New Age Oscars And Changing Fashion

This year’s Oscars was like no other. We saw an abundant amount of extraordinary changes from this once continuously conservative awards. We at House of Gharats are thrilled to see these changes which coincide with our core beliefs and values, we want to share with you some of our favourite highlights from the 2019 Oscars.

Also, House of Gharats being a part of Britain, we are celebrating and proud of all British winners, including Olivia Coleman’s long-awaited first Oscar win, for Best Actress.

No Host

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Oscars ceremony that lacked a host but was filled with diversity and historic wins. This is the first time the Oscars is host-less since the 61st Oscars in 1989 and was considered “a cursed night” (New York Times, 2019). The reason this year is host-less is that Kevin Hart (who was meant to be the host) was asked to step down due to old tweets that have resurfaced that show Hart using homophobic slurs. Hart apologised by saying “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past”, still The Academy chose to go host-less and surprisingly the night went smoothly as the presenters gave away awards.

Diversity

Spike Lee taking home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his movie “BlackkKlansman” was a monumental achievement for minority directors and many more in the film industry, and he achieved it with dignity, pride, self-respect and most important patience through his 30 years in the industry. Spike Lee also took time out of his Oscar speech to mention the United States elections in 2020, as a hint to the audience to vote against Trump who he regards as having little regard for diversity and equality in the country. This quote from his speech touched not only our hearts but the crowd too, as we see Director Jordan Peele shed tears: “Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people. We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment.”

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Aside from Spike Lee, the movie Green Book took home Best Screenplay and many more awards, this is a monumental win for an American pre-civil rights movie. The movie is named after the motoring handbook originally designed to help African American travellers to avoid dangerous areas in pre-civil rights US (The Guardian, 2019). Mahershala Ali (actor in Green Book), took home Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Don Shirley a Pianist. Ali lit the room with his heartfelt speech, this is our favourite: “Trying to capture his essence pushed me to my ends, which was a reflection of the person he was and the life that he lived,”

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The Best Actor award went to Rami Malek for his portray of Freddie Mercury in the film Bohemian Rhapsody. He is a first generation American with parents from Egypt. This is an extraordinary feat for such a young actor and he is an enormous inspiration for up and coming actors of ethnic background. Here is our favourite quote from his acceptance speech: “We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself,”

Alfonso Cuarón has won the Oscar for Best Director at the 91st Academy Awards for Roma. He is of Mexican background and the film is set in the 1970s in Mexico City, the film centres on an indigenous live-in maid for a middle-class family. In his acceptance speech, he continued to thank The Academy “for recognising a film centred around an indigenous women- one of the 70m people around the world without workers’ rights” (The Guardian, 2019). Along with winning the award for Best Director, comes attached a tail of many achievements: Roma became Mexico’s first winner for Best Foreign Language Film and Cuarón also received the Best Cinematography award for Roma. All of these awards and achievements made it the biggest Oscar night for the film’s publisher, Netflix. This inspiring quote for artists really highlighted his acceptance speech: “As artists, our job is to look where others don’t”.

Fashion

This year, fashion broke the biggest traditional norm of the Oscars, black dresses. To the point that the only big star that was spotted wearing a black dress was Lady Gaga. She wore an Alexander McQueen gown and Tiffany & Co. yellow diamond. This is surprising, to say the least, Lady Gaga is known for breaking the internet with her eye-capturing outfits, for example, her ‘Meat Dress’ at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, this was a message for animal rights (Billboard, 2010). A New York Times writer said “When was it decided that to be taken seriously as an actress you need to dress in serious couture? I’m asking because I never got the memo, but clearly, Lady Gaga and her styling team did.” Other than Lady Gaga’s traditionally black dress, the Oscars were filled with an array of all colours of the rainbow, this shows freedom of expression, the changing of times and re-evaluating outdated and restricted traditions.

Billy Porter’s tux gown stole the show at Oscars, it is something that has never been done before and shows boldness and creativity. Porter is openly gay, but received some criticism for this dress. Porter commented on the criticism he received by saying “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else. You don’t have to look. It’s not about you. I don’t understand why putting on a dress causes this much strife in your life.”. This is a huge leap for the LGBT community in the Oscars, it shows that they should not be afraid to express themselves the way they want to and that traditions are not rules.

Metallic dresses ruled the 2019 Oscars red carpet. JLo, who also presented an Oscar, teamed her metallic long-sleeved gown with sleek wavy hair and stunning diamond jewellery. Some of the metallic outfits or more specifically women’s suits worn on the red carpet resembled a knight in shining armour, a BBC commentator said that some of the women on the red carpet wanted to be a prince and others a princess, it also shows an interesting point in fashion when women are not only looking to be the princess.

Rachel Weisz stood-out with her bright red Givenchy Couture two-piece design featuring a shiny latex caplet layered over an embroidered gown with sparkling embellishments (People, 2019). This is an unorthodox dress because of the latex top. Jason Solomons, a BBC presenter, humorously commented on the dress by saying “When you spill champagne on the top you can just wipe it off”. Although it is funny, it also shows the practicality and utilitarian aspect of an Oscars dress, we usually see these dresses as being unrealistic and only for one time use. Rachel Weisz has shown us that dresses can be realistic and this fits well with today’s greater casualisation and deconstruction of societal norms.

Honourable Mentions

House of Gharats as a fashion house with core beliefs of diversity and inclusivity, we are more than exhilarated to see Ruth Carter achieve a historic win as the first black winner of the Best Costume Design award. Along with Hannah Beachler who became the first black winner of Best Production Design, both for Black Panther.

Although this is not one of the biggest and most important highlights, it is still an astonishingly remarkable moment. Sony’s critically acclaimed Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature putting an end to Disney’s six-year hold on the category. What mattered the most about this win, is the diversity in characters in the movie, we have a young black teenager as the lead character. It is hard to put into words the inspiration that this will have to millions of young black children and others of minority background to see themselves represented in a classically beloved character. It is nothing short of beautiful.

“I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar” said director Rayka Zehtabchi, who took home the Oscar for best documentary short for Period. End of Sentence (Cosmopolitan, 2019). This win touched our hearts here in House of Gharats because we believe in freedom and equality for all, to have a movie demonstrate the social stigma of menstruation in India. This has prevented girls and young women from staying in education, worshipping in temples and having access to basic sanitary products (Cosmopolitan, 2019).

To close this article we want to leave you with the final honourable mention: This comes from the presenter of the Best Foreign Language film, Javier Bardem. He started by saying in Spanish: “There are no borders or walls that can restrain ingenuity or talent.”