In a post-Barbie universe, it’s a strange feeling to have pity for extremely wealthy, famous, and attractive heterosexual men. Yet this has been the predominant sentiment following actor Charles Melton’s Oscar snub for his turn as a traumatized sexual assault survivor in May December.
Directed by Todd Haynes, May December is a portrait of the relationship between Melton’s Joe Yoo and his wife, Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom he met while he was a 13-year-old working in the then-36-year-old Gracie’s pet store. The story is told through the eyes of actor Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), who has been cast as Gracie in a film adaptation of her life story.
In the months leading up to the Oscar nominations, Melton was widely projected as an awards contender, and for good reason: his portrayal of Joe, a strapping, handsome polymath and seemingly happy husband and father who is nonetheless emotionally stunted from having been raped as a young teenager, is easily one of the best film performances of the past five years. Melton is a repository of repressed rage, his every exchange with his wife hinting at the depths of his anguish and everything that has been left unsaid between them. And when he finally does say it, in a climactic confrontation with Gracie toward the end of the film, his frustration when she denies having done anything wrong is palpable, the volcano having erupted but its contents having nowhere to go. Watching him break down in tears of joy as he watches his son’s graduation ceremony from afar, rejoicing that his child has not, like him, been deprived of the chance to grow up on his own terms, is one of the most beautiful moments I have ever seen on film.
It is, in short, a stunningly beautiful and sensitive portrayal of a sexual assault survivor who has yet to cope with his trauma — seemingly the exact type of wounded-bird performance the Academy tends to reward. In terms of his own background, Melton is also a prime candidate for awards accolades: best known for playing Reggie on the soapy CW drama Riverdale, Melton has had the kind of J14 hunk turned polished indie craftsman trajectory that the Academy typically relishes in rewarding with nominations (see: Austin Butler’s nod for Elvis last year). There is nothing the Academy loves more than a redemption arc, and Melton’s press tour this awards season seemed like a perfect example of that.
Which is why it was so shocking when the Oscar nominations were announced this morning and Melton’s name was nowhere to be seen — not for Best Supporting Actor, not for Best Actor, nowhere. And while it was far from the most buzz-worthy snub this year (that honor probably goes to Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie’s lack of nominations for Barbie), it was probably among the more significant ones — not just for what it says about young actors of color in Hollywood, but also for what it says about how we view survivors like the character Melton plays in general.
Of course, the Academy is notorious for overlooking stellar performances every year for any variety of reasons, and there are a number of possible explanations as to why Melton — and May December in general, which racked up only a Best Original Screenplay nomination — were snubbed. For starters, tonally speaking, May December is somewhat of a mixed bag. Though it is, in many respects, a typical Todd Haynes melodrama, with lush orchestral surges and sweeping vistas and close-up shots of Julianne Moore gorgeously looking on the verge of a nervous breakdown, it also doubles as a commentary on how the commodification of true crime narratives fails to acknowledge the humanity of the victims (and, to a lesser extent, the perpetrators) involved. But because May December is (unlike some of the other contenders this year) a relatively nuanced movie and not an entirely didactic one, it’s possible that this went over the heads of some of the Academy’s older, less irony-versed voters (or that those who did get the joke at the end — which is, essentially, that Natalie Portman’s character was a bad actor in a bad movie, and that all of her “research” had been for naught — were too enmeshed in the industry to find it particularly funny).
It’s also true that the Oscars is notoriously lily-white, and that as a half-Korean actor, Melton is already at a disadvantage in his category. To date, only three Best Actor winners in the Academy Awards‘ entire history have been of Asian descent, as well as only two Best Supporting Actor winners: Haing S. Ngor of 1984’s The Killing Fields, and Ke Huy Quan of 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once. Indeed, male nominees tend to be primarily older white men, with none of the 10 nominees in the male acting categories this year being under 40.
It’s also true that the Oscars is notoriously lily-white, and that as a half-Korean actor, Melton is already at a disadvantage in his category. To date, only three Best Actor winners in the Academy Awards’ entire history have been of Asian descent, as well as only two Best Supporting Actor winners…
There is another potential reason why May December was overlooked by the Academy, one that is more complex than just voters being racists or nimrods. There is an argument to be made that it is guilty of the exact same sin that it accuses Hollywood of: it is, essentially, a commodified version of a true crime story that has been accused of exploiting the victims. May December is widely read as a fictionalized version of the story of Mary Kay Letourneau, the 34-year-old school teacher who raped, then had two children with, her then-12-year-old pupil, Vili Fualaau. (Letourneau pled guilty to two counts of child rape and did time; they eventually got married, then divorced.)
Though Letourneau died in 2020, thus rendering her unavailable to comment on the movie, Fualaau has, and he is not a fan. “If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story,” he told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year. “I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it.” Fualaau’s comments briefly became the center of intense online discourse, with many debating whether it was appropriate for Haynes to proceed with the film without Fualaau’s consent.
Natalie Portman and Charles Melton in ‘May December.’
François Duhamel / Courtesy of Netflix
Without discounting Fualaau’s feelings about May December — because, frankly, they are impossible for anyone who has not gone through his singularly horrific experience to refute — the question of whether artists have an ethical imperative to obtain consent before adapting victims’ stories is a valid one, and one that will continue to be negotiated long after awards season is over. But such a critique also doesn’t negate the emotional impact of Melton’s performance, which is an incredibly sensitive portrayal of a type of sexual assault victim whom we do not often view as such.
It’s for this reason why Melton’s snub is so shameful. Melton’s performance in May December could have given the Academy an opportunity to recognize a nuanced portrayal of an imperfect victim, someone society does not typically seek to protect. Even though Joe has built what appears to be a happy and whole life with his assailant, and even though he has played a role in selling the fairy tale that he consented to his abuse, May December is unflinching in its insistence that what happened to Joe was, in fact, abuse. And Haynes offers very little ambiguity in this regard, even though our culture has spent decades trying to sell the fiction that young boys being preyed upon by attractive older women is a Penthouse letter made manifest. There is nothing about the movie that is morally ambiguous, or suggests that Joe isn’t damaged as a result of Gracie’s preying on him. It also dares to suggest — and Melton’s performance dares to suggest — that there is more to Joe than just his damage. And that is a truth about abuse survivors of any stripe that the Academy appears to be uncomfortable acknowledging.
