The Academy has a problem. It’s a big problem. It’s a problem that is hurting American film, dividing movielovers from the industry, setting itself up to be no more relevant to the changing world at large than the Tonys, a niche awards show that only people who are interested in theater care about. Great if you care about theater. The Oscars are now becoming that. The reason? Their choices for what they like has become so limited they are literally writing themselves out of film and cultural history as we speak. The Golden Globes matter more. The Critics Choice, dare I say it, matter more. Why? Because they do not continue year after year to confirm the notion of the outmoded “Oscar movie.” We all know what that is. People joke about what that is. Yet, they can’t help themselves. They pick what they like and what they like, now, are movies about people they like – and that means, more and more, it comes down to movies about white men.
Last year, Harvey Weinstein brought forth Fruitvale Station and The Butler. He dressed Ryan Coogler up in a nice suit, gave him the full Weinstein treatment with the best publicity money could buy. The Butler made money. It was a film about civil rights, a subject not often brought into the Oscar race. Sure, the critics were MEH on The Butler but they liked Fruitvale Station, not that it matters much. Not that it ever matters because all it took was a return to form for the Weinstein Co with the pre-packaged for Oscar Imitation Game. Importance? Check. A persecuted gay man. A period film involving Nazis? Oh, yes. CHECK and CHECK and CHECK! Heartfelt story with a man who overcomes obstacles? CHECK. Disability? CHECK. So the Weinstein Co. rises once again after being taught an important lesson about what kinds of movies Oscar voters like. Lesson learned. If you want to rise to power in this town, you mostly have to make a movie that makes the white guys who dominate them look good.
Still, nothing could really prepare people for the weird stuff that happened with the Oscar announcements – some of it good (Marion Cotillard, Song of the Sea, Beyond the Lights, Selma for Best Picture, Bennett Miller for Best Director) some of it unbearably bad and disappointing, so many doors closed, so many missed opportunities.
Just make us look good.
What you are seeing play out is the damage the preferential balloting system the Academy put in place in 2011 because voters complained that they could not find 10 films to honor in the years when they offered voters ten slots for nominations. That should have been their first clue something was deeply wrong. If they couldn’t even find ten movies they liked as the independent and foreign film world exploded around them. Because the industry enables Oscar voters in every way, from dumbing down our own choices in the pundit world to fit “The Oscar Movie” mold, to the way the Academy, a respectful and well-run establishment, deals with its members. You can see how dramatically their choices have impacted the Oscar industry by looking at the years when they had ten slots to fill for nominations — where they could step outside their comfort zones and vote for films that weren’t necessarily in their “wheelhouse” and the years since. Read it and weep, folks.
You can see that the new system never includes any animated film, nor does it include, except for Gravity, any genre movies. It reinforces the worst character weaknesses of the Academy’s voting body by emphasizing them, highlighting them, creating an unfair landscape to compete because voters picking five is the same old way voters used to vote for decades, you know, back when Oscar movies weren’t only about white dudes? Expanding to ten nomination slots allowed them to move with the times at least, to pick movies that didn’t exist simply to confirm that they’re well meaning good guys who overcame obstacles to succeed.
Choosing ten opened up the possibilities, not just for women filmmakers but for subject matter. Do you think in the new system Winter’s Bone would have gotten in? How about District 9? Not a chance in hell. Not even Inception, probably. Every so often a movie cracks through and breaks the mold because frankly, their directors are kings in Hollywood, like Scorsese, like Tarantino, like Eastwood. But do they really want it to be a boy’s club? Did they not like having An Education, The Kids Are All Right, Winter’s Bone in the mix for Best Picture? What in god’s name is the plan here?
It’s one thing to have shut out Kathryn Bigelow in 2012 for Zero Dark Thirty. After all, the Academy already did the “woman thing” in 2009 – giving her Best Director. What more did women want? It’s a whole other thing to shut out Ava DuVernay for Selma, who would have been the first black director to not only hit really big with critics, not only tell the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. but also to really break through and attempt to build a bridge between black and white audiences. The Academy found it in their hearts to give Selma a Best Picture nomination, which it richly deserved. But in almost every way down the line this morning they went with the white guy/good guy dynamic, shutting out all sociopaths – Foxcatcher, Nightcrawler and Gone Girl. Complex narratives about complicated people. They like good people who make them good, which partly explains why Marion Cotillard, playing someone heroic in Two Day and One Night took the place of Jennifer Aniston, playing a not so likable character.
