Oscars delivered the biggest ‘fake news’ of all

While Hollywood’s elite were busy trying to outdo one another in their anti-Trump grandstanding, they produced the biggest “fake news” of all, writes Caroline Marcus.

It would have been hard to top actress Meryl Streep’s virtue-dripping viral speech from the Golden Globes, but somehow, the Oscars managed to do just that.

While the Hollywood elite were busy trying to outdo one another in their anti-Trump grandstanding, they managed to monumentally stuff up the one award that truly mattered, handing the Best Picture Award to La La Land instead of the real winners, Moonlight.

There was no blaming Russian hackers for this.

It was a fittingly awkward ending to a four-hour ceremony that proved to be little more than the self-congratulating circle jerk we’d all been expecting.

Stars dripping in jewels costing more than the median Sydney house price applauded one brave Trump protest after another, while the Academy itself was seemingly at pains to prove the awards were a celebration of diversity as much, if not more, than filmmaking.

But if they wanted to redress last year’s #OscarsSoWhite accusations, that final image of the biggest award being grabbed from the hands of the white directors and given to their rightful black filmmaker owners could well have eclipsed anything even the best scriptwriters could conjure.

Indeed, the first major award went not just to a black actor, but — as various news sites were at pains to gush — the first Muslim actor to ever pick up a gong, Mahershala Ali.

Actor Mahershala Ali, winner of Best Supporting Actor for Moonlight. (Pic: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Born Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore after a prophet’s son in the Bible and raised Christian by his ordained minister mother, Ali changed his name on converting to Islam 17 years ago.

To his credit, Ali himself shied away from the politically-charged acceptance speech he gave at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and instead thanked his wife, who gave birth to their first child four days earlier.

But he was one of the few.

Setting the scene of sickening self-indulgence that was to come, fellow Supporting Actress winner Viola Davis tearily claimed in her own acceptance speech: “I became an artist and thank God I did because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life.”

Tell that to actual lifesaving paramedics and emergency department doctors.

US actress Viola Davis delivers a speech after she won the award for Best Supporting Actress in Fences. (Pic: AFP/Mark Ralston)

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, winner for Best Foreign Language Film, expressed his disapproval of Trump’s temporary immigration ban on seven countries deemed a terrorist threat by not turning up at all.

Farhadi’s statement issued through a proxy received a standing ovation from the fawning Hollywood fraternity, but he failed to utter one word about his own country’s infinitely more shocking human rights record, in executing gays and calling for death to Jews, ironically two groups overrepresented in Hollywood.

Sadly, though, not one celebrity refused to accept their award because they had sought refuge in Canada, despite several making the promise to move there if Trump were elected.

Others used their outfits to make a stand.

Director Ava DuVernay tweeted that she had opted to wear a Lebanese designer from “a majority Muslim country” in a show of solidarity, despite Lebanon not among the seven countries listed in Trump’s executive order.

A small sign of solidarity. I chose to wear a gown by a designer from a majority Muslim country. Thanks to @AshiStudio of Lebanon. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/CbEkK7rCpG

— Ava DuVernay (@ava) February 27, 2017

Admittedly, couture from Yemen may be difficult to find on Rodeo Drive.

Other celebrities — among them Victoria’s Secret model Karlie Kloss (coincidentally, dating Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s brother Joshua) and actress Busy Philipps — signalled their Never Trumpism by pinning a blue ribbon — the kind usually used to raise awareness for such causes as AIDS and cancer — in support of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is protesting the travel restrictions.

Award presenter Gael Garcia Bernal, best known for his romantic portrayal of Marxist revolutionary and firing squad enthusiast Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, railed against Trump’s proposed wall to stop illegal immigration from Mexico.

“As a Mexican, as a Latin American, as a migrant worker, as a human being, I’m against any form of wall that wants to separate us,” Bernal said to a standing ovation.

Introduced by actor Dev Patel who told the audience that it is “a time when journalists around the world are under attack”, Tantric sex-advocate Sting performed a song as a tribute to American journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by ISIS, the very terror group Trump has vowed to crush.

Comparing the woe-is-me response to being labelled “fake news” to a colleague who lost their life at the hands of terrorists is truly an exercise in gross vanity.

But the last laugh must surely go to Trump; getting Best Picture wrong has to be the biggest fake news of all.