Oscar Snubs: Sandler, Women, and Racial Representation Lead the Way
It is January, my favorite time for Twitter debates, and no, I am not talking about debating the Presidential Primaries. I am talking about the Academy Awards! Almost as entertaining as the movies that graced the big (and small) screens in 2019 are the debates about the Academy’s decisions on their nominations for their prestigious awards.
While few can argue that Golden Globe victor “1917” or Scorsese’s Netflix produced epic “The Irishman” did not deserve a nomination, there is plenty to talk about when it comes to who was “snubbed” by the Academy. I took to the Adam Brown Social Media Command Center to get an idea of who the most intimidating critics on the internet, Twitter users, thought were the worst Oscar snubs.
I built a topic profile looking at Tweets using the keywords “Oscar” and “Snub” and filtering out any retweets with no added content then looked at which names, films, and categories had the most discussion.
As one could probably guess, looking at a topic like Oscar Snubs, the sentiment was pretty negative with 66.6% negative sentiment and 33.4% positive. Here’s hoping that with the advent of movie passes, these angry Twitter users can find a film this weekend to cheer themselves up a bit.
Adam Sandler and his performance in “Uncut Gems” leads the pack in most discussed Oscar Snubs. Uncut Gems is Sandler’s highest-rated movie and his first Rotten Tomatoes “Certified Fresh” feature film since 2002’s “Punch-Drunk Love.” Sandler promised in December that he would make a movie “so bad on purpose just to make [us] pay,” so it makes sense that Twitter would be up in arms for the Oscars guaranteeing the creation of a sequel to “Jack and Jill.”
Discussion about representation has been a significant talking point concerning the Academy Awards, especially since 2016’s trending hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. This year, that discussion has taken off again with Jennifer Lopez and Awkwafina following Adam Sandler as the most talked about “snubbed” celebrities.
Awkwafina made history at the Golden Globes, becoming the first Asian-American to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress winning that award in the “Musical or Comedy” category for her performance in “The Farewell.” Many Twitter users were upset that she was not nominated for any awards, but she kept her head high and released a video saying that she was “really grateful for [her] journey.” The multi-talented comedian, rapper, and actress is on the upward trend in her career after excellent performances in “Ocean’s 8”, “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Jumanji: The Next Level,” along with her award as mentioned earlier winning performance in “The Farewell,” which is a great journey and one that looks to have some great success moving forward.
Pop icon J-Lo had a great year with her Golden Globe-nominated performance in “Hustlers,” but it did not earn her an Academy nod. This, along with the lack of representation for the Latinx community in the Academy nominations, has lead to a lot of discussion on Twitter. Tabloids have been trying to get her thoughts on her and the Latinx community being kept off the shortlist by the Academy, but she has instead spent her time relaxing with her family with a photo of her and her twins snuggling together in bed going viral on Instagram.
Greta Gerwig and her film “Little Women” closely follow Awkwafina and Lopez on the list of most talked about Oscar snubs. Even though her critically acclaimed film saw 6 nominations, she remains off the list of nominees for Best Director. The word “women” in general almost matched Sandler as the word used most often when tweeting about Oscar snubs and for a good reason. Women, in general, were not represented in the Best Director category with this following on the heels of a Golden Globes ceremony in which women were blanked from Best Director and Best Screenplay categories despite a plethora of amazing works in 2019 including “Little Women,” “The Farewell,” “Hustlers,” and “Booksmart.”
You can’t make people happy all the time, but Twitter has been adamant that this year has had some of the worst snubs ever. Time will tell whether these snubs will be remembered after all Hitchcock and Kubrick never won an Oscar and history is full of actors and actresses who have been denied that prestigious trophy. But one thing is sure, we will be hearing about these Oscar snubs for a while… at least until the awards are actually handed out on February 9.