The Second Annual White Pages Guide To The Oscars

It's Hollywood's biggest and most glamorous, um, Tuesday morning newsletter...

Mar 05, 2024

Hey friends! It’s that time of year again, when I— a person who loves movies but who, for parenting reasons, watches most of them in disjointed twenty minute spurts before falling asleep— offers my analysis of all ten Best Picture nominees. Here are a few notes before we get into it:

I’ve attempted to analyze each film based on how it does or doesn’t wrestle with the major themes of this newsletter (Whiteness/patriarchy/capitalism, social change, all that kind of stuff). I also make dumb jokes.
If I disliked a film you loved, that’s ok. What a thrill, to experience art and culture differently from one another.
SPOILERS AHEAD! And while I’ve tried to keep those spoilers vague and vibes-y, if you really want to watch a film with as little backstory as possible, consider yourself forewarned.
Last year, I paywalled this issue as a bonus for subscribers. But as you likely know, I’m asking a lot of book-related favors from y’all right now, so as a token of my appreciation this one’s open to all.
Speaking of book-related favors, they’re at the end of this email. We’re two weeks from launch, friends. It’s go time and I could sincerely use your help. Fortunately, “help” in this case also means you getting to engage with a book that I think you’ll really enjoy. So win/win.

Enough preamble! Let’s go to the movies!

American Fiction

What it is about?

A couple things, actually. On one hand, it’s an upper-middle class Black family drama/prickly-artist-guy midlife crisis story. But it’s also a Hollywood Hustle-style parody of how White people fetishize stories of Black trauma (regardless of authenticity) because they make us feel like we’re better than other White people (whoa, I literally wrote a book about that!). I thought it was fun, but also thought that this critique from Jason England over at Defector was really smart.

I wonder if one of the risks of this kind of “hahahaha, lets laugh at the performative, guilt-ridden White people” story is that it gives White viewers permission to repeat the same pattern that the movie is ostensibly critiquing, namely feeling smug about how much better we must be than the cartoonish White publishers/Hollywood bigwigs in the movie?

Pretty sweaty question construction there, but yes, that’s one of England’s points! Makes you think, eh?

Is this a movie written and directed by a man that features an idealized female character whose primary role is to showcase the primary male character’s core flaw?

Yes!

Garrett, can that critique also be directed at your favorite piece of art from 2023, namely Season Two of the television program The Bear?

Lalalalalaa I can’t hear you because “Strange Currencies” is somehow playing in the ice cream section of this Chicagoland supermarket. What was that again?

Whatever. In the end, what is American Fiction’s most important lesson?

Never, under any circumstances, enter into a romantic relationship with a writer! Real pieces of work, writers. Absolute disasters.

Anatomy of a Fall

What is this movie about?

It is a knotty, nuanced exploration of the 2003 song “P.I.M.P.” by the New York rapper 50 Cent. Though the original song is best described as being “steel drum heavy,” the movie instead opts for an instrumental version. Stripped of Mr. Cent’s trademark over-confident lyrical delivery, the simplified P.I.M.P. showcases a rare example of the auditory phenomenon that musicologists describe as “Oops, All Steel Drums!”

Pretty impressive stuff. It’s no wonder the French had a whole big trial about it.

Garrett, do you have a story about 50 Cent and steel drums?

Sort of! Back in 2004, my wife taught English on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, a French overseas département. While living there, she successfully procured the following hat for me, which some "experts” claim is not an authentic 50 Cent hat. Consistent with The White Pages’ official “we report, you decide” philosophy, I’ll let you be the judge of that…

Is that an NBA logo on the side?

Of course!

No but really, what is the main message of Anatomy of a Fall?

Never, under any circumstances, enter into a romantic relationship with a writer. Real pieces of work, writers. Absolute disasters.

But is the German writer lady guilty?

Yes, guilty of being a writer.

Barbie

What is it about?

A doll who has an existential crisis. And also patriarchy.

Did you enjoy it?

