My complicated feelings toward Frances McDormand's third win
Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 12:15PM
please welcome new contributor Timothy Lyons
she likes to work
Frances McDormand’s performance in Nomadland was my favourite of the year. Full stop. Both the film itself and McDormand’s work as Fern blew me away with their deceptive simplicity quietly revealing hidden depths of feeling. Why oh why then did I feel such a crushing sense of disappointment when McDormand took her third Best Actress trophy at this year’s Oscars?
I consider myself a proponent of the notion that “the Academy Awards should be about the work and not the narrative”. For example, Glenn Close rightfully lost this year to a superior performance despite receiving her 8th nomination and feeling grossly overdue for the gold. Her narrative was an easy one to get on board with - “Just give Glenn the gold already”, but instead the Academy awarded Youn Yuh-jung for her breakout work in Minari. Perhaps a different narrative did play a part in Youn’s victory but it was deserved wholly for the performance nonetheless.
I could say the same about McDormand’s win, but it just doesn’t sit the same.
Carey Mulligan photographed by Gavin Batty. IMG SRC
Maybe it’s the sense of anticlimax? It does feel like kind of a letdown that for how electric and exciting the uncertainty of the Best Actress category felt going in, the winner was the one that was everyone’s default pick before awards season officially began. A win for ANY of the other nominees definitely would have felt more exciting for it’s audacity (Mulligan), historic significance (Davis and Day) or wild unexpectedness (Kirby). But I agreed with the winner!?! Why should I feel this way?
Perhaps it’s the feeling of overkill? Each of the other nominees (in an unusually strong field) would have won their first Lead Actress trophy had their names been called - voters could have easily spread the wealth by going with someone new. Instead, they gave the award to McDormand, who already had two wins under her belt. But what would I have done if I was a voting member of the Academy looking at my ballot?
Viola Davis for Vanity Fair shot by Quil Lemons
I would probably think about how McDormand’s first Oscar should have gone to Emily Watson despite my loving both Fargo and Marge Gunderson. I would then think about how her second Oscar should have gone to Saoirse Ronan despite my appreciation for Mildred Hayes in spite of the overrated movie that surrounded her (Three Billboards…). Finally, I would put my vote down for ‘Fern’ because she’s the one who in my honest opinion deserves to win based on performance alone. If then Carey Mulligan was announced as the winner I would applaud with genuine joy despite my disagreeing with the outcome - “Fran has enough”.
But then again, maybe I wouldn’t vote for Fran/Fern. If nothing else, my disappointment has shown me how easy it is to get caught up in the narrative: “Fran has enough, why not throw this one to the undervalued Carey? Or to the always superb but yet-to-take-a-lead-gong Viola?” Could I completely take my feelings towards the people behind the performances and their career trajectories out of the equation?
Academy voters are real people with (I presume) a lot of the same doubts and quandaries as I have and; being in the industry, differing feelings towards the people behind the performances. This very human element is what has made and will keep making the Academy a flawed and broken machine. Maybe voters genuinely thought McDormand deserved every one of her wins based on performance alone. Maybe they just like the woman herself. Maybe (on this occasion at least) it was just a matter of heavy vote splitting and the vast majority of votes did go elsewhere. The Oscars don’t exist in a vacuum - there is so much at play.
Whatever the reason, I should applaud the win but; because I can’t go back in time and prevent the first two wins, I can’t shake the sense that the glory should have been shared and I can’t help the deflation; it just feels a little… meh. Maybe I’m alone here (it’s all opinion after all) and my ramblings make no sense but I feel like any lifelong Oscar obsessive is no stranger to the complexity of feeling that comes with the territory - we love the game, treasure the triumphs, and equally love to grumble when things don’t go our way.
This feeling of grumbling when it actually does is definitely new. In that respect it’s nice to know the journey of compulsively following awards season still has a few surprises up its sleeve. On to the 94th Academy Awards!
Reader Comments (76)
She deserved it for Fargo. Not for 3 Billboards (Saiorse deserved it), and not for this (Mulligan or Kirby deserved it).
So much about this win felt anticlimactic to me. The fact that she had JUST been onstage and given a speech for Best Picture, the fact that she already has two, the fact that one of those wins was not only recent but also involved a season where she literally swept the season, and the fact that there were SUCH more exciting and historic options available...
