It’s ironic that a ceremony which revolved around Martin Luther King Jr, equality of races and genders and civil rights –was marked by the utter whiteness of almost all the awardees, save Alejandro González Iñárritu. But despite that, what an awards show. And I don’t mean for the sheer duration of it. I’ve sat through longer and far more painful Bollywood award shows.

What I loved about this year’s Oscars was that the winners and hosts seemed to have listened to Aamir Khan and decided to use their celebrity status responsibly. Just that they actually did so, instead of giving mere lip service like the Conscience Of The Nation.

I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen such a political awards show. There were speeches about ego, homosexuality, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), whistle-blowers and the civil rights movement. And that’s what marked the ceremony for me and made it watchable. Otherwise, on any other day, you would have simply gone off to sleep halfway through the almost four-hour ceremony.

Let me get to the good bits first.

The tone of the evening was struck from the moment Susan Sarandon, Chris Rock and Sidney Poitier gave the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Harry Belafonte – not for his singing, but for his social work. As Belafonte said, “Artists are the radical voice of civilisation. Each and every one of you in this room, have a gift, a power, to influence citizens everywhere in the world, to see the better side of who and what we are as a species”. The black and white footage of Belafonte walking alongside Martin Luther King Jr, accompanied by Paul Newman and other stars — that is the stuff celebrity should be made of. Not just giving speeches and calling news cameras to shoot your do-goodery.

And it wasn’t just Belafonte. There was a comment on Alzheimer’s from Julianne Moore when she won the award for Best Actress. Which was preceded by Tim McGraw’s beautiful song about Alzheimer’s – I’m never going to miss you. Moore, of course, prefaced her speech by saying she’d heard that winning an Oscar can make you live five years longer and if that was true, she wanted to thank the Academy because her husband was younger than her (if you see the husband, you’d understand why she said what she did) and followed it up by speaking about Alzheimer’s and ALS.

Patricia Arquette spoke about working towards ecological sanitation in the developing world and most importantly about equal wages for female actors and equal rights for women in the US. Which was received by mad applause from Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez. Of course, as Neil Patrick Harris (who seemed to be wilting towards the end of the ceremony) said, this was the first time that Streep had heard that she was paid less than others.

The winners of the Best Documentary, the makers of Citizenfour spoke about supporting whistle-blowers and journalists who expose the truth. And Harris made it a point to mention that Snowden couldn’t be there to accept an award.

I also learnt that 47 years ago, the Oscars were postponed because of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination four days before the ceremony. This was followed by the performance of Glory, the song from Selma, which was like a scene from the film with its sheer magnitude and simplicity – something that Ganesh Hegde, Ganesh Acharya and Omung Kumar would do well to learn from. The performance got a standing ovation and you could see David Oyelowo (who plays Martin Luther King Jr) and even Thor – Chris Hemsworth – weep unabashedly.

But it was the acceptance speech by the singers that was the clincher. They spoke about how “the spirit of the bridge transcends race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and social status…This bridge was built on hope, welded by compassion and elevated for all humanity”. According to them, the bridge in Selma was about freedom of expression in France, the Hong Kong protests for democracy, the civil rights movement. “It’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live. Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now. Voting rights are being compromised right now. The struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850. When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you…march on”.

And to me, this is the strength of the platform these celebrities are on and the courage of their convictions. Imagine one of our actors or actresses taking to the Filmfare or Stardust or even National awards stage, and speaking against any repressive or regressive policy of the state. I for one can’t.

I’ve watched all the Bollywood awards shows this year and the last, and all that our stars do is giggle or flirt with the anchors. There is not a political thought that passes through their heads or if it does, it is never elucidated. And you can forget about Kareena Kapoor or Priyanka Chopra ever using one of these platforms to point out the discrepancy between pay scales of actors and actresses.

There was the speech by Graham Moore who won for the Best Adapted Screenplay for Imitation Game. He spoke of Alan Turing and homosexuality and people who think they feel they don’t fit in. And that when and if these people ever get a chance, they should make a speech encouraging others to stay strong and not give up. Once again, standing applause and much tears from Keith Urban and Julianne Moore and dishy husband.

But the beauty and escapism of the world of cinema was brought in by Scarlett Johansson speaking about Martin Luther King Jr’s walk in Selma 50 years ago, which was followed just a months later by the release of Sound Of Music. Which was commemorated by a spectacular performance by Lady Gaga.

The best speech, though, was in the end. When Sean Penn walked on to announce Best Picture and made an impromptu comment on immigration laws in the US. He preceded the award to Mexican filmmaker, Iñárritu for Best Film by first grimacing after opening the envelope and then saying: “Who gave this son of a bitch his green card?” Iñárritu then followed it up by saying that now that two Mexicans had won, maybe the following year the government would give some immigration rules to the Academy. And that he hoped that the Mexicans who lived in the US as immigrants would be given the same respect as the immigrants in the generation before them who had helped build “this incredible immigrant nation, America”. Take that, Obama.

Of course, there was the usual song and dance opening routine by Harris. And the comic moments where he did a Birdman and came on stage in his Jockeys (it does take a certain confidence in yourself and your endowments to be willing to do so). But all in all, you could see Harris’ joie de vivre flagging as the hours ticked by. Terence Howard decided to replace James Franco’s strange inebriated appearance a few Oscars back, with an equally strange emotional reading of the nominees’ names. Even the nominees looked confused at his show of emotion.  A dig was made at Robert Duvall who seemed to be doing an impression of Amitabh Bachchan’s I’m-always-so-amazed-look at award shows. There was a Jew joke, gay jokes – none of which impressed Clint Eastwood, who doesn’t seem to find anything a laughing matter. Eddie Murphy looked concerned that he’d be asked to do a Bill Cosby joke.

But what stood out for me was that none of the awardees and some of the hosts wasted their moment in the Oscar sun. And it’s got to take a certain amount of spine to stand in the US, and diss the US’ policies. Or even criticise the unfair wage practices for female actresses.

So say what you will about the show – and Twitter seems to be abuzz with lots of criticism of Harris and the length of the ceremony – but the stars sure made up for it. More power to vocal celebrities who have more than just a thought or two in their pretty heads. Now let’s wait for Anu Malik to take a stand on something, anything.