The 2022 Spirit Award nominations dropped this morning. Congrats to all nominees, but HE especially salutes the top nomination-getter — Janicza Bravo‘s Zola. Seven nommies = the almost certain winner of the Best Feature prize.
Otherwise, wokey-woke changes continue apace.
For decades the Spirits have been held the day before the Oscars, and were therefore wedded to that famous annual event. That’s over — the 2022 Spirits Awards will happen on Sunday, 3.6, or three weeks before the 2022 Oscars on 3.27.22. Which says, obviously, that the Spirits don’t want that linkage any more.**
Film Independent’s Josh Welsh: “At the Spirit Awards, we look for uniqueness of vision, original and provocative subject matter, economy of means, and diversity, both on-screen and off. Among [2022] nominees 44% are women and 38% are BIPOC…among the nominating committee members, 63% identify as women, 5% as non-binary, and 56% as BIPOC.”
More fundamentally: Remember the good old days (i.e., two years ago) when the Spirit Awards were widely regarded as the Indie Oscars? And when (excuse the following indelicate term) white-male filmmakers had as much of a shot at being nominated as anyone else? That’s history also. There’s always been more of a progressive p.c. emphasis among the Spirit nominees and winners (diversity, representation, indie contrarian attitude) but now it’s totally woke BIPOC feminist virtue signaling chitty-chitty-bang-hang. The only white guys who are allowed to be nominated are girlymen types (i.e., C’mon C’mon‘s Mike Mills).
East Coast f riendo #1: “Male feminists are allowed into Utopia. Just chop your balls off and you’re good.”
East Coast friendo #2: “It’s equity in practice. Achievement doesn’t matter. It makes them look good. It’s very Gen-Z on Tumblr circa 2013..”
“When talent and merit are replaced by representation, then we’re living in a world that doesn’t care about movies anymore.” — Brett Easton Ellis in a 2.19.19 guest column for The Hollywood Reporter.
In short, the 2018 “socialist summer camp in the snow” Sundance serum has spread everywhere — to New York and Toronto and pretty much every U.S. film festival except for blessed Telluride and Santa Barbara…all are now parroting the party line by favoring or appealing to your basic wokester SJW #MeToo BIPOC LBGTQ crowd (along with your garden-variety Lefty Snowflake Stalinist Sensitives) who are committed to overthrowing old norms and ensuring that independent cinema is generally more progressive and “representative” with fewer white guys of whatever age.
** Remember Spirit-Oscar overlap in terms of Best Picture nominees? That idea went south in 2019 when the five Best Feature Spirit nominees — Eighth Grade, First Reformed, If Beale Street Could Talk, Leave No Trace and You Were Never Really Here — weren’t nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