Oh yeah, I thought it was fun as hell! But of course I did. I am a certified member of the woke mob. But also, more seriously, how neat was it that this was our big collective summer movie experience? I’ve lived through a lot of Big Movie Events that pretended to be for everyone but were primarily for young cis men and, I don’t know man, the vibes at those summer Barbie showings were pretty rad by comparison.

So was it a perfect movie that avoids any of the typical traps of White feminism?

I mean, it’s a movie made with the cooperation of a very large toy company that, while ostensibly featuring a diverse cast of Barbies (trans Barbies! Black Barbies! disabled Bodies!), only truly grants depth and agency to the blond White able-bodied cis Barbie. Sure, Barbieland has a Black President, but the only thing she really gets to do is show up and deliver one-liners. Hmmmm….

Garrett, are you just trying to do a whole smarty pants power analysis here because you were personally targeted by the scene where the one Ken tries to Ken-splain the band Pavement?

No comment!

Killers of the Flower Moon

Hey Garrett, any thoughts on this movie about Whiteness (and White maleness in particular) and the stories we tell ourselves to justify our patterns of violence and domination?

Well, when you put it that way…

And do you think it’s also interesting that, however artfully the film accomplishes that goal, it still begs the question of whose story is still being pushed to the side (the Osage Nation generally, and Osage women more specifically)?

You know, also a good point…

So, you got anything to say about that?

I mean, I literally have EVERYTHING to say about that. And believe me, I really want to repeat everything I wrote in this piece (and more!) but then today’s essay would end up being five million words long. Fortunately, I stand by this essay (which is also about Taylor Swift).

The Holdovers

What is this movie about?

It was fine! Next!

That’s a little dismissive, did you really not like the movie?

No, truly. It was fine. Everybody did a good job. It’s just that there are soooo many more movies to cover. And listen, I credit myself with being more interested than most in various sub-genres of White people, including Sad New England Prep School White People. You think I don’t have anything to say about the culture who gave the world a million Mckinsey consultants AND Phish? But come on, this train is moving…

So nothing to say about Da-Vine Joy Randolph’s character?

Listen, she was great. And her character was given some real back-story and a genuine, earned pathos. But come on, it’s not an accident that one of Mary’s primary roles in the film was to teach the two enfant terrible White fellas how to hug and cry. There’s a term for that kind of character in a White-directed film!

Maestro

Did this movie feature at least a thirty minute scene documenting the time that Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre hosted a lavish benefit reception for the Black Panthers and Tom Wolfe was probably too snarky about it but still, in his excoriation, revealed something fascinating about the way that White elites seek credibility through proximity with radical Blackness?

No, and that bummed me out. But also, If I may, a quick message to Tom Wolfe, per our earlier discussion about American Fiction.

Mr. Wolfe, you do realize that when you wrote that famous article, you were pulling the same stunt the Bernstein’s were (clinging to a judgmental moral high ground that separated you from other White people rather than evaluating your own Whiteness more critically)?

Again, what a fascinating phenomenon. Somebody should write a book about it!

Were you also disappointed that the movie was not, in fact, about a family of extremely moralistic cartoon bears?

Why does the mother bear only wear a nightgown? We need answers!

Back to the film!

Jeez, I have watched so much cinematic conducting over the past two years. Let’s cover some new occupations. Where’s my movie about sanitation workers? Or Costco clerks? Or notaries public???

Hey, speaking of connections to American Fiction, was this a movie directed by a man in which the primary female character served mostly as a magical muse for the Great White Man at the film’s center?

You already know the answer!

Now, Garrett, I know you were disappointed by the whole Black Panthers thing not being in the movie, but did this film redeem itself with a scene where the main character drives a convertible really fast while listening to the specific part of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of The World As We Know It…” where Michael Stipe yells his name?

LEO-NARD BERN-STEIN!

Oppenheimer

What is this movie about?

I promise that I’m not just playing dumb here. I honestly don’t know what this movie is saying. That it’s ok to invent the atomic bomb if you’re sad about it afterwards? That the primary thing that matters in a life is maintaining your federal security clearance? That mid-century physicists were all messy gossip-mongers who loved drama?

It seems like you’re criticizing the movie for not being an entirely different movie?