McDormand in 1997 should have lost to Brenda Blethyn, not Emily Watson (who was second in that field, McDormand was third).
And three years ago Margot Robbie was the best, not Saoirse Ronan, obviously.
But this year she was the best so - good choice, Academy!
@Jaragon-And if she keeps up with this Oscar-bait mentality, she'll never win one. Sorry but mediocrity doesn't amount to shit.
"This category disgusts me. It always goes to white actresses and at this point I’m over it. This is the second time Viola won the SAG award only to lose the Oscar to a white actress who already had 2 Oscars on her mantle."
LOL. Davis lost to two actresses that were far better than her.
Do you claim that she should win because she's black and that's the only reason?
Meryl is terrible in The Iron Lady
The only reason I'm not happy for this win is because Oscars are so boring to nominate and make win the same people instead of looking for "new" talent.
Is hard for me to read comments claiming who really gives the best performance, and even worst, compairing the Oscar race with an olympic medal.
An olympic medal are rewarded for specific achievements that can be tangible (the fastest, the strongest, who scores most points etc.) and speaking of art there is no specific tangibility.
You can't compare a comedic performance with a dramatic one so, how you gonna choose the "best"?. In any case you can see the difference in a person who efforts in their work to someone who doesn't, but pretending to point just one artistical achievement as the top-one and only-best is honestly ridiculous.
I have been said it before and I'm gonna repeated always: the movie industry of ANY country has their own diversity richnes.
If exists diverse award associations the most "logical" is that the nominees and winners will be diverse but ironically the prizes instead of celebrate the diversity it ends to do statements that makes people think homologically to everybody claim the same people as "the best".
This will go down as one of the more agonizing Best Actress results for me. At least when Zellweger or McDormand won last time, it was a shoo in and e had no reason to expect otherwise.
This one will haunt me as the one that got away for Mulligan, like Davis in 2011 or Glenn in 1988.
I’m so happy an understated, subtle performance won. Very refreshing. One of the best wins ever, I think.
I completely agree that this will help Meryl win a 4th and/or 5th. I am not buying that Frances McDormand is the new Queen of Hollywood, not for long anyway.
I felt especially terrible for Viola. I did not care for her film, but she won SAG and then the Academy gives it to Frances. Ouch. For a night celebrating diversity, the end with two white actors winning best actor and best actress was grating. Frances herself has said to give awards to new people.
"Had she steamrolled the season and been forced to deliver acceptance speeches over the past couple of months, voters may have experienced some fatigue, making an upset more likely." Err, but she attended zilch zoom award shows.......the only one she turns up is Oscar.
If you rank all her three wins, no doubt Nomadland is her best performance, but like so many had mentioned, it feels soooooo extraneous and anti-climax, esp seeing tt she just won Best Pic & had given a rousing speech right before her 2nd win of the night!! I believe she was caught off guard as well by her win and she did not prepare a speech, unlike her first two wins (which she had delivered well prepared/ thot out speeches).
Lets be honest here, winning an acting award is never just about the performances, the narrative, the clout, and all sort of emotions come to play. Her 3rd win doesn't make her the Best Actress of the year; it made her the Favourite Actress of the Academy.
w her 4 Oscars, she is right up there just behind their All-Time Favourite: Kate Hepburn. The Academy is actually making a STATEMENT! Fran is their Kate of this generation!
Maybe time will heal our collective let-down feeling when Carey & Viola finally win the Oscar (hopefully not on a lesser performance, lol)
Danny: Honestly? Robbie was a producer on Promising Young Woman, so I guess she might have wanted to do it at some point, but I assume she gave up the role to do the Harley Quinn movie, and, if so...? Personally, I think she probably made the right decision from an ART perspective, not just a commercial one.
If Viola just chose to go Lead in 2016 for Best Actress, she would win by a mile against Emma Stone. But it made me realize that we wouldn't have Isabelle Huppert getting her due if Davis was on it.
"I consider myself a proponent of the notion that “the Academy Awards should be about the work and not the narrative”. "
You wish you felt this way, but the existence of this article is proof you're not quite on board with that statement completely. Just own it.
Davis would lost to Emma Stone. That's pretty obvious.
And Meryl was very good in "The Iron Lady". Surely more deserving than Davis for "The Help".
