It’s something we’re not conditioned to expect: In the leadup to this year’s Oscars telecast on March 27, the Academy has made several decisions that are, dare I say… good?
As far as these things typically go, the slate of Oscar nominations were refreshingly strong. Or, at least, not as infuriating as usual. (How generous one feels in that regard might depend on which side of the bed they got up on in the morning—or their level of Lady Gaga fandom.)
After several years without a host, not to mention weeks of speculation over who would be up for the task considering its historic thanklessness, the three-woman team of Amy Schumer, Regina Hall, and Wanda Sykes was announced this week as this year’s co-emcees. While there were people who held onto pipe dreams—Tom Holland and Zendaya—or, it turns out, logistically untenable perfect choices—the Only Murders in the Building trio of Martin Short, Steve Martin, and Selena Gomez—this surprise grouping is an inspired choice. They’re three seasoned, funny pros who are well-liked and will take the job seriously.
The frustrating thing, then, is why the Academy is so hellbent on thwarting any of its goodwill, especially since it’s been so hard to come by in recent years. (Exhibits A, B, and C-Z.)
There are ingredients on hand this year for the Academy to produce an entertaining and popular show. (Good, very famous nominees as eye candy! Proof that membership diversity efforts have been working! Funny, movie-loving hosts! Beyoncé!) Yet, as it consistently has done in recent years, and to its own detriment, it has also made a slew of maddening and desperate decisions to pander to some mythical audience it thinks it’s losing out on by producing an Academy Awards telecast instead of an MTV Movie Awards.
As Oscarologist Joe Reid recently tweeted in response to cringe-worthy decisions announced this week, the Academy is coming off as “the absolute most insecure girl at the party.” Babe, you’re the Oscars. You should be the most confident person in the room. Why do you keep doing yourself like this?
Like absolutely everything on television, the ratings for the Academy Awards have been declining over the last decade. That is obviously not something that networks or an awards organization like to confront. Does that mean a lack of relevance? Have they done something with the telecast to upset the masses? Worse, are movies dead?
The panic is understandable, but misplaced—or at least misunderstood. Ratings are down because ratings are down. We’re no longer a monoculture. Things that people used to watch on Sunday night once a year because it was the only thing on and everybody was going to be talking about it the next day don’t attract those people anymore, because there are so many (SO! MANY!) other things on and people will be talking about hundreds of other things the next day.
Maybe that, technically speaking, means that less people care about the Oscars, and that they’re, again technically, less relevant. But that’s the case with just about everything these days. It ain’t personal, Oscar!
The Academy’s reaction to this, however, has not been to face the reality of the media landscape and focus on putting on a great show. It’s been to make outrageous decisions pandering to an invisible, mythical millions, each time shooting themselves in the foot and harming the show’s integrity, and any lingering popularity.
It should seem like a bizarre strategy: cater the elements of your show to the people who have expressed no interest in watching it. Yet it is the strategy that the Academy has been whiteknuckling to for years.
There’s a pendulum swing back and forth between extremes each year, with the show reacting to what it presumes the audience wants and then retreating in the other direction when that fails. We need to attract a younger audience, so hire Anne Hathaway and James Franco! That was terrible, so get Billy Crystal back! That was too antiquated, so bring in someone edgy like Seth MacFarlane! That was tasteless, so let’s get someone who won’t offend, like Ellen! It’s too long, so let’s cut awards… but that’s disrespectful, so let’s cut performances… but that’s boring, so let’s revert to a longer show! It’s endless. It’s exhausting.
But that doesn’t compare to the brand-ruining mayhem wrought by its embrace of the fallacy that all of these viewership and relevancy woes would be solved if they could just find a way to celebrate “popular” films.
There was a damn-near mutiny in Hollywood four years ago when the idea was floated for a “Popcorn Award” category rewarding the massive blockbusters that often top the box office but don’t appear on the Best Picture shortlist. (Because, um, they weren’t the best…). The whole notion was cynical. It was disrespectful.
It was born out of the idea that if those huge movies won awards during the telecast, the droves who bought tickets to them would tune into the show. The whole thing wasn’t just antithetical to what the Oscars were supposed to represent—a curated and inclusive ceremony voted on by experts, artists, and industry insiders. It undermined its own legitimacy, suggesting that the Academy hasn’t properly been doing its job because these films weren’t nominees. Worse, that the smaller movies that were nominated didn’t matter to the bottom line of the organization.
