Lights, camera, reality: What it was really like at the 2017 Oscars
LOS ANGELES — It’s a long road to the Oscars.
And calling a Lyft 90 minutes ahead of the 5:30 p.m. PT (8:30 ET) program won’t spare you from traffic, which constricts the area around the luxury Loews Hollywood Hotel, the scene of the Sunday ceremony long recognized as the zenith of awards season.
It takes more than an hour to get through.
After being forced to reroute from your hotel that's five minutes away, you manage to snake up a couple of blocks before security signals for your driver to stop the car. An officer asks to inspect the trunk while two other officers flank the vehicle, wielding mirrors and checking the underside of it.
While you wait, you can’t help but notice people pressing up against the metal fences barricading the street. Their cameras are raised, ready to capture a photograph of Leonardo DiCaprio or perhaps Taraji P. Henson only to be greeted by tinted windows so dark you wonder if they are even legal.
That question — along with the occasional eye tag with antsy paparazzi wondering who you are — occupy you long enough to get through the snarl to the official entrance. Once you arrive, attendants whisk you out of the car and hand you a ticket for your “limousine” to retrieve you at the end of the night. You wonder if they understand how Lyfts work but are soon hustled along.
You get a sneak peek at the carpet.
The red carpet is supposed to be restricted to credential holders covering celebrity arrivals, but the path to the Dolby Theatre leads you through a maze of black rope, cumbrous curtains and metal detectors straight to the carpet’s periphery.
If you wanted, you could reach out and touch the stars but it is safer and more socially acceptable to take photographs and videos, which dozens of ticket holders commence to do, despite attendants repeatedly requesting that you move along.
You are among the lingerers, stealing glimpses of La La Land’s Ryan Gosling, I Am Not Your Negro’s Samuel L. Jackson, Saturday Night Live darling Kate McKinnon and Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali, whose quickened pace reminds you that you, too, need to keep moving.
You’re quickly rewarded with a breathtaking view.
It's not Ali but the Dolby Theatre is still a sight to behold, with 300,000 Swarovski crystals adorning it.
The mezzanine levels are also lined with crystals, prompting you to wonder how many hours went into the set design and how many lifetimes you would have to work to rake in the amount of money dangling above the stage. You quickly sink into your seat in Mezzanine 1 once you realize that you can't count that high.
While the set may be larger than life, the theater isn't.
Though it seems to house all of Hollywood on TV, the Dolby Theatre is smaller than you would expect but its size aligns with the intimacy of the ceremony.
There's a distinct feeling of communion, at least in the lower level where celebrities move effortlessly among each other and unabashedly stand, sway and clap along with performers like Justin Timberlake.
But while the stars Can't Stop the Feeling of fellowship, it takes time for that spirit to catch on in the upper levels. With the exception of commercial breaks — where guests use the two-minute window to squeeze in bathroom breaks, inhale wasabi peas and snack wraps, and hit the upper-level cash bar (an area skipped by celebrities) — people mostly remain seated, looking on coolly.
Yet when John Legend takes the stage to perform La La Land'sCity of Stars and Audition (The Fools Who Dream), it's as if guests are reminded that they are in a room of dreamers. People begin shifting in their seats. There are audible "whoas."
The acceptance speeches help bring everyone into the moment.
You join the crowd in blinking back tears as Fences star Viola Davis accepts the award for best supporting actress. “People ask me all the time, what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola?” she says. “And I say, exhume those bodies, exhume those stories, the stories of the people who dreamed.”
“I became an artist, and thank God I did, because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life,” she continues. “So here’s to (Fences playwright) August Wilson, who exhumed and exalted the ordinary people.”
That idea — that art can amplify the experiences of people on the margins and connect people worlds apart — is the through line of the ceremony and the Oscar winners continue to connect the dots.
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While accepting the award for best adapted screenplay, Moonlight director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney acknowledge the importance of inclusion. “All you people out there who feel like there’s no mirror out there, that your life is not reflected, the Academy has your back,” Jenkins affirmed. “The ACLU has your back. We have your back.”
“This goes out to all those black and brown boys and girls and non-gender-conforming who don't see themselves,” McCraney added. “We're trying to show you, you and us.”
The crowd erupts into applause and you feel for the guests who left during the commercial break and failed to heed the announcer’s warnings before they closed the doors.
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This is a moment — one that echoes with you long after the artists leave the stage.
But it’s not all somber.
Host Jimmy Kimmel makes sure of that, especially after the night’s biggest flub where presenters announce the best-picture winner as La La Land when it was Moonlight.
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Riffing off the 2015 Miss Universe fiasco, Kimmel says, “I blame Steve Harvey!”
The joke is a hit, but he has a few misses, including a micro-aggressive remark about Ali following the actor's best supporting actor acceptance speech.
After Ali dedicates his win to his wife, Amatus Sami-Karim, and newborn Bari Najma Ali, Kimmel takes the stage and asks what you name your child with a name like "Mahershala." "You can't name her Amy," he joked.
In what should have been a shining moment for the Moonlight actor, the reminder that people with names like Ali's are still "othered" hits — but not in a good way.
A groan escapes you, but you try not to let it ruin the night. There is too much love elsewhere in the room for that, and that energy carries on into the Governors Ball.
The after-party immediately follows the Oscars and it is star-studded.
The bash is staged on the fourth floor of the hotel, where inviting tents, plush white furniture and real food — including steak tartare, short ribs, lobster, crab legs and shrimp — await you. It’s a welcome change, especially from the evening's earlier offerings.
There’s also plenty of bubbly to serve as a chaser as you drink in the scene.
13th director Ava DuVernay shuffles in with her mother and greets you with a hug. She tells you she hopes the best-picture mix-up doesn’t overshadow the significance of a film centering the experience of a poor, black, gay man winning an Oscar.
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That point certainly isn't lost on Moonlight star Naomie Harris, who acknowledges she’s still processing the win.
For their part, Moonlight's Alex R. Hibbert and Jharrel Jerome do their processing on the dance floor, grooving to Sugarhill Gang's Apache (Jump On It) and Pitbull's I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho). And, at one point, co-star Ashton Sanders slips out of the room, his cellphone to his ear and a smile on his face, saying, "Unbelievable."
It's a fitting word for the night.
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