The problem with Davis and her SAG wins is that she always wins in bad categories. In "The Help" and "Ma Rainey" she is clearly supporting and she won lead. In "Fences" she is clearly lead and won supporting. Nothing strange then that only for "Fences" she won Oscar too (Academy loves lead roles in supporting category but not vice versa).
Thanks for the feedback all - love the mix of comments. Just kinda proves the point on how subjective the whole thing is. It’s not as one commenter put it anything like the Olympics as there’s no definite criteria - it’s all a matter of personal taste and experience. I still stand by my belief that it SHOULD all be about the individual performance but like any belief it takes some work to live it in practice and by the very nature of the thing it never really can be JUST about the singular work.
Just wanted to reflect my learning experience that resulted from the instinctual dissatisfaction. I think it’s honestly the disagreement and shifting tastes that keeps us obsessives interested.
And yes @Richard - absolute #firstworldproblems :-)
@ Vince
I suspect that Negga would have lost the nomination. Streep is Streep, Portman and Stone were way ahead, and Huppert had a huge amount of critical momentum. SPC ran her race perfectly. Negga just sorta showed up, it seemed.
re: Olympics
Yeah, because judged events never inspire controversy!
And be prepared that SAG will be wrong more often now when the Academy is much bigger and more international than few years ago.
I was hoping Mulligan would win because it was such a different (and excellent) performance from her. Nomadland left me a bit cold.
It so rarely is about the performance when it comes to Oscar wins. I think Vanessa Kirby was far and away the best, but I was rooting for the Oscars to give it to Viola or Andra. It is just such a horrible look that Fran won her third Lead Actress Oscar and when two Black actresses were nominated (both doing the Academy’s very fav role, no less) and only one non-white actress was ever won in the category.
I was rooting most for Viola because a second Oscar is inevitable and I wanna see what she does after that.
I don’t understand the narrative that Viola or anyone else needs a leading Oscar like supporting is a consolation price. To me what matters if you have won prior or not and it was the same for Viola and Francis. And Viola’s performance wasn’t that interesting nor she had much screentime either to say this was a big moment for her.
I think there is nearly some letdown every time an actor wins again unless it’s career best performance or really excellent and other performances are weak, or maybe everyone in category is either a prior winner/so much a newcomer like Bakalova or Day that the nomination is a win.
The best performance won. That should really be the only factor under consideration. However, as many have said, subjectivity is not something easily put aside. In this circumstance, it's the third Best Actress victory that gives me pause. I am hesitant to say that three lead Oscars is deserved--that's really something rare. In my mind, she has only two--my choice in 1996 was Diane Keaton's extraordinary work in Marvin's Room. For others, I think also part of the lack of enthusiasm for this win is her terse acceptance speech, which was hindered by the odd placement after the announcement of Best Picture. This only exacerbated McDormand's trademark humility being undermined by the probability that she believed the movie was being unfairly and unnecessarily overshadowed by her award--which she probably hated.
But when all is said and done, Frances gave a beautiful and true performance, the kind of which is rarely honored in this way. So it's hard to get too upset.
PSA for everyone here: possessive “its” HAS NO APOSTROPHE, and “anticlimatic” means anti-weather. It’s “anticlimaCtic.”
I honestly believe McDormand's win represents a prejudice on behalf of "oh so subtle, naturalistic performances". Oh please. If anyone really understands acting they'll turn to see that the SAG gave their award to the correct person. I will never discredit McDormand's immense skill as an actress - she is certainly one of our best at naturalistic acting on screen - BUT this was not the performance of the year everyone wants to believe it is. Sorry - but looking soulful at the beautiful landscapes and compassionately at other nomads does not place many demands on the actress. I'm perfectly comfortable seeing her nominated but to win...I'm absolutely believe McDormand could have given this performance half asleep. In what moments was she really challenged as an actress? In what moments did she have to convey something more complex than subtle internal thinking and feeling? Again - anyone who has done film acting learns very quickly that to remain still and "THINK" and "FEEL" is NOT the challenge everyone seems to think it is. Again, McDormand is a brilliant actress and I'm pretty comfortable with her previous wins - and totally comfortable with her being nominated this year - but she DID not give the best performance of the 5 women nominated (let's not even discuss the several worthy women who didn't even get that recognitioni). It actually hurts my soul that people are ok with this. Please - we need fire - we need complex, challenging roles, we need to be transported by the performances who win our Oscars.
LOL at all these comments. Streep should have at least 4 by now, probably 6 by my count.