Well, it’s official now! The streamers have got mainstreamed as the biggest global film awards — the Oscars — handed movies produced and backed by streaming platforms top awards this year where Apple TV+’s ‘CODA’ made history by bagging the Best Picture glory.

‘CODA’, a heart-warming drama about the daughter of deaf parents who pursues her passion for music, was purchased by Apple TV for a record $25 million following its debut in 2021 at the Sundance Film Festival, and it gathered momentum throughout the awards season, winning top honours from the Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild awards.

Of course, ‘CODA’ faced intense competition from Netflix’s critically acclaimed western, ‘The Power of the Dog’, which collected a dozen nominations. The film’s director, Jane Campion, received an Academy Award, according to reports by Reuters, AP and The Hollywood Reporter.

The best picture Oscar signals how far the industry has come since 2017, when the Cannes film festival prohibited movies that were not released on the big screen from competing for its most prestigious prize, the Palme d’Or. It was a deliberate snub to streaming services like Netflix.

As the global pandemic forced theaters to close in 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences modified its Oscar eligibility rules to temporarily change the requirement that a movie screen for seven days in theaters to qualify. That represented a watershed moment for movies that debut via streaming services in the home.

The best picture Oscar also marks a milestone for Apple TV+, which launched in November 2019 with a handful of original series and no library of movies and TV shows.

Apple TV+ saw a breakthrough in September 2021, when its fish-out-of-water comedy, ‘Ted Lasso’, about an American football coach who takes a job with an English soccer club, received the Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series.

“If Apple was to win the coveted best picture award with CODA it would catalyze more A+ talent coming to Apple first (or in the top bracket) and boost subscriptions,” Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives wrote before the awards.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the win for streamers comes roughly six years after Amazon’s ‘Manchester by the Sea’ was nominated for the top prize, becoming the first streamer to do so and propelling a conversation about the power of streaming against the traditional Hollywood studios.

Amazon Studios was also shut out during this year’s Oscars, failing to win in the acting categories for ‘Being the Ricardos’ and in the makeup and hairstyle category for ‘Coming 2 America’. Disney+ also missed out for ‘Luca’, which was Disney’s only animated film with a streaming-only release, though the best animated film award did go to another Disney film, ‘Encanto’.

AP said ‘CODA’ rode a wave of goodwill driven by its cast, including Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Emilia Jones and Daniel Durant. It’s the first film with a largely deaf cast to win best picture. It managed that despite being one of the least-nominated films with only three coming into Sunday. Not since 1932’s ‘Grand Hotel’ has a movie won best picture with fewer than four nods.

Kotsur also won best supporting actor to become the first male deaf actor to win an Oscar, and only the second deaf actor to do so, joining his castmate and ‘CODA’ co-star Matlin.

“This is for the Deaf community, the CODA community and the disabled community,” said Kotsur, signing from the stage, “This is our moment.”

Will Smith Slaps Presenter Rock for Joke Related to Wife: Many, though, were talking about another moment. After Rock, as a presenter, joked to Jada Pinkett Smith that he was looking forward to a sequel to G.I. Jane’, Will Smith stood up from his seat near the stage, strode up to Rock and smacked him.

After sitting back down, Smith shouted at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out of your (expletive) mouth.” When Rock, who joked about Jada Pinkett Smith while hosting the Oscars in 2016, protested that it was just a “GI Jane” joke, Smith repeated the same line.

“That was the greatest night in the history of television,” Rock said, before awkwardly returning to presenting the best documentary, which went to Questlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’ (…or When the Revolution Was Not Televised).

The moment shocked the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers at home. At the commercial break, presenter Daniel Kaluuya came up to hug Smith, and Denzel Washington escorted him to the side of the stage. The two talked and hugged and Tyler Perry came over to talk as well.

Smith, who plays Venus and Serena Williams’ father in ‘King Richard’, later in the show won best actor, his first Oscar. So Smith again took the stage shortly after what seemed likely to be one of the most infamous moments in Academy Awards history. His acceptance speech vacillated between defense and apology.

“Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family,” Smith said in his first remarks. Smith then shared what Washington told him: “At your highest moment, be careful because that’s when the devil comes for you.”

Ultimately, Smith apologized to the academy and to his fellow nominees.

“Art imitates life. I look like the crazy father” said Smith, chuckling, “But love will make you do crazy things.”

After the show, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences issued a statement saying it “does not condone violence of any form.” The Los Angeles Police Department said it was aware of a slapping incident at the Oscars but said the person involved had declined to file a police report.

Up until then, the ceremony — fashioned as a revival for the Oscars and the movies — had been running fairly smoothly. Ariana DeBose became the first Afro-Latina and openly LBGTQ actor to win an Academy Award for supporting actress.

Best actress went to Jessica Chastain, who also won her first Oscar. Chastain won for her empathetic portrayal of the televangelist Tammy Faye in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’, a movie she also produced.

After record-low ratings and a pandemic-marred 2021 show, producers this year turned to one of the biggest stars around — Beyoncé — to kick off an Oscars intended to revive the awards’ place in pop culture. After an introduction from Venus and Serena Williams, Beyoncé performed her “King Richard” nominated song, “Be Alive,” in an elaborately choreographed performance from a lime-colored, open-air stage in Compton, where the Williams sisters grew up.

Hosts Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall then began the telecast from the Dolby Theatre.

The first broadcast award went, fittingly, to Ariana DeBose, whose win came 60 years after Rita Moreno won for the same role in the 1961 original ‘West Side Story’. DeBose thanked Moreno for leading the way for “tons of Anitas like me.”

‘Dune’ got out to an early lead in those early awards, and it kept it through the night. The biggest blockbusters of this year’s 10 best-picture nominees, ‘Dune’ won a leading six awards, for production design, cinematography, editing, visual effects, sound and Hans Zimmer’s score.

Behind this year’s telecast changes was alarm over the Oscars fast-falling ratings. While drops have been common to all major network award shows, last year’s show attracted only about 10 million viewers, less than half of the 23.6 million the year before. A decade ago, it was closer to 40 million. Will the slap heard ’round the world help lift ratings?

“Welp,” tweeted Oscar producer Will Packer after the show, “I said it wouldn’t be boring.”

(Photos courtesy AP)