Less than an hour into the first Oscars since the pandemic hit, it became clear that everything tonight was operating on a slightly unhinged level. The first big indicator hit when Daniel Kaluuya, in a lengthy acceptance speech for his Best Supporting Actor win, enthusiastically exclaimed, “My mum, my dad, they had sex! It’s amazing!” as his mother’s face morphed from the beam of maternal pride to a scowl of abject horror.
Livestreaming in from a hub in London with another family member (presumably Kaluuya’s sister) who buried her head in her hands the second the words left his mouth, his mother, Damalie Namusoke, leaned forward with narrowed eyebrows, mouthing a confused question to her seat mate that we can only presume was something along the lines of: “What did he just say?”
As the outburst extended beyond the few seconds of humiliation that the woman might have possibly recovered from, she too went to cover her face as Kaluuya wrapped up the speech with an enthusiastic “Peace, love, and onwards!” But his mother’s face said it all: the guy is not moving “onwards” from outing his mom’s sex life on live TV. Give us the Kaluuya family reality show we desperately need.