The reason it’s harder for movies about unlikable characters to get into the Oscar race now is the preferential ballot. It’s really time for them to dump it and go back to five, or preferably a solid ten, just to encourage them to overcome their own ingrained preference, which is the thing that is killing them from the inside out. They are selecting themselves out from the broader culture at large by sticking to the traditional “Oscar Movie” model which doesn’t reward daring, nor does it allow for them to reward films about the darker sides of the human experience. So they are, in effect, one big Stanley Kramer award for heroic films about heroic people. They no longer lead the industry. The industry must coddle, placate and enable THEIR choices. They set certain movies aside for their older white leaning voters and they go about their business making films the public likes.
Imitation Game and American Sniper will make money. And for a while it will look like everything is running as it should. Until you bend down and look closer and see how it all really works. Then you start think, huh, what is really going on here? What’s going on? The “Oscar movie” continues to thrive inside an industry that accepts their limitations.
The preferential ballot has actually make the Oscars a less daring and interesting group than the Hollywood Foreign Press and the Critics Choice. We also know that it’s more profitable to win a Globe than an Oscar — see this stat:
The two awards shows that are really showing up the Oscars these days – The Golden Globes and the Critics Choice have an advantage because they aren’t beholden to the preferential ballot, for one thing, and because their members are tapped in to what’s happening around them. Very little in the Oscar race this year, in the Best Picture lineup, is going to tell you a single thing about American culture.
They are cut off from the ticket buyers because — except for movies like Gone Girl — the industry has given itself over to tent poles that play well in South Korea and China – places where they’re making their own movies at home that are independent or romance or dramas but from America, they mostly like the popcorn movie. They are competing with an international market that wants movies to be amusement parks – can you blame them, really? I certainly can’t. Why should they give two shits about the turmoils of the American experience? They make more money off people who only go to the movies to escape and have fun.
They are cut off from the changing demographics pulsating through American independent film and foreign language films — which are kicking our ass. One of the best things to happen to the Oscar race this morning, not that I agree with the Jennifer Aniston snub, was Marion Cotillard in for Two Days, and One Night. Why does it matter? Because the Dardennes made a film where a woman is the hero. She is the one who really drives the plot and she does so not because she’s married to a guy but because she’s fighting for her job and the survival of her family. The film manages to explore the crippling economic woes in Europe while giving a woman the chance to actually show that she’s a human being first. That’s incredible. And rare and certainly hasn’t happened in American film in a very very long time. Probably the reason Cotillard got in are all of the Europeans that make up part of the actors branch in the Academy.
The Best Picture race is a sad and sorry affair, I’m afraid to report. Only one Best Picture nominee has a Best Actress nominee in it and that’s The Theory of Everything. Gone Girl would have been the other, Wild might have been another, but no. Forget it.
The demographics don’t change much because you see this slate of nominees today? Count the demographics for the ugly truth – more of the same…
They closed the door on the first black woman to be nominated for Best Director, and the first woman to adapt her own novel into a screenplay, something that has never happened in 87 years of Oscar history. Gone Girl made $168 million at the box office. It brought adult ticket-buyers out to the movies. It had everyone talking. It made an impression. It showed that the shrinking world of adult dramas at the movies aren’t dead, that it isn’t only about tent poles. It gave women like me – grown women with thinking brains – something to think about. Why did it get shut out? Because it was the cinematic equivalent of a kick in the balls, because it made men feel small, because they could not buy Ben Affleck staying with Rosamund Pike because they don’t want to admit what they all live with every day. They want to escape from that to a world where they can matter.
When you are born into white male privilege you are taught from birth that you matter. Movies reinforce this by always putting the under-confident loser in the winner’s seat. That plays out again and again in Hollywood movies. Ava DuVernay made the mistake of making her film Selma about the black savior for once, not the white savior. In fact, her movie was perceived as diminishing the memory of LBJ while celebrating the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. She was “punished” for breaking the code of “make us look good.” All of the movies that ever get in to the Best Picture race mostly make the white guys look good – look what happens if you don’t: Do the Right Thing, The Color Purple, Fruitvale Station. But if you do? Mississippi Burning, Gone with the Wind.
The preferential ballot with 5 to 9 nominees has failed. It’s failed the Academy. It’s failed women. It’s failed people of color. It has cost them their reputation as the American public has just gotten one step closer to writing them off.
If voters have the option of reaching beyond their “previous 5” they will surprise you with what they’re capable of honoring, I promise.
And now, on to the race for the win where Boyhood will stare down Birdman and the Imitation Game will rally to upset them both.
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Peter M,
What’s gross to me is how I spend literally hours yesterday, writing hundreds of words to carefully explain how I absolutely do not think the Academy at large is racist.
