The Oscars Were a Protest Against Their Own Irrelevance

Not enough witches have won Oscars. True, Ruth Gordon did win Best Supporting Actress for “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968), in which she was a cunning satanist next door, dishing up chocolate mousse from Hell. But that’s just a drop in the cauldron. Where were the awards (or, indeed, the nominations) for Margaret Hamilton in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), Helen Mirren in “Excalibur” (1981), Anjelica Huston in “The Witches” (1990), Tilda Swinton in “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” (2005), Kathryn Hunter in “The Tragedy of Macbeth” (2021), or even Angela Lansbury in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971)? The nominations Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande received for their performances in “Wicked” (2024) perhaps went some way toward redressing this grievous wrong, though they conspicuously failed to repeat that trick this year for the ill-received—and ill-conceived—sequel, “Wicked: For Good.”