The Oscar Circus: A Fascist's Playground

Sex Workers and Artists Deserve More

Culture writing has chosen me, for whatever reason. It just keeps coming up in my work. I’ve written about Maison Margiela’s SS24 show (and I predicted their renewed virality in my ins and outs of 2024¹), Sampha’s Lahai album/live performance, films like I Saw the TV Glow (my first published piece!) and literary works/personas in White Lady Writers Make Me Want To Die (the one Roxane Gay likes!).

So, accordingly, this post discusses the 2025 Oscars, of which, like any good critic, I have mixed feelings.

Before I get into that though, I’ve been doing some reflecting. The more I write, the more I realize how much my general take is “damn this is all fascism fuck this”, which is very punk rock of me, but it’s time for me to further articulate the depth and nuance of my logical processes if I am ever really gonna turn this whole “writing a book thing” into a reality Future Me deems worthy. Plus, the blog needs a bit of longform. The point of PAINHUB was always process, and I am nowhere near where I want to or could be, which is riveting!

The Oscars are always weird, but this year’s felt particularly strange with lifelong film elites like Best Supporting Actor winner Kieran Culkin spewing coked-up sentiments like “I don’t even know how I got here” and saying his wife owes him a fourth child starkly contrasted by, 15 minutes later, winners for Best Animated Short, Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi², expressing gratitude in their acceptance speeches for being able to attend the evening’s events at all, given their visas were only issued the day prior, landing them in Hollywood three hours before being handed their award on stage³. The class divide is ever-clear, especially in the arts.

This shit was a circus. Hollywood always is, but something about the context of all we’re living through in tandem with a pasty caucasoid broadcasting that “through trauma and joy, this seemingly absurd ritual will always be here” before making a sorry joke about leaving Hollywood to run a bed an breakfast is bloody harrowing. Every. Body. Claps.

Reader, you already know how I feel about these rituals, but to hear one of the playmakers of this mess say it so unapologetically is riveting (derogatory).

With March 3rd being International Sex Worker Rights Day, there’s no better time for a piece like this.

“Representation” is a modern idea that I can’t help but see through, because, as one who lives with and alongside many of the marginalizations being “represented” I see no payoff for me and my peers. I would say, in some ways, it is only making our circumstances turn for worse. The descriptor “frustration” is a disservice to an emotion of this intensity.