Brash, unfiltered, spoiling for a fight — this Oscars season embodied the spirit of Venus retrograde in Aries. The planet of love, art, beauty, and sex work stationed retrograde in the sign of the ram on March 1st, one day before the Academy Awards ceremony. In Aries, Venus is a scream queen. Uncouth. Beholden to no one. So yes, Julia Fox’s nearly naked nod to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” was absolutely on point. And so was the film that swept the Oscars with five wins, Anora, which tells the story of a sex worker’s battle for autonomy against goons from the Russian oligarchy.
Venus in Aries delights in scene-stealing melodrama, and the emotional stakes are even higher when the planet of love is retrograde. Whenever Venus treks backward from our point of view on Earth, it draws so close to the Sun that it vanishes, eventually re-emerging as a morning star. Over the 40 days and 40 nights of Venus retrograde, we too must reckon with the parts of ourselves that have “disappeared” or been hidden from ourselves. Elements of this underworld journey have surfaced in several of this year’s Oscar-winning films, including Anora as well as No Other Land, Emilia Pérez, The Substance, and Wicked.
Before the planet was named Venus, the ancients linked it with the Mesopotamian Goddess Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and Earth. Just as Venus disappears in the light of the Sun, Inanna descends into the underworld, which is ruled by her sister and shadowy counterpart, Ereshkigal. Along the way, Inanna must shed an adornment at each of the seven gates into the underworld, from her lapis lazuli scepter to her breastplate, until she arrives before her sister naked. Like Inanna, the title character of Anora descends into an underworld of nightclubs and 24-hour diners in search of her playboy husband, the failson of Russian oligarchs. He has fled his handlers, who are tasked with kidnapping Anora and annulling the marriage. Anora’s wedding ring has already been taken by force, but in a crucial scene, she willingly relinquishes her red cashmere scarf and the sable coat purchased by her husband, just as Inanna must strip her adornments before she reaches Ereshkigal.
The ancients considered Venus to be in detriment in the sign of Aries, making this an especially intense retrograde journey. A planet in detriment is exiled and under-resourced, and it must fight to bring its gifts to the world. Just as Venus in Aries does things its own way, Mikey Madison (an Aries Sun) brushed off the backlash she received for forgoing an intimacy coordinator while filming Anora’s sex scenes. She said her nudity itself was a costume — even a type of armor.
The adversity that Venus faces in Aries can also be a source of strength. Case in point: Israeli–Palestinian film No Other Land, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary. Directed by a collective of young activists, the documentary depicts the Israeli government’s violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in a southern region of the West Bank. Just as Venus in Aries is in exile, the film was shunned by US distributors, likely because of its fierce criticism of Israeli policies. The message still broke through, however, with sold-out screenings in New York, worldwide distribution, and now the spotlight of an Oscar win.
Another nominee for Best Actress — Karla Sofía Gascón, who made history as the first openly trans performer to be nominated for an Oscar — has manifested the shadow side of Venus in Aries. After the resurfacing of racist and Islamophobic tweets, the Emilia Pérez star did the opposite of damage control (a more traditionally Venusian move). She doubled down by posting near-daily defenses on her Instagram, echoing these defiant words from a New York Times interview: “I’m a great warrior. I love to fight. If it was up to me I would go to all the talk shows and fight with everyone all the time.” Gascón’s natal Mercury cazimi (a Sun–Mercury conjunction) is at 10º Aries — the same degree where Venus just stationed retrograde.
The body horror film The Substance, which satirizes the pursuit of freedom from Hollywood ageism, also explores how Aries-coded independence can become a trap. The Substance dramatizes a fracture in the feminine psyche, reflecting the split between Inanna and Ereshkigal as well as similarly destructive binaries in our modern world — between young and old, maiden and crone, desirable and undesirable. In The Substance, this archetypal struggle unfolds between aging celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and the precocious Sue (Margaret Qualley), the youthful version of Elisabeth that is produced by a black-market, cell-replicating serum. Maintaining this division becomes a form of self-annihilation, and the two women eventually fuse into the gruesome monster Elisasue. But it can also be a form of redemption and self-acceptance, according to Best Director nominee Coralie Fargeat — the only woman nominated in the category this year. As terrifying as this hybrid creature looks at the end of the film, Fargeat said in an interview, “the only gaze that matters is her own.”
Wicked also tells the tale of a complex relationship between two women: Elphaba and Galinda, played by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The Oscars opened with the costars belting out a medley of songs from The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and Wicked, including the final battlecry from “Defying Gravity.” The performance celebrated the unity between these two witches rather than the reductive dichotomy of “wicked” and “good.” In Aries, Venus rails against the violent impact of these dehumanizing binaries on women and femmes.
The actual Oscars ceremony was, for the most part, relatively tame. Yes, Adrien Brody — also an Aries Sun — really did the most demeaning thing by spitting out his gum into his partner’s hands before accepting his Oscar for Best Actor. Could he not have just swallowed it? And host Conan O’Brien, yet another Aries Sun, took a dig at Trump, to riotous applause. In response to Anora’s wins, O’Brien said, “I guess Americans are excited to see someone finally stand up to a powerful Russian.” But it’s the stories told by the nominated films that demonstrate what’s possible when Venus retrogrades through the sign of the warrior, especially in times of political tyranny.
As for art retelling myths, up-and-coming star Mikey Madison’s triumph over frontrunner Demi Moore adds another layer of irony. Moore had been contemplating retirement before she was cast in The Substance, and many commentators have compared her Oscar snub to the plot of the film, in which youth is pitted against old age. Venus in Aries can be a prankster, especially in a retrograde period, and one could call Madison’s win a cosmic joke about the razor-thin line between art and life. Yet the reality is often more nuanced. The shadowy stories that Venus retrograde summons from the underworld rarely have tidy endings. But their bittersweet messages aren’t soon forgotten.
