Campaigning for the Arts & the Oscars

The 1st Academy Banquet of 1929, designed by union-busting studio execs. Winners had been announced beforehand; many did not show. Wikimedia photo.

In the final week’s run-up to this year’s birthday party for Uncle Oscar, i.e. the 97th Academy Awards, there have been surprises, rumors, and scandals. In other words, the movie and awards business as usual. Each batch of pre-Oscar awards (SAG, BAFTA, Critics Circle) has led journalists to conclude that this movie or that movie is definitely gonna win because of some quasi-statistical calculation. Some of the nominations have been controversial. “The Brutalist” was slammed for using a little bit of AI-based technology. The “front-runner” for Best Actress made numerous racist and Islamophobic statements on social media a few years ago, so now has quasi-apologized, though what this has to do with her performance may seem head-scratching.

Personally, what I find most head-scratching is that movies which premiere in one theater for one day at the end of December can somehow be considered better than any other movie that is seen by the rest of us all year long. It seems like cheating. But then artistic contests have a history of cheating, campaigning, and judging biases. Patriotism, popular sentiment, and politics influence the voting. It’s not just in the movies. Classical art and classical music have also had their own versions of campaigns and contests. Let’s go back a few centuries and take a look.

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No One Is Happy With the Oscars

We seem to be so grouchy about our entertainment. There was so much grousing about the 92 Academy Award nominees and the awards show itself, you’d think the entire world was forced to take a spelling test and file their taxes at the same time. There’s not enough diversity in the nominees. There’s too much diversity in the production numbers. There’s too much politics in the acceptance speeches. Don’t like that host. Don’t like not having a host. The ceremony is too long. They shouldn’t have cut off the speech from THAT person… The Academy Awards seems like a microcosm of our American politics. No one likes the process or the outcome, except for the ones we agree with.

Thoroughly NonAmerican and Violent

In the interests of full disclosure, I did not see Parasite, which won Best Picture. It also won Best International Film (note the change in language from the old “Best Foreign Film”), Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. This was the first time the Best International film also won this distinction and the first time the Best Picture was in a non-English language. Seems especially ironic in a country immersed in a war over whether to expel everyone not from ‘Murica.

Best Picture winner, Parasite, official photo from Madman Films.
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Uncle Oscar’s Birthday

Well, that didn’t go exactly like I thought it would. I had this entry half drafted Sunday afternoon, speculating on the culturally tragic implications of The Revenant winning Best Picture and sweeping most of the Academy Awards, but there were quite a few surprises, weren’t there?

8uncleoscarIt was Uncle Oscar’s birthday, and like going to that family dinner, you love it and dread it simultaneously. You love Aunt Sadie’s meatballs, but her inappropriate comments make you cringe. Your cousin corners you about some business venture or cause that bores you to tears or requires a donation. It will go on too long with too much bland food, and you know you’re going to fight with your spouse on the drive there and on the way home. And yet you’d never miss it.

Results notwithstanding, my original question is worth asking: Is it a crime against humanity or a travesty of justice if the Best Picture of the year is a movie you didn’t particularly like? Or one which, from the moment you saw the trailer, you had no interest in seeing? Is the Best Picture the “best picture” artistically or popularly, or sometimes one and sometimes the other?

As the 88th Academy Awards unfolded, I wondered if the movies I happen to like would get the recognition they so clearly deserve in the World According to ME or if those cretinous voters would demonstrate that they were drugged out of their mind or kidnapped by Moonies. My answer, as with most years, is probably a little of both.

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