Hollywood films have never shied away from the theme of the other: the outsider who can’t get in. The foreigner who never gets integrated. The character who wants so intensely to be accepted yet finds themselves perpetually looking through the glass.
But this season, the trend is in effect in a way it hasn’t been for many years. Whether it’s a future witch derided for the color of her skin or an architect exploited for his accent and background, Oscar films are embracing otherness as never before — and in the process distilling a century of Hollywood history into two hours at a Sunday matinee.
At a moment when those who have been othered find themselves in an epic battle for acceptance in America — with trans rights in peril, mass deportations on the horizon and even different political views excluded from tightly guarded spaces — the film business is doing what it does best and subtly showing a different path.
THR looks at five characters in Oscar contenders this season modeling a new way of looking at the other and their analogues in Hollywood history. The examples show how the fight to be included is nothing new — and that in the end, we should never stop waging it.
Chris Gardner contributed to this report.
David and Benji Kaplan in A Real Pain (2024) and Miles Raymond and Jack Cole in Sideways (2004)
David and Benji Kaplan in A Real Pain (2024) and Miles Raymond and Jack Cole in Sideways (2004)
Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures; Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection
In one story, Jewish American cousins travel to Poland to connect with their heritage in honor of their late grandmother. In the other, former college roommates embark on a weeklong road trip through the Santa Ynez Valley wine country ahead of one of their upcoming nuptials. In both road movies, one in the pair feels alienated from their surroundings — othered from a Poland that violently rejected them or a culture that doesn’t understand their pursuit of perfection.
They also are othered from their travel mate. In Sideways, deception becomes a recurring theme throughout Miles Raymond (Paul Giamatti) and Jack Cole’s (Thomas Haden Church) travels. The middle-aged men’s failure to admit their disappointments with how their lives have turned out leads them to act out in ways that isolate them from each other.
In A Real Pain, David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) are at risk of this same separation from each other. Once brotherly-close, each now can’t understand the other. But truth becomes their balm. While traveling with the tour group, Benji confronts David, who admits the complex feelings he’s had since Benji’s suicide attempt. This clears the way for a reconciliation — a little more brothering and a lot less othering.
Elphaba in Wicked (2024) and Dawn Wiener in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Elphaba in Wicked (2024) and Dawn Wiener in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures; Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
School, a place where kids simply want to fit in and are judged if they don’t, is a breeding ground for othering when one’s physical uniqueness doesn’t align with conventional beauty standards. Such is the reality for Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo), outsiders who go to extreme lengths to be accepted. Along the way, each young woman realizes the sacrifices required to gain what she wants — Elphaba a different skin color and Heather affection from her parents and a high school crush — are too great. Instead, they learn to find peace and power in their otherness.
As the movie concludes, we see Dawn riding on a bus and singing about hummingbirds with her middle school choir as they travel to a concert. She is at once a member of a group but, her vocals high-pitched and different from the others’, separate from it. Elphaba is able to repurpose her otherness for a good cause. She flies off into the western sky belting out “Defying Gravity,” determined to use her magical abilities to help those in Oz who’ve been similarly cast out.
Emilia Pérez in Emilia Pérez (2024) and Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Emilia Pérez in Emilia Pérez (2024) and Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Courtesy of Netflix; Fox Searchlight Pictures/Courtesy of Everett Collection
Home is an undefined place for Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón) and Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank), a trans woman and trans man, respectively, whose endless pursuit of internal wholeness is constantly under threat from their external surroundings. Both believe changing those surroundings will allow them to embrace their true identities.
After first attempting to hide who he is, Brandon finds love with a woman unconcerned with his biological sex yet tragically dies a victim of heinous hate crimes at the hands of men disturbingly obsessed with it before fulfilling his and his girlfriend’s wish to start over in a new city. Emilia, too, experiences romantic intimacy she never thought possible when she was still a drug kingpin, but she perishes under the same violent conditions she once inflicted on others without having given her ex-wife and children a chance to accept who she really is. Though neither character fully reaches their promised land, they manage to catch glimmers that a life of authenticity is possible.
László Tóth in The Brutalist (2024) and The Tramp in Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917)
László Tóth in The Brutalist (2024) and The Tramp in Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917)
Courtesy Everett Collection; Courtesy of A24
A dogged artist who’ll accept no settling (Adrien Brody) and a charming hustler who never met a pickle he couldn’t squeeze out of (Chaplin) would seem like two very different ways into the immigration story. But these two films, shot more than a century apart, capture the same essential truth: When it comes to fitting in as an outsider in America, one simply can’t let their guard down. The Statue of Liberty in The Brutalist is shot upside down compared to Chaplin’s more properly pointed affair, signaling a loss of innocence about the experience over the decades. But the striving never changes.
“We quite clearly live in a nation built by immigrants who know what it means to feel othered,” Brody tells THR. “And symbolically, America represents the place of opportunity and freedom, the land where you could arrive after fleeing hardships, oppression and instability abroad. That’s the myth and the American dream. It’s quite challenging for most people, and there’s a lot of hardship that comes with it, but that feeling of being an outsider sometimes lasts for some time.”
Roz the Robot in The Wild Robot (2024) and E.T. in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Roz the Robot in The Wild Robot (2024) and E.T. in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Universal Pictures/DreamWorks Animation; Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
The landed on an island utterly unsure of how the natives carried on their business. He landed on this blue marble completely unclear on what these beings were doing on their bicycles. Both Roz the Robot (voiced in the film by Lupita Nyong’o) and E.T. are others in the most fundamental sense — separated from their kind and far from home.
Yet both learn the ways of their new hosts. Roz gets in touch with a maternal instinct she didn’t know she had as she trains a young gosling named Brightbill, helping him but also helping herself become part of the great nurturing organism that is the island. E.T. finds his otherness allayed as he connects with children who understand him. In the process, those kids, sidelined in a world of indifferent adults, have their otherness lifted, too.
Both Roz and E.T. try to get back to where they came from. But as they do, they come to understand that fitting in isn’t about traveling far — it’s about finding those who’ll look out for you, no matter how you look.
This story first appeared in a January stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