— but I also carefully explain how I believe it is not outlandish to think there might be 1/2 of 1% of voters in America with old-fashioned racial attitudes
— and I explain how, in a group of 6000 people, age 50-95 yrs old, I think we have to consider the possibility, and I say how small the number might be: 30 voters out of 6000, 1/2 of 1% of voters,
— and I carefully explain how I think it’s foolhardy and naive for anyone to think 1/2 of 1% of so many elderly people might not possibly have some racial bias left over from their days of growing up in the 1930s.
— and then I carefully explain how 30 people can make all the difference when a voter is deciding whether to vote for Bradley Cooper or David Oyelowo
— I’m saying racial attitudes can be a factor. one factor, in the minds of a very small number of voters
so after I spend so many hours making a careful case for nuance and I refuse to jump on the Academy-hating bandwagon… what reaction do we get from robert?
He sums up my beliefs as “of course the only reason not to vote for Selma is racism and bigotry”
that’s a gross and stupid and FALSE summary of everything I have been trying to say.
it’s gross for me to have a reader come at me and twist my words into something so bluntly stupid and false.
robert is also gross because he’s only commented 3 times at AD and each time it’s to attack Sasha and try to reduce things to these blunt simplisitc “racist” terms in every comment he’s ever made.
===
and now I have to ask you, Peter M. : Are you robert’s roommate?
because you both have the same IP address, and it seems like a rather strange coincidence that the one person who steps up to defend robert is somebody who apparently uses the same laptop robert uses.
looks to me like you live in the same house — (or of course, the other possibility it that Peter M is the same person as robert, so here we have robert stepping up to tell us what a fine person robert is)
Peter M, that’s cool if you’re robert’s boyfriend or roommate. nothing wrong with that. I’m just asking.
so what’s up with that, Peter M? I gotta say, this seems like it might be another gross situation.
ryan, i dont think robert was being “gross” when he questioned your and sasha’s stance on selma and the non-nominations for the film. the dilemma here is for the voters: do we vote for a film or actor or whatever because i think its his or her achievement is great or out of bad conscience? if someone thinks that boyhood is better than selma is it wrong to vote for boyhood then because it is a “white” film? if someone thinks that the five nominated actors were better in their films than david oyelowo is it racism when they stick to their opinion? and should black filmmakers be happy with awards that taste of mercy? i personally would vote for boyhood over selam for best film and for keaton over oyelowo for best actor and last year i thought (and still think) that gravity and her were both better than 12 years a slave . am i racist now?
Come on, Sasha!
FOXCATCHER – yes. But GONE GIRL was hated by the Academy and we’ve heard the rumors for a long time. And it wasn’t snubbed just in picture. It was snubbed in screenplay (where many had it winning), film editing (and editors usually respond to Fincher films), music (and this was a surprise!), directing. It only got actress and my guess is that if they had any options (and they didn’t, the category was thin), Pike would have been in danger, too.
On SELMA – this was a poor campaign. The film still got into picture because of the 5% factor. It was probably close in directing, actor, screenplay. Voters didn’t vote for it because they didn’t see it.
And of course the only reason not to vote for Selma is racism and bigotry…
Robert
You’re so gross. Please go away.
Evan, I agree with you, I have ALWAYS been careful on this site to NEVER paint “The Academy” with one broad brush. I always temper my gripes about the Oscars with targeted restraint. I ALWAYS try NEVER to indict 6000 mostly genius world-famous filmmakers for the invisible crimes of a few hundred crass industry people whose names most of us would not recognize who are the deadwood I wish the Academy could get rid of.
I get sick to death of seeing people slam the directors branch when there are certifiably verifiably 200 white men in that branch who most of us pretty much worship as the white men who have given us hundreds of masterpiece-level movies over the years. Scorsese and Fincher and Lynch and Anderson and Linklater and literally hundreds of other directors are ALL white men who we all deeply admire .
But yes there are most certainly 40 or 50 of those guys with terrible taste. You can tell from the terrible movies a few of them made. 40 or 50 bigoted idiots can screw up and skew down the results of voting pretty easily in a group of 400 people.
So YES I was trying to explain and trying to show some NUANCE that is sorely missing in these dumb accusations of the “Racist Academy” that we see smeared in inflamatory drooling headlines of the New York Daily News.
THAT SHIT MAKES ME SICK. We are smarter than that. We can refine our dismay better than that. We can be more specific than that.
There are probably several dozen Academy members who are old farthead assholes with ingrained bigoted streaks left over from their uneducated fresh-off-the-bus arrivals in 1950 Hollywood from their high-school dropout Hicksville backgrounds, showing up at the height of America’s midcentury era of dumb bigotry to suck dicks and become dumb ingenues and cheap hacks and crummy executives who then became big deal hollywood millionaires who happened to be invited to join the Academy.
