2025 Oscars | Female Bodies as the Key to Oscar Success

I often underestimate how disappointing the Oscars can be—especially when they lack spectacle. The recently concluded 97th Academy Awards featured neither the drama of a celebrity slap nor the blunder of announcing the wrong winner. Even the controversy surrounding transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón's provocative tweets—which sparked a social media storm and a crisis for her career—ended up as fodder for Conan O'Brien's monologue after she appeared at the ceremony. "Anora uses the F-word 479 times. That's three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón's publicist," the comedian remarked.

Anora, with its constant barrage of expletives, ultimately scooped five major awards that night: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing, making it the biggest winner at this year's Oscars. Independent filmmaker Sean Baker finally conquered both the Oscars and the Cannes Film Festival with a film that cost just US$6 million—something some view as a triumph for indie cinema. Meanwhile, the film's lead actress, Mikey Madison, became the first Oscar Best Actress winner born after 1995—an unparalleled milestone in her career. But can Anora, a film about a stripper, really be seen as a major victory for female narratives? I believe the answer is no. After the Oscars awarded Best Actress to performers playing characters who weaponize their bodies for two consecutive years, it's clear the Academy has laid bare its conservatism and arrogance on gender issues.

Recall last year's Best Actor and Best Actress winners and their films: essentially, the winners of the 97th Academy Awards replicated the 2024 formula—Adrien Brody starred as a fictional Oppenheimer, while Madison's character resembled a realistic version of the Poor Things protagonist. Even the themes of The Brutalist and Anora mirror their predecessors: the male leads in The Brutalist and Oppenheimer endure pain and suffering, while the female leads in Anora and Poor Things rely on their bodies as their primary means of asserting power.

You could argue that Oscar winners are often the coincidental result of multiple factors, but beneath these coincidences, there are clear, almost predetermined trends. The consecutive Best Actress wins for the leads in Poor Things and Anora illustrate a predestined repetition. Seven years after the MeToo movement began and with women being cast as protagonists or co-protagonists in more than 50% of the top-grossing films in 2024, female actors still earn the highest recognition only by playing roles that transform their bodies into weapons. This outcome transcends the affirmation of professionalism and artistic performance—it reflects Hollywood's disturbing bias against female actors' career planning and the very real societal challenges women face today.

Simply put, the creators' choice of telling stories about certain characters from a particular perspective and the evaluation of these works by the public, mainstream media, and awards shows are two separate matters. Globally influential awards like the Oscars have a massive impact on creative trends and they subtly shape how people perceive films—though I'm reluctant to admit it because, more often than not, these mainstream awards don't represent the progressive values of societies at all; they're merely following established norms or performing the act of doing so.

Take Anora as an example: the director/screenwriter made Ani—who works in Brooklyn—the film's absolute protagonist. This sex worker meets Ivan, a client claiming to be the son of a Russian tycoon. The clearly immature Ivan suddenly proposes to Ani, and in a flash wedding, their romance ignites. But events take a dramatic turn when Ivan's parents learn of the marriage and tries to force its annulment. With Ivan's disappearance, Ani's dream of marrying a rich man ultimately shatters.

In an era of widening global wealth disparity, Anora deliberately centers on a marginalized sex worker amidst starkly contrasting social classes, as if only this juxtaposition could address both class and gender oppression against women. Yet, I disagree with the Oscar voters; it's precisely this unnecessary juxtaposition that weakens the film's exploration of both issues.

Anora's meticulously designed ending perfectly illustrates the problem. After the chaos subsides, Ani chooses to use her body to thank Igor—a subordinate of the Russian tycoon—for his help. In front of the wealthy, they momentarily achieve a semblance of equality as they're both subjects of oppression. But at that very moment, Ani is once again objectified and sexually exploited by Igor, the man she was once on equal footing with. The film goes to great lengths to demonstrate that both sex workers and their non-wealthy clients suffer oppression—with sex workers bearing the brunt of insults and harm. The key issue is that while Ani appears to suffer from the dual oppression of capitalism and gender inequality, these two forms of oppression share the same root: patriarchal society. Instead of merely questioning why everyone is oppressed, Anora should have explored the cause of Ani's double burden.

I believe Anora inadvertently contributes further to the oppression and objectification of women. The film includes numerous scenes of nudity and intimate acts, especially when depicting Ani's work as a stripper and her interactions with Ivan. It presents female nudity and sex scenes with almost no restraint, seemingly framing the exposure of women's bodies and their raunchy actions to please male clients as "entertainment" rather than exploitation.

Rather than using nudity as an artistic expression, the film more accurately reflects the perspective of its male creators and reinforces the male gaze—both from the men in the story and from external viewers. Whether the creators admit it or not, these nude scenes are defined by the male gaze. Actually, another film nominated for both Best Picture and Best Actress, The Substance, faces the same issue. Additionally, it's worth noting that the film didn't hire professional intimacy coordinators for these scenes; instead, after coordinating with the actors, director and producer Baker ultimately chose to have only the directing team present for coordination.

I don't doubt Madison's commitment to shaping her character—her performance fills in the gaps of an ambiguous design, lending the character vitality. But I must question whether such unrestrained physical exposure was necessary. Did the creators truly need to rely on nudity to highlight their themes? Could they've portrayed the characters and their arcs without resorting to endless exposure? If we can answer "no" to these questions, then we must seriously question the prevailing norm of unrestrained female nudity in films.

Yet, this year's Oscars awarded five major prizes to Anora—a film that fails to challenge the male gaze. When Emma Stone, who won Best Actress for Poor Things last year, presented the award to Madison, I felt a chill. The Oscars have once again confirmed the central role of bodily display in constructing complex female characters. While the Best Picture in question tries to narrate the tragedy of a woman whose only capital is her body, the Oscars subtly suggest that all female actors (and women in the world) can achieve success and recognition simply by displaying their bodies. In effect, a woman's body becomes her ladder to success. Is this the cultural message that mainstream institutions, represented by the Oscars, are determined to reinforce?

Faced with these persistent reassurances that a woman's body remains the only ticket to Oscar success, what are we to do? As a film enthusiast and a committed feminist, I feel both anger and deep dissatisfaction. But I also know that once we name (and shame) these toxic narratives, their power begins to wane—like negative emotions, their grip loosens when we confront them head-on. Recognizing these malicious patterns is the first step toward dismantling them. It's time to demand that female stories transcend superficial symbolism and evolve into narratives of true empowerment. Only then can we rewrite not just Hollywood's formulas, but also our own futures.

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