“She was robbed!” seems to have been one of the most popular responses to 25-year-old Mikey Madison’s first-time Oscar win for Best Actress in Anora at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. Who was ostensibly robbed? 62-year-old Demi Moore, who’d already racked up four awards for her performance in the body horror movie The Substance, and who—evidently among a significant number of film aficionados—was believed deserving of Hollywood’s most illustrious accolade. A sampling of the thinking among those suggesting a theft:
“Demi Moore made a movie about the horrors of aging in Hollywood—then lost the Oscar to a younger actress. Sometimes the universe commits to the bit.”
“Demi Moore is so method. Lost her category to an actress half her age.”
“Demi Moore losing to Mikey Madison is basically the plot of The Substance.”
For those of you who missed (or avoided) The Substance, the plot involves an aging celebrity (Moore) who injects herself with a mysterious chemical cocktail to become a younger version of herself (Margaret Qualley). That younger self then betrays her—with the inevitable tragic consequences. The movie required Moore to be transformed from the unbelievably youthful person she actually looks like to a monstrous inhuman crone, a transfiguration achieved by hours in a makeup chair and a mountainous array of prosthetics (that eventually explode in a bloody, volcanic mess).
Lots has been said about Moore’s performance, about how the movie’s message dovetails so perfectly with Hollywood’s real deleterious limitations on aging actresses and the suffering that causes, Moore being a prime victim. I wrote in my op-ed about the film last year that ultimately, “I came away from the ridiculously graphic, over-the-top violence thinking that though misogyny is certainly real (if not as gory as portrayed in the movie), women are far more capable, wiser, and stronger than Elizabeth [Moore] and Sue [Qualley], who turn their rage against themselves without reflection.”
The awards Moore has received this year, I believe, were in part a recognition of her suffering (and persistence) throughout her career as well as her performance in The Substance. The movie’s strength was its message about beauty culture; it was less powerful as a vehicle for Moore’s acting chops (whatever you think they are). Her role required the portrayal of a commonly understood trope, that of the discarded aging female star. On the other hand, in Anora, Mikey Madison’s performance required a deep and sensitive understanding of an emotionally damaged and complicated character. And her delivery—a rich mix of tragic hope and desperation unaided (or encumbered) by special effects and a popular, widely supported notion about the diminishment of women—was miraculous. The woman is 25! What a gift, to be able to understand and then portray such emotional turmoil! (Last night, Madison became the 47th actress under 30 to take home an Oscar over the last almost century.)