RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
"The Shape Of Water" was the big winner at last night's Academy Awards, taking home Oscars for best picture, best director, best original score and best production design. This was the first Oscar ceremony since sexual harassment scandals shook Hollywood and beyond. NPR's Mandalit del Barco was backstage.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Oscars, take two. Last year, actors Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway opened the wrong envelope for the best picture and ended up announcing the wrong winner. This year, they were back.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
WARREN BEATTY: It's so nice seeing you again.
(LAUGHTER)
DEL BARCO: After they announced "The Shape Of Water" as winner, director Guillermo del Toro got onstage and checked the envelope to see if it was correct. He smiled and nodded yes. Then he held up one of his Oscars.
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GUILLERMO DEL TORO: Growing up in Mexico, I thought this could never happen. It happens.
DEL BARCO: Del Toro's fish-out-of-water love parable between a mute woman and an amphibious creature won four awards. As this year's best director, he now joins his friends and fellow Mexicans Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu in winning four of the past five best director awards.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
DEL TORO: I am an immigrant like Alfonso and Alejandro, my compadres, like Gael, like Salma and like many, many of you. And in the last 25 years, I've been living in a country all of our own. Part of it is here. Part of it is in Europe. Part of it is everywhere because I think that the greatest thing our art does and our industry does is to erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.
(APPLAUSE)
DEL BARCO: Del Toro dedicated his Oscars to young people around the globe who he said are changing the world. In the pressroom backstage, he also said he was proud to represent Mexico.
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DEL TORO: What we have to bring to the world discourse, to the world conversation is extremely important. And it's extremely important when we do it to remember where we're from.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
GAEL GARCIA BERNAL: (Singing) Remember me, though I have to say goodbye.
DEL BARCO: Actor Gael Garcia Bernal sang the award-winning theme song for this year's best animated picture, "Coco," which celebrates Mexico and remembering family. Singers Miguel and Natalia LaFourcade also joined him onstage in a kaleidoscope of Mexican images, music and dancing.
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NATALIA LAFOURCADE: (Singing in Spanish).
DEL BARCO: In their speeches, "Coco's" producers Adrian Molina and Darla K. Anderson thanked their husbands and wives respectively. And director Lee Unkrich said representation matters.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
LEE UNKRICH: With "Coco," we tried to take a step forward toward a world where all children can grow up seeing characters in movies that look and talk and live like they do.
DEL BARCO: 12-year-old Anthony Gonzalez, who voiced the movie's main character Miguel, added this.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
ANTHONY GONZALEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
DEL BARCO: A big part of this year's Oscars focused on the Time's Up movement that began in Hollywood after a number of women announced that producer Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed and even raped them. Standing onstage together were three of his accusers - Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd and Annabella Sciorra.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
ANNABELLA SCIORRA: This year, many spoke their truth. And the journey ahead is long, but slowly, a new path has emerged.
ASHLEY JUDD: The changes we are witnessing are being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of our voices joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying, time's up.
DEL BARCO: That chorus supporting women continued when Frances McDormand won best actress for her portrayal as a grieving mother in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
FRANCES MCDORMAND: If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight - the actors.
(CHEERING)
MCDORMAND: Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will. Come on. The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographer...
DEL BARCO: She left the stage with two words.
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MCDORMAND: ...Inclusion rider.
DEL BARCO: In the pressroom, McDormand explained what that means.
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MCDORMAND: There has always been available to all - everybody that does a negotiation on a film - an inclusion rider, which means that you can ask for and/or demand at least 50 percent diversity in not only the casting, but also the crew. And so the fact that we - that I just learned that after 35 years of being in the film business, it's not - we're not going back. So the whole idea of women trending - no. No trending. African-Americans trending - no. No trending. It changes now.
DEL BARCO: It was an historic win for Jordan Peele, the first African-American to win best original screenplay. He wrote and directed the comedy-horror film "Get Out." Onstage, he dedicated his Oscar to all those who allowed him to raise his voice as a filmmaker. Backstage, he talked about this moment for black filmmakers.
(SOUNDBITE OF 90TH ACADEMY AWARDS)
JORDAN PEELE: Oh, my God. It's a renaissance. I almost never became a director because there's such a shortage of role models. We had Spike. We had John Singleton. We had the Peebleses (ph). We had the Hughes brothers. But they felt like the exception to the rule. I'm so proud to be a part of a time, the beginning of a movement where I feel like the best films in every genre are being brought to me by my fellow black directors.
DEL BARCO: The Oscars ceremony also honored its members from many cultures, from immigrants who won awards such as Best Actor Gary Oldman from England, to those who presented the awards - Lupita Nyong'o from Kenya and Mexico, and Kumail Nanjiani from Pakistan. And the show's politics included just about every other movement. A performance of a song from the nominated film "Marshall" featured political activist Tarana Burke from the Me Too movement, and the United Farm Workers founder Dolores Huerta and others from Planned Parenthood to Standing Rock. They stood in the spotlight onstage as Common rapped.
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COMMON: On Oscar night, this is the dream we tell - a land where dreamers live and freedom dwells. Immigrants get the benefits. We put up monuments for the feminists. Tell the NRA they in God's way. And to the people of Parkland, we say, ase. Sentiments of love for the people from Africa, Haiti to Puerto Rico.
(APPLAUSE)
DEL BARCO: Another moment in the political post-Harvey Weinstein Oscars of 2018. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News, Hollywood.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDRE DESPLAT'S "THE SHAPE OF WATER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
