It’s been a full decade now since I attended the Academy Awards ceremony for this very same publication, and chat, I am feeling, like, totally cooked. I’m so unc’d, it’s cringe, fam.

The article was titled “My first Oscars”, which is a terribly presumptuous statement, because it assumes there will be a second or a third. Despite my best efforts, it remains my only Oscars. I reread the piece to prepare to once again write about the Academy Awards for the Guardian, and I was shocked by how mundane the whole experience came across on the page. As befitting the much younger, more crass version of myself, there was a lot of eyerolling and snark about how soulless the event was. Also, I wouldn’t stop talking about seeing Gary Busey.

A lot has changed since 2016, and I probably don’t need to waste a bunch of time telling you exactly how.

But I will anyway.

The big talking point of that year, dominated by the investigative journalism drama Spotlight, was the #OscarsSoWhite social media movement, which was attempting to raise awareness for the lack of diversity in the Academy’s nominations and their voting body. It was the spiciest part of an otherwise drab affair hosted by Chris Rock, who at the time had no idea that hosting the show would become the least memorable part of his place in Oscar history.

In 2026, when retreats from DEI initiatives are widespread in corporate America and the term “woke” is considered a slur, it shouldn’t be surprising that no one is talking about such things anymore. But it does feel like the Academy has made progress in broadening its membership, and the Best Picture frontrunner is an unapologetically Black horror film called Sinners. Besides, the Academy has a slightly more important issue to deal with: specifically, the potential collapse of the entire film industry.

The ceaseless march of studio consolidation, theater operators teetering toward insolvency, the rise of artificial intelligence, and good old-fashioned audience apathy have formed into a hideous Megazord of existential crises that have left even the most casual observer of Hollywood wondering if movies will become as irrelevant as some rich-old-fart nonsense like opera and ballet.

Part of this malaise casserole with a side of despair comes from the fact that these days, the Oscars are routinely overshadowed by some white-hot new terror engulfing the news. The 2021 event was almost canceled due to Covid, but instead, they held half the show inside a train station. A beautiful train station, yes, but an Amtrak depot nonetheless. Imagine winning an Oscar and then immediately hopping on the 8.23 to Bakersfield. Though I suppose it’s an upgrade from holding the show in a mall.

In 2022, the awards were given out a month after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Audiences were treated to a moment of silence to honor the lives lost in the war before getting back to business. It was a crisis no one could ignore, but in 2025, the Oscars did their level best to brush past the re-election of Donald Trump and the tumult that came with it.

This year, the show is being broadcast under the pall of the American bombardment of Iran, plus, like, 700 other depressing things. It’s hard to enjoy the Oscars when every year, it seems like the Academy has to apologize for even having the event “under the current circumstances”. In 2016, the Oscars could comfortably be dismissed as a bit of fluff that awards self-important celebrities for their vanity. Of course, it never really was that. Film is still the most powerful, meaningful medium for mass-market art. Even as multiplexes across the world are inundated with blockbuster IP schlock, real cinema still exists, and the Oscars present those films to a wide audience. It was just easy to be smug about it, because apathy seemed more appealing back then.

Now, the Oscars exist within a constant cycle of madness that makes it nearly impossible to just treat the event as a fun diversion full of beautiful people enjoying their good fortune. I remember being young, outside the Hollywood machine, and being starstruck by the Academy Awards. Famous people in beautiful clothes getting their picture taken appeals to a very primal side of the human psyche. Marketers and corporate types love using the term “aspirational” to describe various products and “pieces of content”; the Oscars was the epitome of this well before the term was so ubiquitous.

I can only guess at how many film industry workers got into the business because of watching the Academy Awards, but I’m sure it’s not an insubstantial number. Every year, the Oscars function as a long, expensive advertisement for the idea of movies. The introductions, video packages and acceptance speeches all reinforce one basic truth: motion pictures are important, they are the physical manifestation of our dreams, and they must be protected at all costs.

It used to be that these sorts of appeals were amusing and we could all patronize the Hollywood cheerleaders. Sort of like watching your kid languish in right field during a Little League baseball game, then having to tell them how great they did standing upright for 20 minutes. “Oh, buddy, I was so impressed with how you … stayed focused while absolutely nothing happened.” Movies, like your child who sucks at baseball, are great. Film is a powerful artistic medium that has shaped every aspect of our civilization in ways we can’t even fully comprehend. But eventually, your kid grows up and has to experience the real world.

And I’m not afraid to say it: the real world sucks.

The Oscars can’t be what we truly need them to be any more: an opulent dream, a vessel to transport us out of the mundane and into the magnificent. They are slowly turning into yet more goop being slopped on an overflowing plate of “content”. The news keeps reminding us that none of this matters in the face of unspeakable horrors. But even if the awards ceremony has lost its way, film does matter. Art will always matter, because it’s the only way for humanity to truly know itself. It’s the mirror we hold to ourselves, to tell us we’re beautiful. Or, more often than not, to show us how ugly we really can be.

That’s something you learn when you grow up – as 2016 turns into 2026 and through infinity. I certainly did.