“I hear what you guys are saying about the Oscars and how they’re a celebration of life, and the show must go on,” author Stephen King shared on Threads. “It all makes a degree of sense, but to me it still feels like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Or in this case, wearing fancy clothes while LA burns.”
King is one of many individuals acknowledging the impact of the Los Angeles wildfires on the entertainment industry and calling for something to be done. He once wrote, “life isn’t a support system for art; it’s the other way around,” and in that sense, it’s hard to imagine how an awards ceremony could be the most pressing issue with so many people’s lives and homes at stake just next door.
But this issue, like most, is more nuanced than it first appears.
“[The Oscars] are a big part of the culture of the city,” University of Iowa first-year student Blake Blechner said. “But when it comes to fires and stuff like this happening, you see the actual culture of the city that isn’t fully promoted like the Oscars are.”
Blechner, who hails from Los Angeles, believes that if holding the Oscars is still feasible, the ceremony should proceed. But he doesn’t think it should be just like any other year.
“[They can] use it to raise money for communities that have been harshly impacted,” he said. “A lot of people need help right now, so if they’re going to go ahead and put a lot of media attention on it, why not use it for good?”
Although it seems that the Oscars will proceed mostly as planned, the Academy has made the decision not to feature any musical performances from the Best Original Song nominees, something they’ve done on the broadcast since 1946. This is meant to honor the city of Los Angeles and “reflect recent events.”
Blechner also noted the parallels between the wildfire situation and the events of 2020, in which the COVID-19 pandemic and the rising Black Lives Matter movement drastically altered the world outside of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.
“The industry became very aware of what was happening,” Blechner said. “But there is this disconnect between what they do and what actually happens [in the real world].”
Although the Oscars ceremony has never been outright canceled, it has been postponed in the past. Both in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and in 1981 after the attempted assassination of former President Ronald Reagan, Hollywood’s biggest night was put on hold.
Blechner believes real-world crises can serve as a wake-up call for massive industries, such as Hollywood, to take action.
“People become more aware, more initiatives, more inclusion across filming, putting people in TV that represent the communities that they’re from, instead of what’s largely been the case for a long time where it’s a very non-inclusive place,” Blechner said.
If nothing else, Blechner said, the fires have highlighted a portion of the community that isn’t normally thrust into the spotlight. The recent uptick in coverage has reminded people that LA is more than just stars and celebrities.
“When people think of LA, there is this real view of it as this city full of stars,” he said. “A lot of that stuff happens in the city, and it’s a huge part of the city’s culture, but [LA] is not everything.”
Robert Rouphail, a UI professor teaching the course Unnatural Disasters: A Global History, had thoughts on the matter as well.
“On one hand, Americans love a feel-good story, and this kind of pageantry provides a venue to remind people of the struggles and heroics of the city,” he wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “On the other, the event surely will serve a more politically expedient purpose as a venue for elected officials to demonstrate competence in the face of disasters.”
Rouphail also noted that LA will serve as a venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. Projecting this sense of normalcy in the face of catastrophe might be the general strategy for some of California’s other monumental events.
Although Blechner lives on the west side of the city and thus wasn’t personally impacted by the fires, he still made efforts to volunteer with friends, meeting people from all around the city who came together in assistance.
“I think people really do care about each other, and you do get to see that in these moments when it’s not just the glitz and glam of the city,” he said. “We really saw this connection that hasn’t been seen in a while, which is kind of nice.”