Tonight the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will have its gala ceremony during which its members will confer awards on themselves. It is the 91st time it will have done so, the first time having been in 1929. That ceremony took 15 minutes. This one is likely to have a running time closer to four hours.
My wife will watch; I won’t.
This year people are saying that the Oscars are having an identity crisis. It’s long overdue. Steven Spielberg has kvetched that Roma, a movie acquired by Netflix and which will seen by most of the people who will see it via streaming, shouldn’t have been nominated let alone win as many believe it will.
Over the years the Academy Awards have transmogrified from a method by which the major studios promoted movies to a forum for the members of the Academy to congratulate themselves on how enlightened they are. Women comprise 28% of the Academy members, those who are non-white are 13% of the membership, 14% of members are under 50 years of age. In other words, the Academy is a bunch of old white guys trying to convince the rest of us of their virtue. The biggest development of the last 12 months is that we now have documented evidence of what we’ve suspected for a century: they aren’t particularly virtuous.
IMO the Academy needs to make some decisions. Why are there separate awards for men and women actors but not for men and women directors? Or men and women writers? Why are there different awards for leading actors and supporting actors? Why is Black Panther a movie but Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse isn’t? The “Best Original Song” category is a mess. Here are the winners since 2010:
- “We Belong Together”
- “Man or Muppet”
- “Skyfall”
- “Let It Go”
- “Glory”
- “Writing’s on the Wall”
- “City of Stars”
- “Remember Me”
Compare that with the winners from any decade from the 1930s to the 1980s. The category should be retired; it’s obsolete.
If I had my way I’d consolidate the acting awards into a single award, consolidate the movie awards into a single award, retire the “Best Original Song” category, and ban acceptance speeches entirely.
Older I get, the less of the Popularazzi I recognize. The political stuff is predictable, but I suppose necessary for career advancement.
With the splintering of the streaming media, I think in the near future most people will recognize only a few of the “stars”.
Maybe Netflix should have their own Oscars.