There won’t be a person in the audience at the SAG Awards or at the Oscars who will not be moved if Lily Gladstone becomes the first Native American to win a Best Actress Oscar. The rarity of it alone would bring people to their feet.
Is Gladstone ready for the kind of pressure that comes with carrying such a heavy burden, not just for the Osage and the Blackfoot, but for the long history of death and destruction at the hands of white settlers via their belief in Manifest Destiny? Would Eric Roth have written her a more substantial role if they knew she was meant to carry this burden? Would Scorsese have given her a Big Oscar Scene to prove to everyone that she did not come to play? As it stand now, a “whisper campaign” is circulating that her role is really just a supporting, not a lead. Meh. I’ve always hated that argument. The movie as it exists puts Gladstone — Mollie — at the emotional center of the film. The book doesn’t. In the book, the smaller part given to Jesse Plemons in the movie is the center of the book.
But there was a considerable effort made to change the movie — or in the parlance of our times, de-center the narrative — away from the perspective of white people and tell the story more from the viewpoint of the Osage families. That puts Gladstone at the center of the film and makes her the lead. Had they relegated the role of Molloe to supporting, there would have been hell to pay.
There is apparently a lowkey civil war on Film Twitter between the supporters of Lily Gladstone and those of Emma Stone. Most of Film Twitter is obsessed with Poor Things and thus wants to see Emma Stone win her second Oscar for her role as Bella Baxter. She’s great at physical comedy and in Poor Things she’s been given free rein to show what she can really do. But there’s no getting around that Stone has already recently won, and that it would be a much bigger deal for Hollywood, the Academy, and those who are invested in the Oscars if Gladstone took it.
(At the end of this piece, I’ll share some relevant and representative tweets.)
The Case for Lily Gladstone
Although Native American, Gladstone isn’t Osage. She’s a member of the Blackfeet tribe, which means she had to learn how to speak the Osage language, which took months of training with a dialect coach. This is who Gladstone was playing:
In many ways, Mollie, who was born in 1886, straddled not only two centuries but two civilizations. She grew up in a lodge, speaking Osage; within a few decades, she lived in a mansion and was a married to white settler.
Because Gladstone was playing a real person who lived through the historical events, she didn’t have the same creative freedom as, say, Emma Stone did in Poor Things. She also had representatives of the Osage people on set as advisors, to help ensure the story and the portrayal were as accurate as possible. Among other things, Gladstone needed to emulate the demeanor captured in the few photos available of the real Mollie:
Gladstone had a far more difficult role than it may appear. She had to play someone whose life was not rooted in the Western world. She had to evoke the attitude and behavior that a 1920s Osage woman, daughter, mother, or wife would have had. Lily clearly did not want to modernize the character and make Mollie “suddenly feminist.” But at the same time, to get it right, she had to maintain the stoicism evident in the above photos and convey, often wordlessly, how a woman unfamiliar with white culture would behave. That’s not easy to do.
As tragic as the history depicted in the movie certainly is, the true story is much worse. Scorsese and writer Eric Roth may have given the Osage characters in the film more awareness and savvy in dealing with white con-artists than they probably possessed in reality. To an obvious, ridiculous, and disgraceful degree, they were taken full advantage of on every level imaginable. How does Gladstone play a character who’s being duped without having Mollie appear ignorant? It’s a tricky task, but she manages to do it. That’s what makes a great performance. Gladstone takes us back to an era when women like her had no idea of their rights. Regardless, it was Mollie who ultimately went to Washington to demand action, to find out why so many Osage people and her family had been murdered, and discover who did it. Despite dying young, Mollie Burkhart is a legend.
On the one hand, no one wants the Oscars to be only about “identity politics” –by which we mean, if two actors are up for an award, the voters might feel they should prioritize identity over merit. On the other hand, they can be called out as hypocrites if all that remains of their outspoken intentions is empty virtue signaling. But Gladstone’s performance, if it were to win, wouldn’t just be about making history — it would be an award for the performance too. Not just the performance but the level of involvement on her part to fully immerse herself in the world of the Osage.
But if we were to go down the road of DEI: despite people pretending to have changed the industry — despite the Academy’s much-publicized effort to diversify the membership with more women, more people of color, and more international voters — still only two non-white actresses have ever won Best Actress. In 96 years.
Ordinarily, I would urge them to vote for the performance they liked best, the one they thought actually “deserves” to win, as opposed to the way they often vote — for the hottest girl, the most popular, or the character they like best. The Academy has so rarely given Best Actress to the best performance that it’s not even something where we can say they should go back to how they used to be. They never were.
I personally think Lily Gladstone gave a deeply moving, tender, and authentic portrayal of a legendary but little-known woman that she rescued from a dim corner of history. Mollie Burkhart is no longer the Osage woman whose entire family was murdered and who barely survived herself because she stood by her man as he was slowly poisoning her. In Lily Gladstone, the Oscars have a genuine hero. But beyond that, she’s simply great in the part. She’s at least as good as Marlon Brando whose understated portrayal of The Godfather won him an Oscar.
The Case for Emma Stone
It’s not hard to make a case for Emma Stone, even if you only remember the ballroom dancing scene in the movie and don’t dwell on the many “softcore porn” scenes. In years past, a role like this may not have been taken seriously, but it’s Stone’s vivid performance that makes the difference. She brings humor and humanity to the role of Bella Baxter, which for many voters will offset the “Deep Throat Meets Maxfield Parrish” quality to the film that others perceive.
As it turns out, in the precursor phase, Poor Things has garnered broader support than Killers of the Flower Moon, which, other than Lily Gladstone, hasn’t picked up many awards in the run-up to the SAGs and the Oscars. Poor Things won the Globe for Best Musical/Comedy and won some crafts awards at the BAFTAs that many had expected Barbie to take, though it did not win Best British Film.
