Typically, the discussion surrounding an Oscars category is littered with people figuring out who campaigned the most, which nominee has picked up enough other awards, and who deserves it more than the rest. But in the case of the 2023 Oscars Best Actress category, the awards discussion has been dominated by rules. Most notably, the talk about whether or not Andrea Riseborough should have landed her nomination. However, right as the Oscars voting ended, Michelle Yeoh stirred up a bit of rules controversy with one simple Instagram post.
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Yesterday, Michelle Yeoh, who is nominated for her work in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and is assumed to be one of the two major frontrunners to win Best Actress, shared some screenshots (the post is now deleted) from a recent Vogue article talking about how important it is for a non-white actress to win. While that’s not the craziest thing in the world to share, as Yeoh has been breaking new ground as an Asian woman winning so many trophies this year, the specific parts of the article she shared do call out Cate Blanchett and suggest that voters should use their power to make sure Yeoh wins and not Blanchett. As pointed out by the Daily Beast, this does call into question the rules of the category, which everyone seems to be an expert about due to the aforementioned Riseborough situation.
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The specific rule that seems to be applicable here is about one nominee using “any tactic” to call out or single out “the competition” in a category by name. Though, this is where things get a bit opaque. You see, all Yeoh did was share an article that called out her biggest competition, Cate Blanchett. Yeoh didn’t say the words herself or even say that people should follow the suggestion. She just posted the article and screenshots. That said, it was just hours before the voting window was closed, and given all of the attention placed on the rules in relation to Riseborough, people are placing more scrutiny on this year’s Best Actress race than ever before.
Unfortunately for Yeoh, it did appear that she has all the momentum in the world right now and seems to be the person poised to take home the trophy. So, all that social media post does is add just a little controversy to a potential win that wasn’t necessary and could sully a great moment, even just a little.
We still don’t know if there will be any sort of repercussions for the post. And we’ll just have to wait and see what’ll happy this Sunday when the awards are handed out.