2022 Oscars: Breaking Down Ariana DeBose's Historic Win
Ariana DeBose has had quite a historic run this awards season. Starting at the Golden Globes and making stops at the BAFTAs, Critics’ Choice Awards, and SAG Awards, DeBose’s run culminated in her triumph at last night’s Oscars. With her win for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in West Side Story, Ariana DeBose became the first openly queer person of color to win an acting Oscar. She is also the first Afro-Latina to win an acting Oscar and the second Latina to win an acting Oscar in Academy Awards history.
The Supporting Actress race was hotly contested throughout the scene. Ruth Negga (Passing), Kathryn Hunter (The Tragedy of Macbeth), and Gaby Hoffman (C’mon, C’mon) would’ve been more interesting performances to celebrate and uplift. If Ruth was nominated, she would be an inspired choice of winner. If the Oscars wanted to pull off something surprising, they should have awarded Aunjanue Ellis for her stirring performance in King Richard.
Nonetheless, DeBose was undeniable and her work in West Side Story is irrefutable proof., you can see why. She is a magnetic actress on camera, commanding attention when she’s acting, singing, and dancing. The chemistry between her and David Alvarez (Bernardo) was palpable and lively, more so than the film’s leads (Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler). If this West Side Story performance is just a taste of what the Tony-nominated actress can do, we are in for a treat with her next project on the silver screen.
DeBose won for the same role Rita Moreno triumphed for during the awards season run for the original West Side Story film. Moreno, a light Puerto Rican (who performed the original role by darkening her own skin) looked on from the audience with pride as DeBose accepted her award. Ariana’s win helps add a more nuanced context to the West Side Story remake, a nuance that DeBose herself fought for, insisting that if she took the role that her Blackness would need to be added to the story. She told Variety, “She walks down the street; she’s a Black woman,” a piece of the story that she was happy that director Steven Spielberg kept. We see this at play during her harrowing final scene, where after she is called a “black pig,” she tells the Jets that she is a Puerto Rican and that she is not an American. She also mentions her identity in her argument with Bernardo as well. The story does a formidable job of representing a Black Latina’s desires for the American Dream and how she ultimately doesn’t get it.
Her win and her character are important in pushing back against the Latinx community’s blindspots towards Afro-Latinos. West Side Story’s own Rita Moreno had to apologize for asking Afro-Latinos “Can't you just wait a while and leave it alone?” for Jon M. Chu’s, In The Heights, which received backlash for its colorism, while non-Black Latinos celebrated it as a movement for diversity. Moreno later apologized but hopefully, DeBose’s win puts us at the forefront rather than an afterthought.