One of the biggest surprises of the 2024 Oscars happened at the very end of the evening, when Emma Stone won Best Actress over Lily Gladstone. As expected, the internet reacted strongly to Gladstone's loss, and, of course, social media had some thoughts.
The coveted Best Actress award was the second to last statuette handed out at the 96th Academy Awards and was presented by former Best Actress winners Sally Field, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron, and 2023 recipient Michelle Yeoh. Though Emma Stone's performance as Bella Baxter in Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things had been widely praised and critically acclaimed, Yeoh calling out Stone's name was to the surprise of pretty much everyone in the audience, both at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre and at home.
Stone accepted her trophy graciously and immediately mentioned her fellow nominees, including Lily Gladstone; however, many felt like a small mention was not enough and took to social media to celebrate Gladstone’s impact despite the loss.
Leading up to the Oscars, predictions largely forecast Gladstone as the favorite to take home the statuette for Best Actress for their performance in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. However, despite the night running broadly as predicted, with Cillian Murphy collecting Best Actor and Oppenheimer bringing home Best Picture, Gladstone seemed to be the unfortunate exception.
Lily Gladstone already made history with her Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart in Flower Moon, but had they been awarded Best Actress, they would have broken two records: becoming the first Native American person to win an Oscar in an acting category and the only Native American woman to ever win an Oscar in the history of the event. After the ceremony's final winners were revealed, many took to social platforms like X and Threads to lament Gladstone's “snub” and praise her talent.
“Lily Gladstone was the heart and soul of [Killers of the Flower Moon],” a user wrote on X, sharing a video featuring Gladstone's scenes from the film. “The sheer intensity she commanded was astounding. Every look, scream, tear, word that came out of her, I felt it in my bones. A performance for the ages in a film that has cemented its place in film history.”
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“It’s incredible the emotional range Lily Gladstone was able to communicate with just her eyes,” Buzzfeed alum Sam Stryker wrote, sharing a similar video edit. “She didn’t win an Oscar but her work in Killers of the Flower Moon is one for the history books.”
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A third person echoed the sentiment, writing: “Lily Gladstone not winning does not take away from the fact that she gave one of the best performances of the year. Her performance and the film will live on long after tonight is over. Her wins have been historic and trailblazing. She already made history.”
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User @RasberryRazz was among the many to point out that a deserving film or actor not getting the Oscar is not an isolated event but a common trend, writing: “Killers of the Flower Moon will join the legion of films such as 12 Angry Men, Shawshank Redemption, Seven Samurai, [Singing] in the Rain, and more that have never won Oscars but are a seminal part of cinematic history." They concluded their post with a message for Gladstone, adding: "Lily you will win an Oscar one day as you are one of the best."
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Instead of lamenting Gladstone's Oscars loss, others took a more proactive approach by manifesting more opportunities for the actor. “Guess we’ll just have to keep casting Lily Gladstone in great movies with great scripts until she gets her moment too. I’m in if you are,” an X user wrote — and we sure are.
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And, of course, because this is the internet, others took the meme route to call out the Academy for not giving Gladstone her flowers, using Macklemore's infamous Grammys apology to Kendrick Lamar as well as stills from Jordan Peele's Get Out to illustrate a point about performative inclusion.
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It's important to remember that Gladstone's performance in Killers of the Flower Moon has not gone totally unrecognized; not only has the actor become a fan-favorite (hopefully for many years to come), but she also won the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe for Best Actress, which they turned into a major moment for Native Americans by delivering part of their acceptance speech in Blackfeet.
With or without a golden statue, there is no doubt that Lily Gladstone is a winner — and despite Stone's terrific performance, the general consensus seems to be that it would have been nice for Gladstone to get that historic moment of recognition at the Oscars.
