By Delani Beagles

Over twenty-million people worldwide tune in to watch the best of the best in acting win career fulling awards at the Oscars. Though this year millions were overjoyed to see as Michael B. Jordan won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his breathtaking performance as twins Smoke and Stack in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. When Jordan won according to ENTERTAINMENT’s Kathleen Newman-Bremang, you could feel the joy from the film makers, family, press and everyone else in the room. Jordan himself was stunned as though he couldn’t believe it had happened. He won his award for playing two technically three diverse roles in the film about vampires, freedom and black culture. 

Most would say he’s more than earned his win after years of playing lead roles in major blockbuster films the past decade including the Creed franchise, Black Panther and its sequel Wakanda Forever. Through this year he truly outdid himself with his roles in Sinners, Jordan played twins Smoke and Stack simultaneously during the cultural film about a vampire apocalypse in Mississippi during the 1930s in the Jim Crow era. 

To prepare for the film, he consulted twin consultants for character distinction, learned two different movement patterns and even learned to manipulate his facial expressions that way Stack would have noticeable dimples and Stack would not as a pronounced character distinction. Despite this some critics claim his win was due to someone else, as though winning something as monumental as an Oscar could be attributed to another’s efforts. Ultimately, his dedication and talent set him apart and won him the award. 

Timothée Chalamet, was also up for the award for his role in the movie Marty Supreme along with Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon, Wagner Moura for The Secret Agent and Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another. Like many actors, Chalamet held a press tour leading up to the Oscars and he was discussed heavily due to the unorthodox press tour. During which he clumsily boasted about his own talent and proclaimed his want for the award. 

During an interview with Matthew McConoughey during a CNN and Variety town hall episode Chalamet made a distasteful comment about the ballet and opera industries saying, “I don’t wanna be working in things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore”, completely discrediting millions of other performance artists worldwide. This comment rubbed millions of fans of these classical art forms the wrong way and even resulted in response from major ballet and opera institutions and performers.

Due to this backlash critics are saying that Jordan won by default as a direct result of Chalamet’s actions, though voting for the Oscars closed less than a week after the comment went viral. Not only is this inaccurate but it also paints the ugly story that Jordan couldn’t have won without Chalamet. While arguing Chalamet’s press tour’s negative impact on his own chances of winning is valid, it is not to discredit the pinnacle of another man’s career. 

Many major news outlets are progressing the narrative further by publishing articles that focus more on Chalamet’s wrongs than what Micheal B. Jordan did right. Variety’s postmortem Oscar report didn’t even mention Jordan by name titled, “Paul Thomas Anderson’s Six-Month Reign, Ryan Coogler’s Historic Platform for Black Women and How Timothée Chalamet Lost the Race.” The New York Times article read, “How Michael B. Jordan Won (and Timothée Chalamet Lost) Best Actor at 2026 Oscars” and has since been changed to, “How Michael B. Jordan Won Best Actor.” 

In the ninety-eight years of hosting the awards only six african-american actors have won the award for the best actor category and each one of them faced backlash saying they didn’t “earn it.”. Implying there was something wrong with any of their accomplishments especially at this level is considered disrespectful at best and offensive at worst. “We have to work twice as hard for half as much” is a saying African-American children grow up hearing, and Jordan literally did with his dual role as Smoke and Stack his achievements should not and cannot be explained away. Neither can Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith’s. Each one of them poured blood, sweat and tears into earning their spot in history, and that is the only narrative that should be told.

Courtesy of AP News