I suspect 50 or 60 people like that exist in the Academy. Maybe 100. They need to be gone. They soon will be.
It’s not just Old White Men either. What about that dumb old broad who stuck her dumb finger in Scorsese’s face at the Academy screening for Wolf of Wall Street and scolded him “Shame on You!” Ugh. Somebody found out who she was. She’s some ignorant B-actress bathing-beauty who was a hottie in 1955. Some old lecherous exec sponsors her to join the Academy in 1955 and there she is, screwing things up for the past 60 years. Ugh.
(( Her name is Hope Holiday. She played a gullible slut in The Apartment, I think. ))
She was a nobody then and she is an old nobody now but there she is with her Oscar ballot. Nagging Martin Scorsese. There are 100 or 200 more like that in the Academy and please trust me they are not all men.
Those few dozen crude ignorant old nouveaux-riche guys and women fuck up the balance of thousands of classy sensitive progressive thinking filmmakers that the vast majority of academy members represent.
1000 actors in the actors branch. 50 is 5%. That’s not a lot but too many people are naive to forget how badly 50 ignorant voters can screw things up when it only takes 200 actors to nominate someone unworthy or NOT nominate somebody more worthy.
Those 3 dozen old uneducated antiquated farthead bigots will be dead soon. They will be rotting in their graves next to Ernest Borgnine soon enough. Good fucking riddance.
Evan just because I used a line you wrote as the launch pad for me to expand on my own feelings does not mean that I was directly addressing and certainly does not mean I was attacking.
If you or anyone got that impression then I apologize.
My style of participation in discussions is very often to let myself be inspired by something one of our smart readers has said, and then I go off on that spring board with my own “Yes, but…” or “Yes, and not only that, but furthermore…”
I honestly can’t even remember if I called you by name, Evan, because I wasn’t even thinking of butting heads with you.
That was not my intention, I promise you, so please don’t take my frustration personally.
My flare up was not directed by you. It was inspired by you.
Whoa. I don’t know what I said that caused such a furor while I was away, but I didn’t mean to cause such a fuss.
“So when Sasha talks about diversity being under-represented in the Academy, why can some people not see how 100 or 200 new progressive Academy members who represent diversity could make a HUGE difference in the outcome of the nominations and winners?”
Oddly, that’s **exactly** what my post said– that she’s right that underrepresentation in the Academy affects the results! I’m not a “Numbskull” and I don’t need a lecture on how close races can be or how Oscar math might work out. I’ve discussed Oscar math enough in these threads to prove myself.
But Sasha’s article strays from your “it only takes 30” argument a number of times, lumping everybody together and making broad generalizations about what the group decides to do and not to do. Take this bit, for example: “It’s one thing to have shut out Kathryn Bigelow in 2012 for Zero Dark Thirty. After all, the Academy already did the “woman thing” in 2009 – giving her Best Director. What more did women want? It’s a whole other thing to shut out Ava DuVernay for Selma.” It sounds like a mass conspiracy!
Meanwhile, the detractors like to pretend that everything’s okay. They act like race doesn’t play into what gets made in Hollywood, what critics connect with and champion, or what gets awarded. Of course it does. People are drawn to what they’re familiar with, often– in styles, in themes, in plots, in characters.
Racial prejudice takes many forms and I think it’s one of the “softer” forms– passive indifference rather than outright rejection– which plays the largest role in this instance. That’s what I meant by “nuance”– that I think the answer is somewhere in the middle of this “They hate black/female films” and “It had nothing to do with that” debate.
In short, Ryan, I agree with you more than I disagree with you, but your post treated me like a moron for not agreeing 100%. If you’d rather we not have an actual civil discussion about race at the Oscars, I’ll totally turn the conversation back over to those who keep posting the oh-so-illuminating lists of the year’s highest-grossing films or of what they would have wanted nominated (which tend to interrupt every serious conversation on this blog).
“Tone. I adapt to the tone that’s already established. That’s my way, online and in real life.”
Yeah, same here, pretty much. And I too can’t really respond nicely to snide remarks masked as polite conversation. I wish I could, sometimes, but most of the time I think it’s just not fair that people be able to get away with stuff like that, online or anywhere.
“You’re a way nicer person than I am if you wish for racists to live long hateful lives to spread their racist hate for many many years.”
Personally, I wish for them to live long enough lives (and be fortunate enough) to eventually see the error of their ways (as the world around them changes). I think everybody deserves that chance. Death is a serious matter, to me, far more important than elections and living conditions (that don’t themselves lead to death) and no matter how many people having to take racist comments/attitudes all their lives. If one can get rid of the latter without causing the former, that’s fine, but otherwise, I’m not sure it’s worth killing even one (otherwise innocent) racist to do so. If they were killers (or racists AND killers)… there’d be an argument for wishing death on them; even though I’m against the death penalty as well, I can understand people who aren’t.
