Oscars 2018: A guide to the backlashes facing the Best Picture nominees

From racists against ‘Get Out’ to conservatives against ‘Call Me By Your Name’

From #OscarsSoWhite to Donald Duck’s tenure as host, almost every Oscars ceremony has proven controversial to some capacity. This year will not be any different: there have already been backlashes against the majority of Best Picture nominees, including people calling Three Billboards sympathetic towards racists and racists calling Get Out racist. Keeping up with what people are infuriated with has proven difficult.

As a result, we’ve decided to briefly look at the various backlashes facing this year’s competitors, ranging from the completely justified to the somewhat ridiculous.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Perhaps the best known backlash, many people have taken issue with Sam Rockwell’s racist, moronic police officer. Some commentators feel the character’s apparent redemptive arch seems sympathetic towards someone who acknowledges torturing a black man and often dances around the N-word. Three Billboards also concentrates on the white perspective, rather than offering that of a person of colour.

April Wolfe writes for the Village Voice: “[Director Martin] McDonagh painstakingly humanises a character who we find has unapologetically tortured a black man in police custody... and then Three Billboards seems to ask audiences to forgive and forget wrongs like police violence, domestic abuse, and sexual assault without demonstrating a full understanding of the centuries-long toll these crimes have taken on victims in real life.”

The backlash against the Golden Globe-winning movie has gotten so great that McDonagh has responded, arguing that the character does not redeem himself. “He starts off as a racist jerk,” the director said. “He’s the same pretty much at the end, but, by the end, he’s seen that he has to change. There is room for it, and he has, to a degree, seen the error of his ways, but in no way is he supposed to become some sort of redeemed hero of the piece”. McDonagh added that the story arch is deliberately messy “because it’s a messy and difficult world.”

The Shape of Water

With 13 nominations over various categories, The Shape of Water has become a favourite to win the ceremony’s biggest prize. However, there’s been some controversy in recent months after Guillermo del Toro was accused of plagiarising the story from a famed American author.

David Zindel — son of Paul Zindel — claims the story copies from his father’s Let Me Hear You Whisper, a play concerning a female janitor who falls in love with a captured dolphin. She eventually attempts to save the creature, who researchers keep in a laboratory. “We are shocked that a major studio could make a film so obviously derived from my late father’s work without anyone recognising it and coming to us for the rights,” the statement reads.

The Shape of Water follows a mute woman — played by Sally Hawkins — who attempts to save a monstrous, sea-dwelling creature from a laboratory after they fall in love. Del Toro previously said the idea originated partly from a conversation with novelist Daniel Kraus, while Fox has denied the allegations arguing that the director/screenwriter has “always been very open about acknowledging his influences” but has not seen Zindel’s play. The Shape of Water remains one of the frontrunners for Original Screenplay.

Darkest Hour

There’s no doubt the growing #MeToo and Time’s Up movements will have some part to play this Oscars ceremony. Following a Golden Globes win, allegations made against Gary Oldman by ex-wife Donya Fiorentino were once again published by various outlets. Although the actor was never found guilty and continues to deny the allegations, Fiorentino has recently spoken to publications about their marriage. It remains to be seen whether the accusations will stop Oldman from taking home the Oscar for Best Actor — for which he remains frontrunner — or the movie from taking home Best Picture.

There’s also been some backlash against a certain scene in Darkest Hour concerning a tube ride. Director Joe Wright has defended the sequence as “a fictionalisation of an emotional truth”, but many people detest the moment and its historical inaccuracies. “Is it right to be so overtly fictional in a film that’s so steeped in history, particularly relatively recent history?” asks Den of Geek. “And is it the right approach when the scene appears to be taking so many people out of the film altogether? That complaints are not in short supply that it breaks the tone of the film?”

Dunkirk

Another World War II flick, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk left many cinema-goers with their nerves shaken and jaws on the floor. However, many have commented on the apparent whitewashing of Britain’s army — only white men are given prominent roles throughout Dunkirk, with few people of colour seen throughout the movie.

“It erases the Royal Indian Army Services Corp companies, which were not only on the beach, but tasked with transporting supplies over terrain that was inaccessible for the British Expeditionary Force’s motorised transport companies,” writes Sunny Singh in The Guardian. “It also ignores the fact that by 1938, lascars – mostly from South Asia and East Africa – counted for one of four crewmen on British merchant vessels, and thus participated in large numbers in the evacuation.”

The Times of India also addressed the issue, saying the “significant contribution” made by Indian soldiers was missing from Nolan’s “otherwise brilliant” work. Nolan has not publicly commented on the backlash yet.

Call Me By Your Name

The Independent’s movie of 2017, Call Me By Your Name caused some controversy in America for featuring a gay romance between a 24-year-old and 17-year-old. Conservative author Chad Felix Green took issues with the ages on Twitter, actor James Woodsadding: “As they quietly chip away the last barriers of decency.”

While conservatives may have been angered by the story, Armie Hammer stood by the movie, writing back to Woods: “Didn’t you date a 19 year old when you were 60?” The actor was referring to a relationship between Woods and ex-girlfriend Ashley Madison, who reportedly began dating aged 60 and 19, respectively.

Get Out

Jordan Peele’s horror was always going to annoy a few people, casting seemingly liberal white people as the antagonists. Some offended viewers labelled Get Out “racist” to which Peele responded, via BET: “People that are calling it racist haven’t seen it.” Leading actor Daniel Kaluuya added: “If that offends you and a Black kid getting shot by police doesn’t, something’s not real, something is.”

The rest

There are three other movies — Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, and The Post — that have caused less of an uproar. Lady Bird has been called out by some publications for featuring purely ‘white feminism’ while some conservatives were put off Steven Spielberg’s movie due to the timely comment on Donald Trump’s negative view of the press. Phantom Thread has caused the least uproar, people mainly enjoying Daniel Day-Lewis’s last on-screen performance. Whether that means the movie will come out winner will be announced on the 4 March. Just remember, the Oscars have never shied away from picking a controversial winner.