[imagesource: YouTube / Beyoncé]

We’re here to shatter the illusion of the viral Smith-Rock slap being the only noteworthy thing that came out of the 94th Annual Academy Awards.

Rather, there are two specifically heartwarming moments that are and should be considered far more sensational.

We’ll start off with Beyoncé’s impassioned opening number performed and pre-taped on an outdoor stage the colour of tennis balls in Compton.

As Deadline wrote, “it felt so good to ‘Be Alive’ with Beyoncé” as she opened the evening with her Oscar-nominated King Richard original score, called ‘Be Alive’.

In the video, we can see King Richard actresses Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton smile at each other as they make their way toward the neon yellow tennis court where Queen B and her backup dancers are in formation.

The chills you get from the delicate orchestral music is merely the beginning of this powerful performance:

Beyoncé was up for the best achievement in music written for the motion pictures (original song) category, which Billie Eilish’s score to James Bond’s No Time To Die won in the end.

As B saluted, the cameras panned back to the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood where the rest of the evening played out.

This brings us to Troy Kotsur making Oscars history as the first deaf man to take home a win, and the second deaf person to ever be acknowledged by the Academy.

The 53-year-old star won in the Best Supporting Actor category for his role as Frank Rossi, a deaf father and fisherman in CODA, a movie about the challenges of having a daughter (Emilia Jones) who is able to sing magnificently while her family cannot hear her.

His speech was heartfelt, powerful, and “peppered with levity”:

This winning moment is groundbreaking not only for Hollywood history but also for disability representation overall, reported Huff Post:

The Arizona-born actor’s win is especially meaningful due to the Academy’s affinity for movies about disability that lack any actual disability representation — which has led to some truly horrid and harmful depictions of disability in film.

…Kotsur is now the second deaf actor to win at the Academy Awards, joining [Marlee] Matlin, his “CODA” co-star, who became the first deaf person to be nominated for, and then win, an Oscar.

Matlin was named Best Actress for her role in the 1986 film Children of a Lesser God.

Hopefully, there’s not another 36-year wait.

[sources:deadline&huffpost]