Of course, wishing death on someone (again, without a good enough reason, whatever that may be) is not a big deal, as long as no action is ever taken towards causing it, so I have no problem with that. But, unless kept in check (which might be hard to do indefinitely, if the impulse keeps popping up), the line can blur… and that’s dangerous, I should think. Maybe I’m overreacting and it’s easy to control this impulse. Either way, it’s probably safer for everybody to avoid that kind of thinking altogether. I, for one, have never wished anyone dead (that I can remember), for any reason. I’ve probably wanted to see people humiliated, maybe ruined, for being insufferable (this way or the other), but dead… the very idea of ending a life forever (in reality, not in the movies) makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t even kill bugs anymore, or spiders, or anything (I used to, sometimes, when I was little, because I didn’t really think of the consequences back then). I figure, at worst, I’ll get bitten, get some disease that very likely won’t kill me… I’d still have a pretty good chance, whereas they, when killed, have no chance anymore, to do whatever it is they do in their already short lives, and that is something I just can’t live with. I don’t know… maybe I’m too idealistic on this one. It’s OK, I don’t mind being called that.
***
On a lighter note, I’ll post this here as well:
Finally, after this hectic 3-4 day period, with the DGA, Oscar nominations and BFCA awards, here’s my pre-guild wins evaluation of the 8 nominees’ chances to win BP at this point, based on all of the strongest stats I know (each movie’s statistical problems in brackets):
CLEAR FAVORITE (69% chances, so I guess about 1.45 odds, which, honestly, still seems a touch high to me)
1. Boyhood (only 4th in the ranking order by number of nominations at the Oscars, but we discussed last year how that’s not as much a factor under the preferential ballot or, indeed, in recent years, compared to, say, the 1990s or 1980s)
POSSIBLE SPOILERS (13%, 11%, 6%, I would estimate, probably a bit generously – see comment above)
2. The Grand Budapest Hotel (no SAG acting nomination – only Return of the King, since the famous Braveheart case, has won BP without any such nominations and, yes, even Slumdog Millionaire had one -, no acting nomination at the Oscars – only 4 movies have won without one since 1960 -, lost the BFCA for Best Picture to Boyhood – only 3/16 movies have won BP without it since 1999)
3. Birdman (no Best Editing nomination – no movie has won without it since 1980 -, lost the Golden Globe for Comedy to The Grand Budapest Hotel – only one out of 9 Oscar BP winners, since 1963, to come from this category at the Globes has not won said category in the past, Annie Hall -, lost the BFCA for Best Picture to Boyhood)
4. The Imitation Game (no Best Director nomination at the BAFTAs or Golden Globes – no movie has won without either of these since The Sting, in 1974, which I believe is, in fact, the only exception, since applicable -, lost the BFCA for Best Picture to Boyhood)
OUT OF CONTENTION (1% chances in total, at best)
5. The Theory of Everything (no Best Director or Best Editing nominations, no DGA nomination, no Golden Globe Best Director nomination etc.)
6. American Sniper (no Best Director nomination, no SAG Ensemble nomination – or any SAG nominations at all, no Golden Globe Best Drama nomination etc.)
7. Whiplash (no Best Director nomination, no DGA nomination, no SAG Ensemble nomination, no Golden Globe Best Drama nomination etc.)
8. Selma (no Best Director, Best Screenplay or Best Editing nominations, no major guild nominations, no BAFTA nominations etc.)
I just don’t know if “adapting to the tone that’s already established” is always the best idea for a moderator.
probably not. 😐
but there’s this other very smart thing you said, Jerry:
“Commenters have the privilege to say stupid things. Whatever, that won’t stop ever.“
True. That’s not ever going to stop. I’m not to going to stop those people by setting a “good example” for them. That doesn’t work. Those people steamroll right over the top of “good examples”
😐
I get riled up when I see a reader who’s familiar to me as a regular mocking agitator show up to piss on the inspiring Chastain clip from the Critics Choice gala last night. He crashes an uplifting topic like the Chastain speech and advises her to shut up about diversity and focus on ‘quality’ – as if he thinks he’s qualified to give Jessica Chastain lessons in ‘quality.’
Things like that happen on the site, I get riled up, that’s all.
Awards Daily: come for the analysis, stay for the meltdowns.
“oh well, sorry I’m honest. I look forward to racists dying so as each of the ceases to exist, America will gradually become a less racist place. Through attrition.” Take the word racists out insert Jewish and you have Hitler’s Final Solution.
Awards Daily: come for the analysis, stray for the meltdowns.
