Two Steps Back for the Oscars

Behind closed doors, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science decide who and what will win the bronze man every year. The current 8,469 members of this group are chosen due to their talents and extensive knowledge on film and the arts. The 92nd award ceremony will premiere on Feb. 9, yet it is hard to say how high the viewership will be. 

Since 2015, the Oscar ratings and viewership had consistently been dropping, with 2018 reaching record lows with the viewership at 26.5 million, which is drastically low compared to 43.7 million viewers in 2014. But who is at fault for this decrease?

The answer: the Oscars themselves. Business Insider gives an example of the problem. “Since 1970, about 71% of best picture winners had a director or cast member who was previously nominated for an Oscar, a trend that carries until today.” 

The Oscars seem to have a system of delivering nominations many of the same individuals, which ends excluding other actors/actresses from having a chance at securing their first nomination. 

The Academy has a similar mindset when it comes to choosing the film nominees and the winners for Best Picture. ‘Oscar bait’ movies have snagged many of the Best Picture awards over the years. ‘Oscar bait’ is a film community term used to describe movies that seem to have been produced for the sole purpose of winning an Oscar, or at least gaining some nominations. 

89% of Best Picture award winners, since 1980, have fallen into at least one of five categories that would then classify the film as ‘Oscar bait’. These categories are films that are adapted from a famous source, a film based on a true event, a period drama, historical biographies based around a central figure, or a story about an individual with a disability. 

Recently the award for Best Actor has overwhelmingly favored portrayals of real figures. 12 of the last 18 winners of the award were from biopics. These were just those that took home the award; five times in the last 15 years all but one of the nominees for the award were real people. Several publications including National Geographic and The Wrap have published headlines in the past few years stating ‘If you want to win Best Actor, book a biopic’. 

There is a blatant and obvious discrepancy between the artists producing good work each year and the artists officially recognized by the Academy. Film lovers were greatly disappointed to discover that five out of five nominees for Best Director were male. For a long period of time, an omission of this kind was due to a lack of opportunity for female directors to helm big-studio award films. In 2020, there is no excuse. 

When the credits rolled after some of the most expertly-made films of 2019, it was not a surprise to see names like Greta Gerwig. Gerwig scored a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for her modernized nonlinear take on Little Women; though a deserved award, this honor pales in comparison to the career boost a directing Oscar sparks. Lulu Wang’s deeply personal The Farewell, Alma Har’el’s delicate Honey Boy, and even Oliva Wilde’s crass and wild Booksmart were successful as a direct result of the directing.

2015’s #OscarsSoWhite campaign may have led to Moonlight toppling La La Land, but the Academy has taken one step forward and two steps back in the years since. The sole actor of color nominated in 2020, Cynthia Erivo, portrayed Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet. Lupita Nyong’o’s dual role in Jordan Peele’s class-struggle horror Us and Jonathan Majors’ noble playwright in The Last Black Man in San Francisco have garnered critical and audience acclaim alike. Queen and Slim, Waves, Just Mercy and Dolemite is my Name were all praised for its actors. Green Book’s win demonstrated the tonedeaf Academy’s attempts at “being woke.” In that case the race barrier-breaking friendship depicted in the film was inaccurately depicted and improperly researched. 

The Oscars’ obsession with slavery is concerning; Tubman’s story is well worth telling several times over on screen and Erivo’s praise well earned, but her lone nomination has dark implications. Struggles in the face of hate and racism should not be the only black story portrayed on screen, as there are so many more to be told. 

The films released in 2019 show glimmers of hope for new opportunities for actors, directors, and writers of color, but the Academy has not evolved in its thinking.

Source: Alan Light via Creative Commons