A turning of the tide?

As I scour blogs and news feeds about Meryl and the Oscar race, I'm starting to realize that it's not a foregone conclusion that Viola Davis will walk away with the award for best actress. Now, I'm still picking her but there is a lot of support for Meryl and some interesting cases have been made. In particular, I came across this article by Tariq Khan over at gold derby. Five great reasons are given for why Meryl might actually be the frontrunner. The most compelling one for me was that some may be giving too much weight to Davis's SAG win, with the explanation that more guild members had simply seen The Help.

If this is indeed the case, I may be in for a surprise come Oscar night. I'm torn between the idea of film being a measure of social consciousness (an argument to make Davis only the second African American winner in this category), and my love of Meryl's incredible canon of work (an argument to award her a third statuette). I'm going to look at it as a win-win situation for me, but if I'm being honest, I'd be happiest if Meryl won this year, again in two years for August: Osage County (if it's f-ing made), and then broke Hepburn's record of four wins by being awarded a fifth Oscar way down the road as a sort of culmination of the best career an actor can ever dream to have.

If (and likely when) Davis, or anyone else wins, it will be deserved. But so would Meryl's performance if she ultimately came away with it, and it's OK to root for her. I'm over being pragmatic about Meryl having a better chance in a couple years if she loses (again) this year. I'm all in for 2012.