Thanks Ryan. For the record, I’m all for your forthrightness, which I generally appreciate and am amused by. I just don’t know if “adapting to the tone that’s already established” is always the best idea for a moderator. 🙂
I would not wish death on anyone over an award.
oh well, sorry I’m honest. I look forward to racists dying, so as each of them ceases to exist, America will gradually become a less racist place. Through attrition.
Sorry, I don’t have any need to see racists live to be 100 and keep voting in elections. I don’t apologize for wishing their inevitable death comes sooner than later so the world will be a better place.
You’re a way nicer person than I am if you wish for racists to live long hateful lives to spread their racist hate for many many years.
Ryan, you and Sasha need a hug (not that I’m offering)
“Fuck veneers. I don’t have any patience for applying a fucking veneer to my thoughts.” I understand where you are coming from in view of your other statement “please hurry up and die.” I would not wish death on anyone over an award.
Tone. I adapt to the tone that’s already established. That’s my way, online and in real life.
People come at me or come at Sasha with a tone of mockery, a tone of eye-rolling, a tone of antagonism, then I’m going to respond to those people in the tone they like to indulge in throwing at us.
If you don’t think I’m being indecent, then please don’t advice me that you wish I would write with “a veneer of decency”
Fuck veneers. I don’t have any patience for applying a fucking veneer to my thoughts.
Anyway, I will take your suggestion under advisement. You’re one of the very many very good guys we have around here, Jerry.
Just wanted to say: I know my comment above could be read as “things are fine the way they are”, but I don’t want to be misunderstood. What I’m saying is that there are things to be excited about from yesterday’s announcements and I hope those things don’t get lost. Linklater and Anderson finally getting their due while staying true to their artistry is encouraging to me, and Selma DID get in for Best Picture, where it will stand forever as one of only 8 movies that did. All I’m saying is that I’m happy for those films that made it (that I think deserved it, which would be 5 out of 8 films). Obviously the gender/age/race gap is appalling and I don’t have much faith in that changing anytime soon unfortunately. Obviously the fact that the 20 acting nominees are all white people is wrong on several levels, the most obvious of which is that those are DEFINITELY NOT the 20 best performances available in those categories. Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler, David Oyelowo for Selma, Tom Hardy in Locke and Brendan Gleeson in Calvary should be sharing ink with Keaton right now. Essie Davis in Babadook and Gugu Mbatha Raw in Beyond The Lights should be in there for Best Actress along with Pike, Moore and Cotillard. Evan Bird for Maps To The Stars and Josh Brolin for Inherent Vice should be in Supporting Actor with Simmons, Ruffalo and Norton. Julianne Moore in Maps To The Stars, Tilda Swinton in Snowpiercer, Jessica Chastain in A Most Violent Year and Carrie Coon in Gone Girl should be sharing the love with Arquette in Supporting Actress.
By my count that’s 12 of 20 I would have swapped, with the only ones I’d keep being the 4 inevitable winners (Keaton, Moore, Simmons and Arquette) and a handful of other performances they rightfully recognized. Admittedly, if they did my bidding there would only be 2 actors of color out of 20, but at least the list would be a more accurate reflection of the finest work this year and not an ode to the hype machine consensus conveyor belt that carried almost everyone on that list to a foregone conclusion decided months ago. I can definitely be very, very cynical about this whole thing, but I’m trying not to be for the sake of some of my favorite film artists who are getting some well deserved love after years. Linklater in particular, if he and his film wins, will be the face of what is now being deemed the most racist, misogynistic Oscars ever. That to me is unfortunate and I hope we don’t drag him too deep in that mud because he is SOOOOOO far removed from all this bullshit.
Oh my God. Just read the article linked at the bottom of this page (the “Stanley Kramer” one) and the comments at the bottom of the article are AWESOME!! The opinions about Sasha and her hysterical ramblings were priceless, and far more entertaining than anything she’s actually written. This site can be fun for sitting back and watching everyone get their panties in a bunch over trivialities, but once in a while I need to go elsewhere for a breath of fresh air and to reclaim a sense of perspective and sanity. (Not to mention spend some time with people who foster a love of film rather than suck the life out of it).
Not unreasonable at all, just indecent. I love the word “fuck.” But tone trickles down.
Tell me what I said that was ‘indecent’ or unreasonable, Jerry Grant. Let’s go.
What’s bothering you? I said “fuck” ?
You seem to be saying you think I’ve said something “stupid” — have I said anything like that to you or anyone else?
You can tell me you think I’m stupid for hammering a little lesson in percentages, but I’m not allowed to say “dimwit” in regard to people who insist on saying dimwit things like “wah wah, stop saying white people are racist”?
