72nd EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) - Press Room

Well, I thought we would end up with a surprise or shock in the Best Actor category. Not so much. Rami Malek won the Best Actor Oscar for Bohemian Rhapsody, in what was a crowd-pleasing financial success and a critical nothingburger. There was a low-key campaign online in the last weeks of the Oscar voting period to try to get Oscar voters to NOT vote for Rami. And yes, it was mostly about Bryan Singer, an accused serial rapist and accused pedophile, but it was also about…Rami’s Oscar campaign worked too well, and when he finally got substantive questions about Singer’s involvement, he prattled on about Freddie Mercury’s ghost. It left me cold.

Rami’s speech thanked everyone from the studio, thanked Queen, thanked his family. He thanked “my crew” and “my cast,” which… is sort of a choice to refer to those people that way. Rami made his speech about himself, as a first-generation Egyptian-American, the child of immigrants. He told his girlfriend Lucy Boynton “you have captured my heart.” He did not thank Bryan Singer by name or by oblique reference. Which… I mean, again, Singer’s already celebrating this. Even though Rami had a big hand in getting Singer fired, Singer is still celebrating.

Basically, #OscarsStillProblematic. From the Bohemian Rhapsody wins to Green Book winning the Screenplay Oscar… it’s not great.

Rami Malek: “We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself. And the fact that I’m celebrating him … is proof that we’re longing for stories like this.” #Oscars pic.twitter.com/kr1vhwIllk

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 25, 2019

Photos courtesy of WENN, INDB.
JOHN F KENNEDY JR ARCHIVE IMAGES
72nd EE British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) - Press Room