I guess. And that’s probably not fair. But still! Think about all the topics that were either not covered at all or superficially glanced over: The bomb’s actual impact on residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (to say nothing of downwinders in New Mexico); The broader community of socialists (particularly Jewish socialists) wrestling with their ideals for a future beyond capitalist nation states in the face of the acute threat of fascism; The interior life of female academics in those radical communities, depicted in the film as either being shrill and embittered or mentally ill/perennially topless. I could go on!

Again, we got the outlines of some of that, but by the third hour of Robert Downey Jr. skulking around Senate chambers being grumpy, I got pretty damned antsy. It’s obviously an impressive film, but I’m genuinely confused— with so much that it isn’t interested in, what is this film about?

Anything else that would have made this movie better?

An all steel-drum version of “P.I.M.P.” by 50 Cent.

Garrett, are you smart enough to be able to tell all the physicists apart?

The one with the funny hair was Albert Einstein.

Past Lives

What is this movie about?

It’s about a group of people at a bar who are really terrible at playing that “ok, try to guess the relationship between those other people at the bar” game.

Garrett, was this movie just absolutely designed to make you love it?

You want to talk about using the Internet to keep the flickering flame of young love and connection alive over a distance? Or about dropping impossibly corny lines about fate over AOL Instant Messenger? Or about being the kind of person who at some point has pined over a Brooklynite with a tastefully angular haircut?

Ohhhhh buddy, I was built for this. I’m fortunate that this film did not also feature a scene of two high school sweethearts reuniting in the ice cream section of a Chicagoland supermarket while “Strange Currencies” plays because otherwise my head would have exploded.

But wait, this movie is about a writer, right?

Yes.

Soooooo?

Actually, this film depicts the only two writers in the world who somehow are allowed to be in romantic relationships. Absolute unicorns. That’s the beauty of cinema— you can imagine scenarios that could never exist in our own plane of existence.

Poor Things

What is this film about?

It is about a lady with a literal baby brain who has a lot of sex. For the definitive take on just how much it is a film about a lady with a literal baby brain who has a lot of sex, I’ll direct you to this masterpiece by Danielle Kurtzleben

Surely that’s not all it’s about?

It’s also about how much better the public transport is in Magical Realist Lisbon than in Magical Realist London, as well as about how Yorgos Lanthinos must have gotten a really good deal on those fish eye lenses that Hype Williams used in every single music video in 1998.

Garrett, please engage with this film more seriously…

There are some funny parts, especially when Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo dance. And when Stone’s baby-brained-lady becomes more of a teenager-brained-lady, she talks like Borat. And I can tell that this film believes itself to have interesting ideas about female agency and men’s attempts to control women, but, as lyz unpacks so well, it isn’t really a subversion of the Pygmalion myth if the Ideal Woman Creation comes home in the end to finish the work that the scientist-God-dude began.

How do you feel about the middle section of the movie, where the in-love-with-life privileged innocent becomes aware of inequity?

I was amped! And then the movie suddenly stopped being interested in exploring that more deeply. Did you notice how multiple Black characters appeared out of nowhere, either as the voice of cynicism or socialism, but after a few minutes their role was reduced to simple “you go girl!” assurance-giving?The innocent White protagonist is so great and so pure of heart, they coo. Whatever she decides to do with her life (revenge by goat brain surgery!) must be the right thing.

Whatever!

The Zone of Interest

What is this movie about?

Oh jeez, I’m either really glad or really sorry that this is the last film on the list, because my feelings about Zone of Interest do NOT fit easily into this particular lighthearted jokey format.

Well, what are your feelings?

This once hit me right in the jugular. If you haven’t heard already, this is a movie about the commander of Auschwitz and his family, who live in an aspirational country estate next door to the infamous concentration camp. The entire film is built on the juxtaposition between that family’s bourgeois obsessions and the heard-but-not-seen horrors occurring on their watch. It’s been summarized as a “banality of evil” story, but I don’t think that quite captures what’s going on here. The film’s central Nazi family aren’t just banal, they’re consumed with a set of meaningless status-based superficialities that feel, um, pretty damn familiar if you ask me.

