At the recently concluded 93rd Academy Awards, the Best Actor award was won by Anthony Hopkins for his performance in The Father but this hasn’t gone down well with Chadwick Boseman fans. As soon as the winner for the category was announced, fans took to social media to express their disagreement.
That was the only major award that Hopkins won this year even as Boseman won the Critics’ Choice award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award, establishing him as a favourite for Oscars.
Fans pointed out that, unlike every year, when the Best Picture award is the last award of the evening, this time, the producers rearranged the show to announce Best Actor as the last category. This was seen as a build-up to honour Boseman posthumously, who was nominated for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. His family was also invited to the ceremony and this further got the fans’ expectations up. Boseman passed away in August 2020 due to cancer at the age of 43.
One Twitter user wrote, “But for real, all of us were waiting all night to see Chadwick Boseman win posthumously… This was so sick #Oscars.” Another pointed out the parallel between the end of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and the Oscars and wrote, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom ends with a record producer giving the songs Chadwick Boseman’s character wrote to a white band, so maybe the end of the #oscars was a nod to that?”
“You’re telling me they put Chadwick Boseman’s memory in a gift bag but couldn’t translate that into a proper tribute at the actual event?? They basically exploited a dead man’s legacy? Are the Oscars producers actually okay in the head?” a Twitter user mentioned.
Fans also pointed out that while Hopkins is a brilliant actor, they expected Boseman’s legacy to be honoured. “What an anti-climatic ending. I loved Anthony Hopkins’s performance in that movie, but it felt like Chadwick Boseman’s win was guaranteed. #oscars,” one user mentioned.
Another user wrote, “Very poorly handled and they should catch a lot of flak.”
Boseman was seen in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Da 5 Bloods in 2020. The Netflix film marked his last appearance on screen.
