Taraji P. Henson, who was asked about her recent action film “Proud Mary,” to Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd, both of whom came forward last year with allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein.

“I want people to know that this movement isn’t stopping,” Sorvino said about Time’s Up, an initiative started by Hollywood women and focused on fighting systemic sexual harassment across industries. Judd, who was scheduled to present an award during the ceremony, said she was grateful that women who speak out about mistreatment are no longer being “disbelieved, minimized, shamed.”

Several women deeply involved with Time’s Up, including Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rhimes, explained why there were no overt displays from the group on the red carpet.

“We are not an awards show protest group,” DuVernay said at a meeting with a small group of reporters last week. “We made a conscious choice not to do that again.”

Viewers wondered if a celebrity would turn the questions around on Ryan Seacrest, the host of E!'s red carpet coverage. He has been accused of sexual harassment, claims he and his network, backed by a third-party investigation, have vigorously denied. But no such confrontation was broadcast — though Henson did fix him with a pointed stare that was widely interpreted as such — and he did not address the accusations. His interviews with celebrities stuck to the typical fare of fashion and film. An article in The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday said the E! broadcast would run on a 30-second tape delay.

In the two months since Time’s Up officially began, the group has amassed $21 million for its legal defense fund and, said Tina Tchen, a lawyer heading that initiative, has fielded 1,700 requests for assistance from landscapers, government workers, police officers, prison guards, and hotel and catering workers. (Some 1,250 have been connected with lawyers.) A sister initiative has sprung up in Britain; a group of male allies has formed; a partnership with StoryCorps, the story-collecting organization, has been forged; and the process of making the group a nonprofit foundation has begun. “We are global at this point,” Rhimes said.

Still, at least one “moment,” they said, has been planned for the show. This possibly might involve three Harvey Weinstein accusers: Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek, who were all scheduled to be presenters.

In another example of the #MeToo effect, Casey Affleck, last year’s best actor winner, will be notably absent from the proceedings. He backed out after the clamor about two sexual harassment claims he had settled years ago grew too loud: Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster were reportedly going to present the best actress Oscar in his stead.

Last year’s show ran 3 hours, 49 minutes, with the most dramatic moment coming right at the end, when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty mistakenly presented the best-picture trophy to “La La Land” instead of “Moonlight” after a PwC accountant handed them the wrong envelope. Dunaway and Beatty are scheduled to return to present the best picture Oscar. Not returning: Brian Cullinan and Martha L. Ruiz, the PwC accountants responsible for last year’s bungle.

Academy insiders believe that aggressive efforts to diversify the organization’s overwhelmingly white and male membership are starting to have an impact on its signature awards. For the first time in 90 years, a woman, Rachel Morrison, was nominated for best cinematographer. She was singled out for her work on “Mudbound,” which was directed by and written with Dee Rees. Rees received a nomination for best adapted screenplay (written with Virgil Williams), making her the first black woman ever recognized in that category.

Frances McDormand was favored to win her second Academy Award for best actress, having been honored in 1996 for her you-betcha performance in “Fargo.” She was nominated this time for playing an extremely fed-up mother in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Janney, as expected, received the supporting actress Oscar.

Gary Oldman, who transformed himself into a gurgly Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour,” was the favorite to win best actor. The Hollywood establishment would have been shocked if anyone other than Rockwell had collected the supporting actor Oscar.

Best director appears to be another fait accompli. Guillermo del Toro was expected to receive that honor for “The Shape of Water,” which stars Sally Hawkins as a mute cleaning lady who falls for a merman held captive in a government lab. Del Toro, who was omnipresent at get-out-the-vote events in recent months, has already collected the best director prizes at the Golden Globes, the Directors Guild of America Awards and other predictive pre-Oscar ceremonies.

The best picture race has been unusually competitive, with no consensus among movie insiders about which film is the favorite. “The Shape of Water” has won precursor contests that often result in Oscar gold, including the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards.

But del Toro’s film, which has the most nominations (13) of any contender, became enmeshed in a copyright infringement lawsuit during voting, and it failed to receive a nod for best ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. No film since “Braveheart” (1995) has been named best picture without a SAG ensemble nomination.

That makes the winner of this year’s SAG ensemble award, “Three Billboards,” a candidate to win the best picture trophy. “Three Billboards,” directed by Martin McDonagh, also was the biggest winner at the BAFTAs, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

A third possibility is that “Get Out,” Jordan Peele’s satirical take on racism in the liberal white suburbs, could come from behind to win. That would be quite a feat since few horror movies have ever achieved best-picture status. (One exception: “The Silence of the Lambs,” which won in 1992.) “Get Out,” with four total nominations, also has another bit of history working against it: Oscar historians say no film has won best picture with fewer than five nods since “Cavalcade” in 1933.