The Shape Of Water Has Been Unjustly Snubbed For The Best Make Up Oscar Shortlist

‘The Shape Of Water’ Has Been Unjustly Snubbed For The Best Make-Up Oscar Shortlist

By Hoai-Tran Bui/Dec. 20, 2017 12:30 pm EST

It’s too bad that the Oscars don’t think so. In fact, it’s downright infuriating. Ahead of the 2018 Academy Awards nominations, the shortlist for Best Make-up and Hairstyling has been released — and The Shape of Water is nowhere to be seen. Instead, we have another David Ayer movie getting a nomination for make-up.

Here are the list of movies that are contenders for the make-up and hairstyling Oscar nomination:

Meanwhile, the category that seems like a given for any of Guillermo del Toro’s richly designed and lavish films, has snubbed The Shape of Water.

del Toro and his creature sculpting team Shane Mahan and Mike Hill, as well as artists David Grasso and David Meng, designed The Shape of Water’s star Amphibian Man strictly with Doug Jones in mind, a consummate costume actor who has appeared in many of del Toro’s recent films. The movie relies on the audience believing that Sally Hawkins’ Elisa could fall in love with a silent, gilled creature — and that the audience would fall in love with him, too. The heavy lifting goes to Doug Jones’ mimicry and body language (which del Toro described as “part Silver Surfer, part matador”), but also to the make-up. The masculine body proportions, the wide, vulnerable eyes, those hips…it’s a piece of art.

At least Shape of Water has garnered enough critical acclaim and awards buzz that it’s a shoo-in for categories from which a genre film like this would usually be shut out. But this snub remains baffling.