Is this feminism?

This is the Time’s Up Oscars, the first one where the #MeToo movement is a major player, and no one can predict just how the tricky balance between celebration, industry penitence and the host Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes will pan out on 4 March. This being Hollywood, however, already the chief speculation is about the clothes. The previous dress code of Time’s Up — that actresses should wear black to protest against sexual harassment — dominated both the Golden Globes and the Baftas: only Frances McDormand decisively broke ranks at the latter, and she got away with it because so many of her screen roles are about being stubborn.

Don’t count on an all-black hat-trick for the Oscars, though. Stylists and designers can do wonders with a little black dress, but they are wondering how much protest chic the fashion industry can handle before the funereal gear signals mourning for lost profits. There have been anonymous whispers from members of the Time’s Up campaign to the New York Times that colour will be permitted back in.

Yet if rainbow hues do make a reappearance, other familiar elements will definitely be absent. The most notable, of course, is the banished ogre of Harvey Weinstein, whose films won a combined 81 awards over the years, but who has now been expelled from the Academy in a kind of negative lifetime achievement award (to give some idea of how difficult that is, both Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby remain members). This year, Weinstein is reportedly working with life coaches and sex addiction therapists at a luxury facility in Arizona.

According to gallant Hollywood tradition, too, the Best Actor from the previous year usually hands out the gong for Best Actress — but Casey Affleck, last year’s Best Actor for Manchester by the Sea, will also be otherwise engaged on Oscar night.