Michelle Yeoh has won the Oscar for best actress, defeating Cate Blanchett by surprise, who was aspiring to her third Oscar, after The Aviator in 2004 and Blue Jasmine in 2013, with the despotic music director from Tár, who for many was an ideal vehicle to enhance the acting skills of the great Australian actress. Yeoh, the star of movies like Tiger and Dragon or Crazy Rich Asians and a Chinese spy in Tomorrow Never Dies, has prevailed over Blanchett after the controversy caused by sharing an article on Hollywood’s structural racism on her Instagram account.
Though she later deleted it, Yeoh shared on Instagram a Vogue article titled “There hasn’t been a non-white Best Actress Oscar winner in over two decades. Will that change in 2023?” The argument given by the magazine is that 21 years have passed since a non-white actress won an Oscar in this category, the last being Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball. The controversy began when the magazine compared the two actresses who this year were the main candidates to win the statuette and, although it mentioned Blanchett’s enviable career, Vogue reiterated its support for Yeoh, emphasizing that she has not had as many opportunities as the australian
Yeoh has said when collecting the award for “boys and girls” that “this award is a beacon of hope and opportunity, proof that you can dream big, and girls, never ever let anyone tell you that you have missed rice”. And he recalled that “I wouldn’t be here without the two Daniels and the cast.” “I have to dedicate this to my mother, to all the mothers in the world, because they are superheroines and without them none of us would be here today. She is 84 years old and I am going to give it to her. And also to my family in Hong Kong, where I started my professional career. Thanks to the Academy, this is History”.
The Yeoh award -which also went to Ana de Armas (Blonde), Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie) and Michelle Williams (Los Fabelmans)- meant that three of the four acting awards of the night went to Todo a once everywhere following supporting wins for Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan.