Voting for Stone perhaps would allow Academy voters to share some of the love with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, a film that was shut out of the BAFTAs but is doing much better stateside. There is no question whether Stone’s Bella Baxter is the center of Poor Things: the whole film revolves around her. Whereas Lily Gladstone has to share screen time with Leo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, who are given more to do and have more prominent roles than Stone’s costars.
Emma Stone is vibrant in Poor Things, even brilliant in what she does with the role. She’s always good but is especially sparkling with comedy. That she manages to take what is a mildly creepy set-up — a dead woman brought back to life with a child’s brain, who later becomes a nymphomaniac — and turn it into a believable, sympathetic portrayal is a testament to her skills as an actress.
It helps that most of the available clips and gifs of her circulating online show the dance sequence, because a lot of what she does onscreen is sexually graphic, so much so that many people who go see the movie based on buzz and accolades are shocked by the sex scenes (although, on the flip side, that has no doubt helped drive the film’s box office). The studio has done a good job more or less not focusing the humping and pumping to make the film appear a little more respectable and a little less weird.
My hunch is that Stone will win because the substantial BAFTA voter block at the Academy will push her over the edge. Bella Baxter is far more in line with the kinds of roles that win, and an Oscar for Stone would fit the mold more typically than a win for Gladstone, which would run counter to their history. The way some voters will see it is that they have already checked the diversity box with an award for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and therefore don’t need another women of color to win the same year.
But there is no doubt that a win for Gladstone would represent a much bigger deal than business as usual on Oscar Night. But both these brilliant actresses are certainly deserving — insofar much as anyone “deserves” to win an Oscar.
Stats favor Stone, without a doubt. She now has the Globes, the Critics Choice, and the BAFTA. She only needs the SAG to walk away with the Best Actress race.
Gladstone will have built up enough awards cachet that if she ever gets close to being nominated again, she will have a better shot at winning. However, if Lily wins the SAG, all bets are off and history has a chance to made at this year’s Oscars.
The Case for Annette Bening
It’s probably not likely that Bening can pull in a shocking upset, the reason being Nyad isn’t really the film of the moment. Poor Things and Killers of the Flower Moon have made their mark this awards season, so a win for the actresses in their films would be an award for the film itself.
Bening’s win would be more about her body of work than it would be this particular role in this particular movie, though she does pull out all the stops to bring the life of Diana Nyad to the big screen. The thing is, she still has to defeat Emma Stone. Lily Gladstone’s voters are probably secure, but if people don’t want to vote for either Stone or Gladstone, they might go with Bening.
Netflix has put out a very persuasive FYC ad:
In a different kind of year, Bening would run away with it. Of course, if she does win the SAG in a split vote scenario, she could easily go on to win the Oscar.
As for Sandra Hüller and Carey Mulligan, as brilliant as their work has been this year, the best chance they had to win was at the BAFTAs. But with Stone beating both of them Sunday night, their prospects now seem unlikely.
In all of the shared history of the Globes, the Critics Choice, and the BAFTAs, no actress has won all three without winning the Oscar — until last year when Michelle Yeoh did it. Will voters feel like they don’t want a repeat of what happened last year, so they’ll go with Stone? Maybe. They’ll have to weigh how good it will feel to use their vote to signify change, or to move the needle, or to make history against how much they love Stone in Poor Things. Either way, the vote will depend on how it makes them feel.
Here are some Twitter voices:
Merit aside, I’m fine if Emma Stone gets her second Oscar at her age, but does she need it? No. She’s white, still young, and can get more quality film opportunities ahead. For Lily Gladstone, an Oscar would help her get more power and control in her career. Truth! pic.twitter.com/x4bCXulc9F
— Vince (@vincentlao18) February 19, 2024
I hope Lily Gladstone wins Best Actress this year. Sometimes the best acting is not who screams the loudest or goes the biggest, but instead communicates a lot in the little details, expressions, and movements.
— Kevin The Critic (@kevin_thecritic) February 19, 2024
What Lily Gladstone does in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON is brutal, an intense performance without falling into exaggerations and forced shots. She is so real and honest in all of her emotions that she shines in every scene. Without a doubt the best performance of Oscar nominees. pic.twitter.com/SMRSw3xWJs
— SoSo (@LoveSleyton) February 18, 2024
Society needs to self-reflect and ask itself if Emma Stone really needs two Oscars at this moment and time
— sam (@burritoprophet) February 18, 2024
Emma Stone is winning the #Oscar and i'll let ya'll in on a little secret….
She always was.
She gave THE performance hands down. No disrespect to the other nominees but everybody else was second to her. pic.twitter.com/VmC7SLd3Mk
— Nick Zednik (@NickZednik) February 18, 2024
She gave the performance of the year, so why the hell not?
Should Jodie Foster have lost her second Best Actress Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs at 29 years old because she didn’t “need” two Oscars? https://t.co/3dUrsTtYqO pic.twitter.com/2EPC9Kegs2
— Brian Rowe (@mrbrianrowe) February 19, 2024
emma stone did this for 140 minutes and everyone thinks she deserves it over lily gladstone pic.twitter.com/KFjRiKPGV1
— feeb (@pcbTOTY) February 20, 2024
The Emma Stone hate campaign is one of the strangest and most unexpected things to come from this Oscar season. I think Stone, Hüller, Mulligan, and Gladstone are all Oscar worthy, but the anti-Stone hate filled agenda is getting out of hand. https://t.co/sIZqMDtNHG
— TylerCWhitmore (@TylerCWhitmore) February 19, 2024