If ‘The Revenant’ Is The Donald Trump Of This Year’s Oscar Race, Then Who Is ‘Spotlight’? The Bizarre Parallels Between The Oscars And The Republican Primaries

On Sunday, February 28, the world will finally discover which film will take home the 88th Best Picture Academy Award. After a brutal and unusually contentious battle for nominations, the eight surviving nominees vying for the top prize on Oscar night are as follows: The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant, Room, and Spotlight.

Early prognosticators — including Decider’s own Oscar Grouch — thought that Spotlight had the best chance of surviving the whole season. However, in the last month, it’s turned into a tight three-horse race between the aforementioned Spotlight, the defatigable The Big Short, and the bitterly-divisive The Revenant. Right now, pundits are predicting that The Revenant is poised to win, but no one seems particularly jazzed about it. Not only have most Oscar experts spent weeks tallying numbers to prove why The Revenant can’t take the spot, but The Hollywood Reporter’s secret Oscar ballots reveal that the film isn’t particularly loved in Tinseltown. Still, it seems unbeatable, which means that The Revenant is looking an awful lot like a certain Republican Presidential nominee named Donald Trump.

It’s a bold comparison that we tentatively made in our last column, but is there some truth to it? Let’s enter the Oscar Grouch and break it down.

Meghan O’Keefe: Joe, am I crazy for thinking that The Revenant is the Donald Trump of Best Picture nominees?

Joe Reid: …in that he makes me want to crawl inside a horse carcass for the next eight months? I may need you to elaborate.

MO: Har har… But that’s sort of to my point. See, up until about two weeks ago, Hollywood insiders and Oscar pundits were flailing their arms and running all sorts of complicated numbers games to prove that The Revenant couldn’t possibly win Best Picture. Best Actor? Sure. Best Cinematographer? Yeah. Best Director? Maybe. Best Picture? NO WAY! The prevailing notion was that too many people actively disliked The Revenant to make it a Best Picture frontrunner. Now, though, the film has picked up major honors at the Golden Globes, DGS, and BAFTAs, it seems poised to actually take the big prize. Still, there’s a chance that one of the two other films nipping at its heels — in this case, Spotlight and The Big Short — could play the numbers game and win.

I sort of see a loose parallel with the current state of the Republican Presidential primary race. Up until about a week ago, political pundits were predicting that there was no way Trump could really nab the nomination. The business man’s headline-grabbing antics are as divisive amongst Americans as The Revenant is among Oscar voters. But Trump just won three state primaries in a row and seems secure on his path to the nomination. Trump is happening! Just like The Revenant is!

Again, am I crazy?

JR: If you are, the crazy is catching, because I see exactly what you mean. That same sense of Trump denial has been present in Oscar punditry all year. It’s a kind of wishful/magical thinking that says that even when evidence starts mounting up, those are outliers distracting from the eventual outcome. Trump was always going to win New Hampshire! The Revenant was always going to be a big hit with the technical branches! They still couldn’t win! They’re just so BAD! It’s that trap you fall into (I certainly do) when you assume that your own perspective is the same as the average person’s perspective. When the truth of the matter is that people have bad taste a LOT. Take a look at the list of Best Picture winners and, I don’t care what your taste is, you’re going to see a lot of movies that make you despair for our species.

The Trump thing is interesting, though, because of just how fervently we’re talking ourselves into the alternatives. Does this make Ted Cruz winning in Iowa the equivalent of The Big Short winning the Producers Guild Award? I feel like if there’s a Marco Rubio in the Best Picture field, it would have to be Spotlight, right? He’s the one people who follow the race most closely want to win, if only to restore their faith in the voters. I feel like that’s the same thing as the Spotlight-timism we’re seeing. Of course, Rubio doesn’t have a win as big as the SAG Best Ensemble. It’s an imperfect comparison, but the right one.

Okay, let’s do this! Who else do we got?? Who’s the Ben Carson of the Oscar race?

MO: I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The Martian. Both were strange, delightful oddities that bucked the odds and came out of nowhere to surge into first place last fall, and both have fallen way behind. Oh, and Ben Carson sometimes offers soundbites that make it sound as though he’s been living alone in a habitat on another planet for quite some time. Not to mention, both The Martian and Ben Carson have a science angle! Science!

Let’s pivot to Jeb Bush now! He just dropped out of the race because he had the blessing and the curse of being part of an old dynasty. He was an old school Republican and he was trying to win with just the virtues of his record and his quiet competence. Wouldn’t Jeb be Bridge of Spies?

JR: Mostly because Jeb can’t be Inside Out (lightweight compared to the other nominees; relying on the reputation of his family/Pixar; kind of a Sadness figure) because it wasn’t nominated, yes, I love Jeb for Bridge of Spies. Or as I will now think of it: Bridge of Spies!

How about Mad Max: Fury Road for Chris Christie? It’s big, it’s loud, it’s out for blood, it is VERY concerned with traffic patterns, and in general the race would be a lot more interesting if it had a better shot at winning. Which I guess means Brooklyn is … Carly Fiorina? That makes sense, right? Am I just being sexist by casting Brooklyn as a “ladies picture”?

MO: Well, it’s about a lady and it’s pretty, and pretty things are supposed to be lady things. Let’s just go with it. Also, I’m not quite sure how Brooklyn made it this far in the race besides sheer force of will, and you could have said the same for Fiorina’s campaign.

As for Chris Christie being Mad Max: Fury Road… I mean, I’m a little uncomfortable with it because Mad Max: Fury Road could still come out of nowhere and win Best Picture and Christie dropped out of the race, but everyone knows that Christie lets his inner rage out on the state roads of New Jersey. (#Bridgegate) Plus, he’s the only Republican politician I could see getting down with the Doof Warrior.

But where does that leave Kasich? Is John Kasich Room?!?!?

JR: I mean, I guess he would have to be? No, no, we can make this work. Room is the darkest of dark horses still left in the race. I mean, I don’t personally believe Room can win, but evidently the Times disagrees with me. In addition, the fundamental decency of Room/Kasich seems to appeal to those who find The Revenant/Trump so abrasive. And ultimately, if John Kasich found himself locked in a shed in some backyard in Ohio, I’m not sure if the race would be impacted all that much. …How’d I do?

MO: …Isn’t Kasich from Ohio? He could have a shed there and been locked in it already without us knowing about it.

Oh, but Joe, do you know what this really leads us to? Your favorite Oscar-nominated film of the year: Carol. True, it’s not in contention for Best Picture, but it’s a critical darling that many wish was entered into the race. Clearly, is not Carol Michael Bloomberg?

JR: That is offensive.

…And maybe true? The outside-the-race contender that every once in a while gets people sighing “if only”? Look, I don’t think Bloomberg would be all that much better, which is where it departs with Carol. But certainly the race would be a lot more interesting with another New York billionaire in the mix. (Wait, what am I saying?)

MO: I don’t know what you’re saying, but The Revenant is clearly the Donald Trump of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

Where To Stream The 2016 Best Picture Nominees

[Where to Pre-Order The Big Short]
[Where to Stream Bridge of Spies]
[Where to Stream Brooklyn]
[Where to Stream Mad Max: Fury Road]
[Where to Stream The Martian]
[Where to Pre-Order The Revenant]
[Where to Stream Room]
[Where to Stream Spotlight]

[Photos: Everett Collection]