Why the Oscars matter more than ever this year

You mighthave written off the Oscars as a night oftrivial pageantrywhere the rich and famous pat themselves on the back for, well, being rich and famous. Which is perhaps cynical, but I definitely understand I spent a decade devoting a sizeable portion of energy writing about them, and eventuallyI too started to question their relevance. I mean, ultimately,the winnersfeel predetermined for months before the actual ceremony, and they rarely end up feelingrepresentative ofeither diversity or "the best of the best" (whatever that means, anyway). I began to wonder...was it really worth devoting so much of my professional efforts to something that increasingly felt like it didn't matter?

Taking Oscar off his pedestal was not easy for someone who had been taking himveryseriously for a very long time. I hosted my first Oscar party when I was fouryears old andhad a mini nervous breakdown when Julia Roberts lost forSteel Magnoliasthat night or, as my mother likes to refer to it, "the night youcame out." So to end up getting paid to write about the eventwasadream come true at first. But slowly but surely, I let the dream die. And just like that, the horror flashbacks from when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain finally stopped. There were nomore sleepless nights over what might win best live action short film. I lost the urge to go on long,angry rants about the tragic Oscarlessness of Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver and/or Michelle Pfieffer. And in time, leavingmy previous jobto come here to the CBC brought me considerable relief,knowingthat I'd only ever have to write about the Oscars forsomething like this once a year.But just when I thought I was out...they pulled me back in.

It turns out the first year of my adult life that I didn't spend covering the Oscars has ended up being the one where it's hard to argue that they don't matter or that they shouldn't be taken seriously. In fact, this weekend's ceremony is arguablythe most important in its 89-year history which has led me to once againfeel the need to vouch for my old friend Oscar.

The last couple years have seen theOscars takesome serious heat for how insanely white and male the nominees have been. And rightfully so: in 2016the acting nominees were completely white for the second year in a row, and categories like best director, best cinematography andbest original score were sadly andas per usual total sausage parties. Now, this is not entirely the fault of the Academy. The film industry they exist to celebrate is pretty pathetic when it comes to diversity too, and Oscar voters can't vote for more women and people of colour if their work largely doesn't exist (although there have been plenty of diverse creators to pay attention to since these conversations around representation started see Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Idris Elba, the list goes on and on).But either way, the #OscarsSoWhite campaign that resulted from the controversy has seemed to actually do somegood in both regards.

The year that followed the campaign produced a relatively impressive amount of high quality, high profile filmmakingreflecting diverse experiences. And the Academy likelyin part thanks to a necessary push for more women and people of colour inits membership actually took notice. Three films with primarily African-American casts are nominated for best picture (Fences, Hidden Figures, Moonlight). Seven of its 20 acting nominees are people of colour. And four of the five nominees for best documentary feature are directed by African-Americans. Of course, not all the problems were solved in one year (see the still troubling lack of women nominated for directing and writing, for example). But the Oscars took bigsteps in a progressive direction this year, even while so much of the world seemed to be doing the opposite.

Come Sunday, millions and millions of viewers will see this progress on their televisions. They'll see an African-American woman (Moonlight's Joi McMillon) hear her named called as a nominee for film editing for the first time ever. They could see three of the four acting Oscars go to people of colour, if strong suggestions that Denzel Washington, Viola Davis and Mahershala Ali are all going to win end up proving correct. And they'll just as importantly not see Iranian filmmaker AsgharFarhadi, who will not attend the ceremony in protest of Donald Trump's now halted travel ban.

Speaking of Trump (and I'm surprised I lasted this long before doing so), the fact that the most diverse Oscars ever will be happening a month after his inauguration is something to definitely take seriously. Recent awards shows have already consistently felt like glamorous Trump protests, but the Oscars' call to arms will likely be next level.At the annual nominee luncheon earlier this month, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacsmade this very clear.

"There isa struggle globally today over artistic freedom that feels more urgent than at any time since the1950s," she said. "Art has no borders. Art has no language and doesn't belong to a single faith. No, the power of art is that it transcends all of these things, and strong societies don't censor art they celebrate it."

Essentially, Isaacs who was also the woman behind the Academy's new membership initiative has given anyone who takes the Oscars stage the green light to speak their minds. And you can be absolutely sure that manyof them will, providing a massive moment for the battered idea of hope. Think about how many times protections for transgender studentsarelikely going to be mentioned andthe comfort that might give to transgender youth watching at home. Or how Muslim-Americans could feel if Mahershala Ali a Muslim-American himself is handed an Oscar for best supporting actor. Or how young queer people of colourwill feel when Moonlight,an extraordinaryfilm about their experiences, is mentioned over and over againon stage.

After weeks and weeks of our screens being dominated by racist or xenophobic or transphobic (or all of the above) rants by Trump and co., this year'sOscars are offering a much needed moment of solace and inspiration, where we can celebrate progress again ifonly for one night. And that definitely matters.

In addition to being a good year for diversity, it's also a good year for Canadians. Find out which homegrown talents you can root for at this year's Oscars.