“Jesus Christ” Jerry. You say what you you want. I’ll say what I want. How about that?
Just a suggestion from someone who’s dedicated to this site but is sometimes in awe that the leadership gets needlessly baited into such mean and vitriolic language. Must be a super tough job not to let people get under your skin. But still.
Jesus Christ Ryan, take the high road. You’re editor and moderator. Commenters have the privilege of anonymity and can say stupid things. Whatever, that won’t stop ever. Frankly, I would think, as comment board moderator, you would only get involved in “conversations” if you could do so with a veneer of professionalism and decency, at least to maintain certain standards of decorum you would want to be upheld. Your vitriolic tone can be worse than anyone else’s, and that’s a bad sign for your credibility, whether you’re substantively right or not.
Sasha’s right that underrepresentation exists in the Academy and some of her detractors are right that Selma’s underperformance today is not necessarily part of a racist agenda … Some appreciation of nuance from both sides of the coin would be much appreciated.
Yes, about that “nuance” thing…
How about if Steve Carell got 800 votes and David Oyelowo got 770 votes so that’s why David Oyelowo just barely missed a Best Actor nomination? Just a matter of 30 votes, maybe.
How about if Bennett Miller got 850 votes and Ava DuVernay got 820 viotes, so that would explain how Ava DuVernay just barely missed out on a Best Director nomination. Just a mere 30 votes might have made the difference.
Do I have to be Captain Obvious and explain this? I guess so, Lieutenant Numbskull.
The WHOLE Academy doesn’t have to be misogynist racist homophobes to fuck up the diversity of the Oscar nominees. It only takes about 30 or 40 dried-up, racist homophobes to tip a nomination sometimes. (And Please Note, more nuance: WOMEN can be racist homophobes too, right? A few weird old white women can be afraid of black people. I’m afraid that is a Fact.)
So. 30 men and women in the Academy who have an ugly hidden racist streak can be all it takes to knock David Oyelowo out of the Best Actor category. That does not mean “the Academy is racist,” and if you say that then you’re a dimwit. It just means that a few dozen voters have a problem with black people.
How thickheaded and BLIND does a person have to be to think there are not 1/2 of 1% of Academy members who don’t have a problem with black people?
===
You guys do realize that only 14% of the Academy are younger than 50 years old, right? That’s a Fact. That mean 86% of the Academy were born BEFORE Civil Rights was even a thing.
Do the fucking math, and please do the math with nuance in mind.
Remember that time when Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tied for Best Actress? Remember when Gravity and 12 Years TIED with 10,000 members of the Producers Guild?
Close votes happen, my friends. While we’re making a very reasonable plea for NUANCE in discussions of race, how about we see if we can consider the reality of “close votes” and allow for a little nuance in understanding basic MATH.
Nobody is saying that all the white guys are racists, ok? Want proof? I’m a fucking white guy and I’m not racist.
So, RELAX, all you overly-defensive white guys. Know this: The more defensive you get, the more it looks like you doth protest too much.
===
So when Sasha talks about diversity being under-represented in the Academy, why can some people not see how 100 or 200 new progressivee Academy members who represent diversity could make a HUGE difference in the outcome of the nominations and winners?
That’s Sasha’s very reasonable solution: Can we please have a few dozen more Academy members who respect and support diversity? Is that too much to ask?
If that is too much to ask, then HERE is MY Solution: Can the 30 members of the Academy who are the Most Racist members of the Academy please just HURRY UP AND DIE SOON? Thank you.
30 racist voters, please hurry up and die.
I guess I can wait. Luckily I won’t have to wait long.
@EVAN
“Sasha’s right that underrepresentation exists in the Academy” The Academy at best is a self congratulatory slap on the back. It focus is on what “we think” is best. The Academy is the messenger. The sender of the message is the studios. Don’t get mad at the messenger when the sender universally is at fault. Selma and others reflect a home grown industry problem. We (the industry) would rather make one comic book film, financed in the millions, than ten diverse films. The Academy is the dead horse in all these diatribes. The industry does not want to gamble on product. They want sure things.
