A fun little game I play, in a spare minute or so, is to look up who won the best film Oscar the year, say, The Empire Strikes Back was released, or Back to the Future, or Trading Places. And the answers are always illuminating, given that these three remain among the most watched and beloved movies of all time. But were they recognised as such by the Academy? Were they billy-o. Instead, the winners those years were, respectively, Ordinary People (the ultimate downer movie no one would watch today by choice), Terms of Endearment (ditto) and Out of Africa (the definition of a movie that was very much of its time), while the movies that people still actually watch today were fobbed off with technical and sound nominations.
Which brings me to Black Panther. There was something of a furore a few months ago when the Academy suggested bringing in an extra category, outstanding achievement in popular film, a clear acknowledgment that Black Panther should win best film, but won’t because, well, it’s no Ordinary People. (Although it could have been called Out of Africa, albeit this time focusing on actual black Africans instead of just white Europeans.) But people got very cross about this, and said the category was an insult to the Oscars, which are – and I quote one film commentator – “a celebration of excellence”. This person was presumably in a coma when Argo won. Anyway, the proposed new category was binned and, with it, Black Panther’s chances of going home with much more than best production design.
I’m so tired of people acting like comedies and action movies are somehow less “excellent”, or artistic, or good, than self-conscious dramas full of Serious Actors doing their Serious Acting. Who, honestly, would argue that Trading Places is less excellent than Out of Africa, for heaven’s sake? Good action movies and comedies require so much skill, far more than simply looking moodily off into the middle distance and whacking Adagio in G Minor on the soundtrack. And if there’s any film that should hammer the nail into the coffin of this pervasive nonsense, it’s Black Panther.
By anyone’s measure, Black Panther is a very good movie: gripping, smart, beautiful, fully engaged with modern issues, thrillingly zeitgeisty and with terrific performances, especially from Michael B Jordan and Letitia Wright. I am generally no fan of superhero movies, especially the way they now dominate the industry, squeezing out the mid-market. But if the Oscars are to survive at all, they need to be interesting to more people and the fact is the movies most people are currently interested in are superhero movies. Black Panther would be the perfect movie with which the Academy could acknowledge this, given that it is a superhero movie, but also Oscar-level good, a movie that’s a genuine artistic and political achievement. After all, it is that almost unknown thing, an American movie with a largely black cast that is about neither slavery nor poverty, and is celebratory rather than depressing. I am trying to think of another first American movie with an almost entirely black cast that became a global blockbuster, and all I can come up with is Coming to America, which came out 31 years ago.
I know Black Panther won’t win, you know Black Panther won’t win – even Black Panther knows it won’t win. Even its nomination feels decidedly begrudging. But dammit, it should. It says something important about 2018 and it feels properly seminal. But fine, whatever, give the Oscar to the beautiful black and white movie or the funny historical romp. Because lord knows those types of movies never win, whereas action movies celebrating black people come along every month, right?
