Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selfie marked the end of the Academy Awards’ cultural relevance
No one can really explain what will prove to be popular online, but in 2014, an instance of virality served as something of a cultural low-water mark, as well as a fusing of two of the most abhorrent facets of the human experience: Ellen DeGeneres and the “selfie”. At the Oscars that year, DeGeneres posted a picture shot by Bradley Cooper of a swathe of famous Hollywood actors and their accused sexual abuser friend.
It was the “best photo ever”, according to DeGeneres, known for her forced eccentric behaviour and enabling abusive mistreatment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Brad Pitt, one of contemporary American cinema’s biggest stars, looks as though he’s been dragged into something he really does not want to be a part of, his face blurred almost in a state of embarrassment, mirrored by then-wife Angelina Jolie’s “no paparazzi” hand block, while Jennifer Lawrence and Helen Mirren do a better job of a seemingly-earnest appearance of actual joy.
Kevin Spacey, meanwhile, just a few years away from the allegations of grooming and sexual abuse, haunts the background like a ghost, still fortunate to be in the most famous photo of recent times. The selfie suddenly earned “iconic” status despite its rather banal, even mundane nature, poor quality and lack of any cultural importance or meaning beyond, “Hey, look, it’s us, those famous people”.
The 86th Academy Awards, hosted by DeGeneres for the second time, actually became the most-watched Oscars ceremony since 2000, signalling perhaps a waning interest in the event itself. Throughout the 20th century, the Oscars had been the be-all and end-all for most figures within the American cinema and Hollywood industry machines, but since the turn of the new millennium, the event itself seems to have been dragged along like a nearly-dead relative at a family function, just for tradition despite its decrepit and decaying state.
Even without DeGeneres’s culturally deaf self-shot photograph, the one-time pinnacle of the entertainment calendar had already been suffering from a lack of diversity and representation in its nominees and winners. Since 2014, the Academy has supposedly sought to remedy its glaring hole of BAME representation, although they have still been criticised for slow change and also for “tokenist” awards being handed out to merely appease those calling for heads. Predictable winners, rumours of vote manipulation, and preferential and nepotistic treatment to those willing to lobby have not helped the Academy and its Awards’ reputation.
But, really, it’s the selfie that ought to piss anyone off the most, as it epitomised the kind of disconnect with which she treated the entire ceremony’s affair. Rather than address issues of diversity and inequality, DeGeneres eschewed such concerns in favour of a playful attitude of self-indulgence, which reinforced the arguments of those seeking to attack the Academy in the first place. This also raised doubts as to the authenticity of the photo itself, where Lupita Nyong’o and younger brother Peter may have indeed been dragged into the shot to counterbalance its near whitewashing.
That potential move would just about sum up any actual desire that DeGeneres had to actually change the entertainment industry – the industry that afforded her the opportunity to display her buffoonish wit, plus enable a toxic and abusive working environment for others, over the course of nearly 20 years. A feeble attempt at inclusion then perhaps – a just in case, lest anyone call us out on it – yet also a mocking symbol that was, thankfully, criticised by some corners of the entertainment world with half a sense of modicum and awareness.
Strangely, though, despite the backlash, the photograph went on to achieve a sickening virality, a celebration of this collection of wealthy celebrities of starkly varying talents and moral outlooks. And it was that day that the Academy Awards itself died a little, while contemporary culture also took a sharp turn towards superficiality over substance, whereby the quality and inherent meaning of an image is judged by how quickly it can be passed around.
“If only Bradley’s arm was longer,” read DeGeneres’ caption upon posting. If only Cooper’s arm was indeed longer, he could have reached it all the way around the back of the group, clapped Spacey around the head (hard) a few times before writhingly bringing it all the way back to the front, curled it around the neck of DeGeneres like a Boa constrictor and its prey, pulled tighter and tighter until her glassy blue eyes popped out of their sockets under pressure, snapped the upper vertebrae with a crack, and put us all out of our proceeding misery.
But sadly, Cooper’s arms were too short that day; Ellen remain visually unimpaired; the photo survived, was uploaded, and then subsequently received and applauded by countless cultural morons the world over. There was an upside to the photo, though, perhaps, in that many individuals suddenly realised the ridiculousness of celebrity culture, the obnoxious quality of fame, and the arbitrary nature of award ceremonies, the likes of which they had unwittingly ascribed to – and the Academy Awards’ once-spotless sheen finally showed its first few specks of dirt and decay.