So yes, this is a “message” movie, and not a subtle one. But it works because you’re never gifted the reprieve of commentary or distance. The camera remains fixed, almost surveillance style, and you’re asked to watch direct perpetrators of genocide dote on about the same consumerist nonsense that animates our own lives.

And that’s why, of all the movies this year that attempted to tell a story about injustice, this one succeeds the most: Of course we see glimpses of ourselves when faced with the dull intimacy of fascists at rest. That’s the gift and challenge of more interior storytelling. By forcing contemporary viewers to stare at Nazis and not merely see a set of villains to self-righteously oppose, but instead recognize our own continued compliance with inhumanity and pain (not due to our innate hatred, but our insatiable drive for distraction, ego-gratification and conspicuous consumption), then, damnit: well done Zone of Interest. And more broadly, well done art.

So no jokes about this one?

No jokes about this one!

Ok, so if you were to give these Oscar movies the official White Pages ranking?

Well first, I’d ask you to take these with a very large grain of salt (because what I think doesn’t matter), but here goes nothing (from favorite to least favorite):

Zone of Interest
Past Lives
Killers of the Flower Moon
American Fiction
Barbie [I keep going back and forth between this one and American Fiction, so let’s call it a tie]
Anatomy of a Fall
Maestro
The Holdovers
Oppenheimer
Poor Things

Anything else?

If it had been nominated, “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” would have been in my top three. That movie ruled.

And now, with all that pomp and circumstance behind us, I still need your help, friends!

Here’s the situation. There are a lot of books released every year. And most of them (particularly those by debut authors) mostly disappear, often before they find the readers to whom they can be most useful. And even putting aside my selfish reasons for hoping my book takes root, blooms, and grows, I think that would be a particular bummer in this case, because the whole point of The Right Kind of White is to model a conversation between White people (about our unhelpful obsession with proving our difference from one another) that we need to have much more frequently. My dream is for this book to be a word of mouth gift— one that is passed from friend to friend, teacher to student, colleague to colleague. I hope it finds its way to a 20 year version of me, because damn that guy could have used it. But that doesn’t happen if the book doesn’t find its people.

So here’s how you can help:

By pre-ordering it, of course: either through your local bookstore (a win, of course, because they rule and then they also know that there’s demand for this weirdo memoir), at Bookshop (who doesn’t love Bookshop?) or, yeah, even at Amazon (not my favorite corporation, of course, but they remain the most viable option for a lot of folks and, if that’s the case for you, this still helps me because so many of my sales are going to come from other sources that I’m more likely to be buried in their algorithms].
By pre-ordering the audio version of it! [I narrated it! Fun!}
By filling out this little survey after pre-ordering so that I can send you a thank you gift!
[For those of you who’ve already read it] by reviewing on Goodreads or (when it’s out) on Amazon [is it a good thing that both of these sites have so much algorithimical power over a book’s success? Probably not! But here we are]!
By requesting it from your local library!
By coming to an event (more coming soon but I really love the way this tour is shaping up so far! Will I ever come to non-flyover country? Do they even read books on the coasts? Stay tuned!):
- In Milwaukee, WI! Friday, March 22nd, 6:30 PM at Boswell Books [Free but RSVP here].
- In Missoula, MT! Tuesday, March 26th at Shakespeare and Company [time TBD].
- In LaCrosse, WI! Thursday April 11th, 6:30 PM at Pearl Street Books.
- In Omaha, NE! [With newly minted New York Times Bestseller Lyz Lenz!] Wednesday April 17th, 5:30 PM at Pageturners Lounge.
- In Minneapolis, MN! [TBD but likely May 23rd… stay tuned]
By filling out this survey [(if you’re part of an organization or group that would like to host a workshop with me (and do a book event as part of it)].
By choosing the Right Kind of White for Oprah’s book club [note: I am learning this action is only applicable if you, personally, are Oprah Winfrey, though if you are an editor/booker for national and regional outlets, consider this me waving coquettishly at you]!
By sharing this newsletter with others and/or becoming a subscriber!
By being a pal and letting me know how life’s going in your neck of the woods [so that our relationship isn’t just me asking things of you!].