Jan. 23, 2025, 10:49 a.m. ET
When I heard that the comedic actors Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott were chosen to announce this morning’s Oscar nominations, I suspected that their presentation would provide a sort of rebuke to the bro-y, conservative vibe shift we’re all living through. Yang and Sennott came up through independent comedy and podcasting in New York — something that Sennott quipped about during their presentation: “For those of you who don’t know, the alt comedy scene is sort of like regular comedy but for women and gay people.”
The nominations further confirmed my suspicions that Hollywood’s first impulse is still to be oppositional to the conservative, Donald Trump-infected mainstream. Most notably, Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong were nominated for their performances in “The Apprentice,” a Trump biopic. It’s safe to say he is probably not a fan: He threatened to sue to block the release of the film. Stan is nominated for best actor for portraying a young Trump, and Strong is nominated as best supporting actor for his role as Trump’s adviser Roy Cohn.
But it wasn’t just that nomination that felt like a rebuke. Karla Sofía Gascón is the first openly trans person to be nominated, for “Emilia Pérez,” the same week Trump signed an executive order stating, “Women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
The box office darling “Wicked” was nominated for multiple awards, even though The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Zoglin griped in December, “After voting Donald Trump back into the White House in an apparent repudiation of woke ideology, the nation is flocking to a movie that could be Hollywood’s poster child for diversity, equity and inclusion.” “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” a short film about the first woman to become a full-time member of the New York Philharmonic, was also recognized with a nomination.
“Sing Sing” — which is about incarcerated men who come together to perform in a theater group and was “built on a revolutionary profit-sharing model where all cast and crew share equally in its success,” according to The Grio — was also multiply nominated.
And those are just a few examples of the progressive politics on display this year in what Hollywood is choosing to celebrate with its highest honor. Artists will continue to push back against the vibe shift, and they’ll do it with humor and verve. As Sennott noted when announcing a nomination for a film called “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent,” “Many such cases.”