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The Oscars have never figured out a good way to play off winners whose speeches start to go long, but it feels like they continue to find new and even worse ways to usher out flustered victors. There were a handful of orchestral swells throughout the night, but none felt as egregious or, frankly, mean-spirited as the win for the team behind “Golden” from Kpop Demon Hunters. Singer and co-writer EJAE took the stage first, where she noted how she was once bullied for listening to K-pop and now it’s all anyone is listening to. “This song is not about success,” she said, “it’s about resilience.” If only the Academy let the team be resilient in the face of an orchestra who didn’t even gradually crescendo in so much as burst through at full volume as fellow co-writer Yu Han Lee tried to say a few words. Another co-writer, Mark Sonnenblick, jumped up and down a few times to try to get the orchestra to stop, but the stage lights went down and everyone was ushered off-stage. It was abrupt and unfortunate in what should have been a moment of celebration for a song that has dominated the charts all year.
It’d be one thing, perhaps, if that sense of urgency was prevalent all night, but let’s face it: The Oscars are really good at wasting our time. There was an extended Bridesmaid bit, an extended Moulin Rouge! bit, an extended Marvel bit, and an extended bit where it looked like Bill Pullman and his son Lewis Pullman spoke to each other for the first time in each other’s lives. All of this had to be sped up at the 11th hour so, what, The Bachelorette could start on time? We know after nearly one hundred years of Academy Awards that this thing never ends on time, so why cut off overwhelmed winners when we could just axe a bit or two toward the end of the show? Or better yet, advertisers be damned, just run over and have fun with it. Sports are allowed to do it all the time, right? (Don’t fact-check this.)
Here’s hoping some outlet, whether it’s a daytime or late-night talk show, gives Yu Han Lee and the rest of the “Golden” writers a chance to thank whomever they want without the pressures of a time limit. If nothing else, playing off winners gives orchestras, conceptually speaking, terrible reputations. If we’re trying to preserve these dying art forms, the least we can do is stop using them for evil rather than good.
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