But more than any of that, the stunt, which was canceled following outrage before it even made it to air, was never needed in the first place. The Academy Awards already celebrate the year in film. The major stars of the year’s biggest blockbusters are, almost as a rule, invited to participate in the telecast, and factor heavily into marketing, red carpet coverage, and post-ceremony buzz.
There doesn’t need to be a cheap and patronizing category invented in order for them to show up. And as the falling ratings have proven, their presence every year hasn’t done much to stem the viewership nosedive anyway. Even when these blockbusters are Best Picture nominees, it hasn’t moved the dial; Joker made over $1 billion and was the most nominated film at the 2020 Oscars, which was also the then-lowest rated telecast in history.
That’s all a bit of context to this week’s facepalm that the Academy is at it once again.
On Monday, they announced the instantly mocked decision to introduce what is embarrassingly being called #OscarsFanFavorite. The idea is that Twitter users can vote for their favorite film of 2021, regardless of whether it was nominated for any Academy Awards, using that hashtag, and the winner will be recognized during the ceremony. As an added incentive, three people who voted will be flown to next year’s event to present an award.
It’s Lucy and the football all over again. Oscars producers are chasing the dream that if some blockbuster wins a trophy, ratings will rebound. That hasn’t been the case, and it will never be the case. More, it’s an absurd and obtuse brainstorm on how to solve the myriad problems that have plagued the Oscars telecast in recent years. It’s baffling to think that someone in the industry surveyed all the issues with the Academy Awards and thought, “I know how to fix this. We need to make up an award to give to Red Notice.”
(Fine, this was possibly a scheme devised to make sure Spider-Man: No Way Home, the actual only film anyone seems to have seen in theaters in the last two years, gets stage time following its failed long-shot campaign for Best Picture. But again… who exactly is stopping producers from having Holland, Zendaya, and any kind of celebration be a pivotal part of this year’s show?)
It’s one more way that the Oscars are tarnishing their reputation by ignoring why it is that people who still dutifully watch the show tune in. In fact, it seems to actively hate those people. But the demographic that hates the Oscars? Once again, they’re getting a red carpet rolled out for them—one they’re never going to walk down.
People who watch the Academy Awards each year do so because they want to see the best movies honored. They want a loving celebration of the year in film. They want opulence and glamour and Hollywood escapism. They want to be clued into performances or projects they missed because speeches, montages, and clips moved them. They want to see a show, to be entertained by a spectacle produced by the best creative minds in the world.
Stop worrying about what uninterested demographics are going to show up, slicing and dicing the grandeur of it all because of paranoia over runtime, and dreaming up humiliating gimmicks as pleas for attention. Put on a great show for the people who are reliably tuning in to see it.
They don’t want to see Tom Hanks forced to explain a complicated, hashtag-driven voting campaign that was orchestrated so a shitty Netflix movie can win an award and some strangers from down the street can present at the ceremony. (Ah yes, just what we all crave from Hollywood’s biggest night: more normal people.)
It’s not that there shouldn’t be evolution or an embrace of new kinds of entertainers and cultural tastes and attitudes. But there should be a love for the year in movies and a joy being had in the act of celebrating them. That’s why it’s exciting that Schumer, Hall, and Sykes are taking hosting duties.
They’ve all proven in the past that they’ll fully commit to a bit, aren’t afraid to take risks, are willing to be self-deprecating, but also seem to have the necessary enthusiasm for the job. Compare that to someone like past Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel, who recently ranted about how The Power of the Dog was nominated but Spider-Man was not. It’s a novel idea, but maybe the people emceeing the world’s most esteemed movie awards show actually like movies. Schumer, Hall, and Sykes, at the very least, star in a lot of them, so one can presume they do!
There were a lot of jokes in the past week after the #OscarsFanFavorite announcement about how we’re one step away from the entire evening being decided based on whatever’s trending more on TikTok. The Academy has two competing issues: a ratings catastrophe and a spate of critical ravages. Why not fix the one that is actually fixable?
