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2023 Oscars Recap: No Slap, But There’s Still Drama

Posted on by kayleij

Earlier this week we took a brief look at the social media traffic surrounding 2023 Oscars awards, which took place Sunday night. Now, we’re looking into a deep dive of what people were talking about regarding one of the most star-studded ceremonies in the world. 

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From March 10 (the Friday before the show) through March 16, the Oscars (“Oscars” OR “Oscar Awards” OR “2023 Oscars”) were mentioned a stunning 11.23 million times around the world, with 1.34 million of those mentions coming from the United States. Another top traffic contributor was India, thanks to the Indian film “RRR” making waves and its original song “Naatu Naatu” winning the Oscar for Best Original Song as well as being performed live. India contributed 921.7K mentions to the global discussion of the awards show. 

For once, sentiment was largely positive: 83.9% of all mentions were coded as positive. Some of the most-used words and phrases within these positives mentioned included “Congratulations,” “won,” and “winner,” indicating that users were congratulating both the nominees and winners. Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Jamie Lee Curtis were also frequently mentioned positively for their performances in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” as well as both praise for and critiques of the increased diversity of nominees and winners. 

Yeoh would ultimately win Best Actress, Quan would win Best Supporting Actor, and Curtis would win Best Supporting Actress, all for their roles in that film. Brendan Fraser joined the winning coterie with the Best Actor award for his emotional performance in “The Whale.”

Despite all the positive sentiment, though, there were still some controversies around the evening. While nothing quite reached the virality level of “The Slap” last year, it wouldn’t be a Hollywood awards show without a little chaos. 

Hugh Grant was immediately called out for seemingly being rude to Ashley Graham while she was interviewing him on the red carpet. Discussion online ranged from praising Graham for how she responded, arguing that she just missed the joke Grant was trying to make, and maligning Grant for how he was acting. Of course, many have also asked the real question: 

Grant’s name was mentioned 59.8K times in the same time window, with a spike on March 13 as people began to share the interview and discuss their interpretations. Sentiment is split nearly perfectly in half – 49.1% positive and 50.9% negative – indicating that people truly cannot decide who was in the wrong, or if there was even any wrong done. 

Other headlines from the night included Ke Huy Quan and Harrison Ford reuniting on stage for the first time in decades, especially since Quan had retired from acting until “Everything Everywhere All At Once” came calling. The heartwarming moment brought back memories of their (literally also heartwarming?) movie together, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” 

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Additionally, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” editor Paul Rogers discussed his white male privilege when he accepted the award, especially resonant as the film focused on an Asian-American immigrant family and most of its actors were Asian or Asian-American. Many fans praised this transparency and acknowledgement, especially in contrast to how Harry Styles accepted his Album of the Year Grammy several weeks ago. 

Ultimately, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” ended the night with seven wins out of its 11 nominations while Netflix’s German-language epic remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front” followed closely with four wins out of its nine nominations. 

Author: Kayleigh Jackson

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics