Claire McCaskill Dressed Up for the Oscars as the Terrible Sheriff From Three Billboards
The Oscars were last night, and Missouri Senator and self-processed “Oscar nerd” Claire McCaskill invited her family and campaign staff over for her annual viewing party, complete with themed dishes and mandatory costumes for everyone.
McCaskill’s costume for the night? Bill Willoughby, the sheriff from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, played by Woody Harrelson. It is Willoughby who Frances McDormand’s protagonist blames for all but ignoring the case of her daughter’s brutal rape and murder, and for whom she erects the titular three billboards calling him out.
(Spoiler alert!) Willoughby’s main character arc involves being a nurturing father figure to a super-racist cop—played by Sam Rockwell, who took home an Oscar last night—that he believes is good at heart, despite his habit of brutally beating up black people while on the job.
The rest of the McCaskill clan chose costumes from I, Tonya, a much better movie.
Although I did not hate this movie nearly as much as my colleague Jack did, it still tells an ultimately hollow story about how any garden variety small-town racist can be redeemed by teaming up with a salty old broad to go kill a bad guy, even if it’s not the right one. As such, I probably wouldn’t have dressed up as one of the bad man cops from this movie, either for my (theoretical) Oscars party, or really ever under any circumstances. But that’s just me!
Food sounded good, though.