FILM

Nobody Asked for Eminem's Surprise Oscars Performance

The rapper performed his hit "Lose Yourself," which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2003.

Photo by Madison McGaw/BFA/Shutterstock

Considering what many considered to be an overwhelmingly white and male nominee pool, the 92nd Annual Academy Awards ended up being...not that bad?

Korean thriller Parasite made history by becoming the first foreign language film to take home an Oscar for Best Picture, and its director Bong Joon Ho was adorable on numerous occasions. Joaquin Phoenix, after being named Best Lead Actor, continued his streak of spicy acceptance speeches with a condemnation of the animal agriculture industry. Janelle Monáe's opening number saluted snubbed films like Us and Midsommar. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph were, well, just as funny as you'd expect.

But there was one appearance at the Oscars that had many attendees and viewers perplexed. At the end of a montage celebrating iconic songs made famous by movies, clips of 8 Mile were projected on the screen as the instantly recognizable chug of "Lose Yourself" played along. And then—for reasons widely unbeknownst to the audience—Eminem himself appeared onstage to perform the 2002 No. 1 hit.

While some audience members in the Dolby Theatre happily rapped along, many seemed dumbfounded by Eminem's seemingly random appearance.

"Lose Yourself" became the first rap number to win the Oscar for Best Original Song back in 2003, but Eminem didn't attend that year because he didn't think he had a chance of winning. Although the reason for his delayed appearance is unclear, it seems Eminem just figured he was better late than never: "Look, if you had another shot, another opportunity... Thanks for having me @TheAcademy," he tweeted. "Sorry it took me 18 years to get here."

We're glad Slim Shady finally got his second shot, but why 18 years late? At this point, it feels like a pathetic and haphazard promotion of his eleventh studio album, Music to Be Murdered By, which received backlash for its audacious reference to the bombing at Ariana Grande's 2017 Manchester concert. A clip of old audio also recently resurfaced in which Eminem claimed he'd "side with Chris Brown" on the issue of Brown's infamous assault of Rihanna. Why are we continuing to bait Eminem's constant hunger for relevancy?

These audience reactions say it best:


Weezer at The Hella Mega Tour

Photo by Meng Christophe-ABACA-Shutterstock

The Frozen 2 soundtrack features beloved acts such as Kacey Musgraves and Panic! at the Disco, but Weezer's version of "Lost in the Woods" is an unholy force of 80s power ballads and 90s nostalgia.

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FILM

Taking "Frozen 2" Too Seriously: Race, Reparations, and Revisionist History

Disney comes close to transcending the Happily Ever After pitfall–and then fails.

Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell Receive Frozen-Inspired Dolls

Photo by Jordan Strauss-Invision-AP-Shutterstock

If you've seen Frozen, then you know that being a person of color these days is sort of like having magic powers—if you live in a society (like Arendelle) where people with magic powers are vilified and run out of many towns out of fear and misunderstanding of the foreign and unknown.

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FILM

Homophobia in Animation: Queer-Coded Disney Characters

Disney has almost no outwardly queer characters, and the queer-coded characters it does have are almost always villains.


Let's be honest: Disney hasn't given us a lot to work with in terms of LGBTQ+ representation.

Troublingly, many of the Disney characters that display queer characteristics are also portrayed as villains. While this isn't a positive thing overall, many queer folks have combed through Disney movies, triumphantly reclaiming the franchise's many glittering, flamboyant, queer-coded characters.

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Anyone who's seen Frozen and who is part of the LGBTQ+ community understands why the idea that Elsa might be gay is so tantalizingly appealing.

There's never been a queer Disney princess or even an overtly queer animated Disney character, after all, and since Elsa wasn't immediately paired with a male love interest (and since "Let It Go" has a very coming-out-of-the-closet kind of feeling), it became almost inevitable that people began to speculate about her sexuality.

To the great disappointment of many, Elsa definitely won't have a gay love interest (or any love interest at all, for that matter) in the sequel. Frozen II songwriter Kristen Anderson-Lopez confirmed this when she explained, "Like the first movie, Elsa is not just defined by a romantic interest. There's so many movies that define a woman by her romantic interest. That's not a story that we wanted to tell at this point in time. What we really wanted to tell was if you have these powers, how do you grow and change and find your place in the world and find answers that haven't been found before?"

Still hasn't stopped viewers of the Frozen II trailer from falling in love with our favorite ice queen. Speculation about Elsa's queerness has thrown Twitter users into a frenzy, mostly because in the preview, we see Elsa with her hair down for the first time.

Though Disney was given an F rating for LGBTQ+ representation by GLAAD, there's a long history of queer-coded Disney characters who have ignited speculation among the company's many gay fans and their allies.

Because of this and Disney's history of queer-baiting, having Elsa's queerness explicitly highlighted and celebrated would certainly be a victory for the gay community, and it would definitely be vitally important to all the little kids struggling to figure out their sexuality while watching the film, as well as for their families (and really, for queer people of any and all ages).

It's also possible that Elsa could be asexual or some variant of that. No matter what, Disney would be remiss to refrain from using their massive platform to create representation that honors LGBTQ+ people and their stories, which are too often kept buried within secret codes and silence.

As great as it would be for Disney to openly discuss Elsa's sexuality, none of this is to say that she must have a romantic relationship. Getting to watch her come into her own independently is extremely powerful proof that we are never defined by love affairs, by our partners, or by our sexualities.