I have a feeling so much of the majority of the movies the Oscars have recognized in my lifetime love to cosplay all forms of degredation and tragedy. It is clear with such movies as Precious (which does so with racism and incest in a saying that seems so much like Lee Daniles saying Oscar please in every shot) 12 Years A Slave (in which Steve McQueen is demanding the Oscars apologize for Gone With The Wind) and The Reader which combines both the Holocaust and statuatory rape into a story that supposed to be uplifting. (Kate Winslet should have gotten the Oscar that year for Revelutionary Road, which is a far more nuanced film).

Sadly so much of the films critics go craziest for (of which Baker is one of the biggest offenders/heroes depending on your point of view) are the ones that show degradation of a human subject (almost exclusively a woman, African-American or other minority) being cruel or reduced to ultimate degradation. As I've implied but not stated directly in my own columns on criticism, critics seem to have in their head that a character's suffering equals art, something that Hollywood has been willing to acknowledge more and more while increasingly not bothering to make it entertaining or even watchable. I can't speak for Anora because I have yet to see it but having seen Florida Project (which I liked) I am aware of Baker's penchant for using the mask of innocence to show the horrors of real life and being idolized by it. Whether or not it is a depiction of what this suffering actually feels like may very well be an example of the elitism that, sadly, my fellow film critics are far too often unapologetically proud of with their reviews and their pans.

I've always had a lot of difficulty seeing this as anything other than exploitation that is used to win awards. AFter last year's nominees - particularly a film like American Fiction which was a big poke into the ribs about this to the establishments in general - I wondered if Hollywood might learn the lesson. Given the recognition for Anora, it seems like its business as usual for the Oscars. By which I mean, it is usual for the films to do the least business to get the biggest prizes. I hoped Wicked wins Best Picture if for no other reason then the prove them wrong.