I don’t quite know how to explain this, but I’ve never loved anything more than Ariana DeBose’s BAFTA opening performance on Sunday night. I can’t physically stop re-watching—I’ve passed through initial shock and intrigue, I’m over the hump of enjoyment, and I’m into morbid fascination, rubber-necking the awkward audience responses, dissecting the intricate hand-ography. We should each of us count ourselves lucky that we have lived through the most iconic and haunting rendition of “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”-seguing-into-a-rap-serenading-female-BAFTA-nominees of all time. I feel like we witnessed history in real time. This is our Waterloo.
DeBose’s much-memed performance was many things. For some it was a hot mess, a lesson in the importance of breath work, a ruched fuchsia jumpsuit. For me, it was a fascinating spectacle, a tale of human resilience in the stony face of adversity, a sage reminder to us all of the brutalities of show business.
I’ve been trying to spilt the converging threads of the moment—Ariana herself; Ariana’s lyrics; the people the lyrics are about—but they are so aggressively welded together that each attempted re-watch is like playing every key on a piano at once.
It’s clear that Ariana is working her arse off. But her stylish asymmetrical haircut mirrors the discord between a performer giving it her all and a theater full of uptight Brits. The notoriously black-tie BAFTA attendees weren’t quite ready for an Americanized hypegirl she-rap (I’m not sure they ever will be). There is a notable disconnect between her and them, an excruciating tonal chasm between the starlet and the stars. There is something fundamentally American and very un-British about public displays of affection, and a rap PDA presented with balls-out vigor in skin-tight hot pink really got the Brits squirming in their seats (while they silently rehearsed self-deprecating humility-riven Olivia Colman-esque acceptance speeches). Retaining a stiff upper lip while you are rapped at is a tough acting gig even for the most well-trodden actors, leaving us with mortifying cutaways to Viola Davis and “Blanchett Cate” with faces set to anthropomorphized question mark.
The rap itself is the next brain-tickler, and any lyrical forensic analysis raises more questions than answers. What does “Jamie Lee, you are all of us” even mean? Are we all apologetic nepo babies, were we all in Halloween H20? It’s also hard to think of a less incisive insight than “Charlotte Wells, we love Aftersun” or “Ana, you were great in Blonde.” Overall, it felt like a Billy Crystal Oscars serenade with the speed turned up and the funny turned down—which sounds harsh, but also gave us the greatest lyric of all time. Halfway through the rap, time stood still and we experienced true greatness; a moment of transcendental rapture in a sea of chaos. Stop all the clocks, Angela Bassett did the thing.
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