The time has come for a new Oscars category -- best adapted performance

Plus: 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,' 'Turning Red,' and what's making us happy!

View this email online by Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson Welcome! It was the week when the Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer showed up. It was the week when The Masked Singer got, if you can believe this, goofier. And it was the week when backlash over Oscar ceremony changes continued to grow. Let's get to it.  Opening Argument: The time has come for a new Oscars category -- best adapted performance Look, I know the Oscars are trying to streamline this year, even going so far as to pre-tape a bunch of the awards speeches in the hope of freeing up space for montages paying tribute to the magic of the movies. (“Up next: A Salute To… The Movies! Remember Casablanca? Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Enchanted? City Slickers 3? Well, you know what they all have in common, don’t you? They’re all movies!”) But I’ve got a modest proposal that would 1) make the Oscars better, 2) add a category that’s sure to be packed with A-list headliners, and 3) solve an issue that’s been irritating me for years, all at once. If it makes the Academy feel better, they can even eliminate some gross, unsexy category to compensate. I mean, who needs cinematography with all the fancy cellphone cameras they’ve got nowadays, right? That new category: best adapted performance. You may have heard me rail on this issue in past episodes of Pop Culture Happy Hour. But if I could send just one message to Academy voters, it’d boil down to nine simple words: “They don’t give MacArthur Genius Grants to Frank Caliendo.” Rich Little has never won an E, let alone an EGOT. The Emmys have honored the occasional celebrity impersonation, often inexplicably cough Alec Baldwin cough, but the Oscars routinely go a step beyond in bestowing their highest acting honors on historical mimicry. Just this year, the five nominees for best actress include Nicole Kidman (as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos), Jessica Chastain (as Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye) and Kristen Stewart (as Princess Diana in Spencer). Nominees for best actor include Will Smith (as Richard Williams in King Richard) and Javier Bardem (as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos). Those performances include some true standouts: The Eyes of Tammy Faye is flawed, to put it lightly, but Chastain’s take on Bakker is deeply weird and wildly committed, while Smith’s take on Williams certainly transcends mere impersonation.  But if you’ve seen Being the Ricardos, ask yourself: Did you ever, even for a nanosecond, forget that you were watching Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem play the imitation game? Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Impersonating a famous person employs a completely different skill set than fleshing out a new character, and it frequently involves a generous assist from the makeup-and-hairstyling department. Gary Oldman won a 2018 Oscar for his turn as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, but how much of the heavy lifting was done by the (also Oscar-winning) chin-putty people? Meanwhile, the other nominees for Best Actor that year — Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name, Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread, Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out and Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq. — had to craft their characters without prosthetics, without any preconceived understanding of how their characters were supposed to look or behave, and without the benefit of historical footage to study. Oldman does fine work in Darkest Hour, but he’s got an entirely different job to do. The first time I proposed a category shift along these lines, I suggested forgoing gender binaries in favor of a realignment of best original performance and best adapted performance. Several people tweeted at me to warn of unintended consequences — particularly a dude-heavy lineup in which various Thundering Men of Importance crowd women out of the major acting prizes. I’m not 100% sure that’d be true, but I concede the point and instead suggest a realignment with three lead-acting categories: best actress and best actor — awarded exclusively to performances of fictional characters — and a gender-neutral “best adapted lead performance.”  Looking strictly at this year’s best actress lineup, the decision to move Chastain, Stewart and Kidman (or perhaps Jennifer Hudson in Respect) into best adapted lead performance could free up spots in best actress next to Olivia Colman and Penelope Cruz: say, Renate Reinsve in The Worst Person in the World, Ruth Negga in Passing, Emilia Jones in CODA and/or Alana Haim in Licorice Pizza. Nothing wrong with more opportunities to crown fresh A-listers, right? I know we’ve still got kinks to work out here: whether there’s a need to replicate this system in the supporting actress/actor categories, for example, or the particulars of how you define an original vs. adapted performance. But it’s time for the industry to at least contemplate the idea that not all acting jobs are created equal. Would it solve every problem with the Oscars — like, for example, their persistent tendency to favor grim dramas over every other genre, year after year, even though brilliant movie comedies are way harder to pull off? No. But it’d be a welcome start. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend: Apple TV's The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey has a great cast -- Samuel L. Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins -- and a great writing pedigree, in that it comes from Walter Mosley adapting his own novel. It's a little disorienting at first, because part of the premise is the central character's failing memory and cognition, but it's worth sticking with it to see whether it's for you. Two episodes are out March 11, and more will stream weekly.  On my list for this weekend: the podcast Dead Eyes, which ... well, just see what it's about. It involves Hollywood and Tom Hanks and broken hearts, and I haven't listened to it yet but the recommendations have just been piling up, so let's all get to it together, eh?  On next week's PCHH, we'll be covering a couple of streaming series you can check out if you want to be ready: Apple TV's Severance and Hulu's The Dropout. What We Did This Week: Saeed Adyani/HBO Max Last week's newsletter essay about the spread of the Adam McKay style is available over at NPR.org. Stephen talked to Christina Lee and Gavin Godfrey about the complicated matter of Kanye West and the new Netflix docu-series about him. Aisha, LaTesha Harris and J.C. Howard chatted about the old original The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And Aisha and LaTesha were joined the next day by jarrett hill to talk about the new reboot on Peacock, Bel-Air. Aisha and Andrew Limbong talked about the new film After Yang. And Stephen and Aisha talked to Kat Chow and Laura Sirikul about the new film Turning Red. Glen wrote a great piece about Ryan Reynolds in The Adam Project. And you can hear Stephen on New Music Friday on NPR Music’s All Songs Considered. What's Making Us Happy: Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What's making Laura happy: BTS: Permission to Dance What's making Kat happy: The Umma trailer and What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo What's making Stephen happy: All Songs Considered What's making Aisha happy: "Is It Funny For The Jews?" by Jason Zinoman Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? 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