I notice that a lot of people on this website cite some sort of Tripod/Angelfire/Geocities looking thing called CriticsTop10 when they cite that ridiculous, meretricious big-budget superhero movies should be nominated for Oscars, as though end-of-year Top 10 lists are actual reflections of critical reception and not carefully-calibrated listicles designed to flatter the writer and audience. Considering that Critics’ Top 10 lists are manufactured to highlight balance in taste and not simply reveal what exactly a critic’s favorite film is, I thought it might be interesting to simply look at the top 10 theatrically-released films of 2014 based on Metacritic scores — that is, scores before critics are trying to craft “well-balanced lists. Even if we preclude documentaries from our list (which we shouldn’t, but for the sake of argument…), it reads as follows:
1. Boyhood – 100
2. Mr. Turner – 95
3. Selma (tie) – 91
3. Leviathan (tie) – 91
3. Two Days, One Night (tie) – 91
6. Ida – 90
7. Birdman (tie) – 89
7. The Tale of Princess Kaguya – 89
9. The Grand Budapest Hotel – 88
10. Whiplash – 87 (I’m giving this to Whiplash because it’s a breakaway hit, but on Metacritic it’s actually tied with three other indie-films: We are the Best!, The Babadook, and Force Majeure. I’ve seen them all and they’re all sure-as-fuck better than Interstellar)
Looks like a pretty interesting Best Picture slate to me! Much more so than one with fucking Marvel’s Interstellar Skyfall 12: Guardian Knights of the Mockingjay or whatever silliness people think is the best cinematic work of 2014.
As a foreigner, I’ll challenge your math just as soon as I remove the duck from under my arm
The top ten grossing movies should be the best movies of the year.
But I think small indie flicks are just safer for the Academy, their safer for the American Public too. Me I love action fantasy. But my sympathy goes out for Sony Pictures Classics and IFC.
But I’m a geek and geeks rule. I love action comic book fantasy movies. My favorite categories
our animated feature, visual effects, sound mixing, sound editing and make-up and animated short films. But my gut feeling is that the Academy is 94 percent white and 74 percent black and what about foreign films. I love the foreigners at the Oscars. There’s always the ones with the plain, poor and simple fashion.
“I’m always struck by those that feel the need to defend The Academy and bag Sasha, as if Sasha is the problem. One film in 86 years that explores the racial crimes and trauma from a black perspective and wins, and another where A woman directs A picture and wins Best Director; is seen as enough already?”
Well, that’s not a completely fair analysis. Really, there haven’t been films that explore race from the black perspective for 86 years. At least not mainstream titles that the Academy would have seen. That’s a relatively new (and welcomed) movement that’s probably happened in my lifetime (I’m approaching 30).
This is also an unfair statement because there have been a number of winning films that addressed race that weren’t directed by minorities– West Side Story, In the Heat of the Night, Driving Miss Daisy, Crash, and those are just among Best Picture winners. Are all of them as up-to-date with current political perspectives as 12 Years a Slave? No, of course not. But political thought slowly develops over time. The people who voted for the films above probably thought they were making a statement. Anyone who was around in 2005/6 certainly knows that Crash succeeded in part due a campaign that emphasized how forward-thinking the movie thought it was.
It’s not about supporting the Academy or bashing Sasha. Sasha’s right that underrepresentation exists in the Academy and some of her detractors are right that Selma’s underperformance today is not necessarily part of a racist agenda (its distributors and publicists certainly did enough to bungle its chances on their own). Some appreciation of nuance from both sides of the coin would be much appreciated.
I’m left with a line written by Mac above: “Unfortunately, the line-ups have always lacked color for the most part, but I believe that IS getting better…”
I wish there’s an upset in the best supporting actress race and that would be Laura Dern.
Best Actor is the strongest race once again.
Boyhood is a definite lock for best picture. 12 years to make. Still gotta see it though
So how came that the white men in power chose to give 21 Years a Slave the crown last year?
How come a country full of climate-change-denying right-wingers, uneducated gun-nuts, fundamentalist homophobes, genuine KKK-level racists, Cheney-Bush-worshipping warmongers, and lowbrow knuckle-dragging Duck-Dynasty fans elected President Obama 8 years in a row?
Simple. Because America and the Academy are balanced 50-50 between progressive thinkers and status quo traditionalists, that’s why. Sometimes the balance tips a little in the right enlightened direction and sometimes the balance tips in a pathetically sickening direction.
Open your eyes to see that the Academy is just a microcosm of America and you’ll not have to ask such basic simplistic questions as “How can a group that chose 12 Years a Slave fail to appreciate Selma?”
Steve50, I love the NBR. I think they usually pick great choices with the exception of Clint Eastwood winning so often. Their choices for writing, even when they are absolutely out there (Buried anyone?) are usually inspired picks. I also like the Golden Satellites, which takes bashing year in and year out. But their picks are often much smarter than the Academy’s.
Great piece, same with the article that was written before the nominations were announced. I’m thinking maybe we shouldn’t get so pissed but get motivated, we know the Oscars are all about White, male and a certain age so why do we give them so much time and power. This year has produced some exciting films that have worked the medium into some subversive shapes, I feel sites such as this one should focus on who’s doing it right and bulldoze the old guard to the side, and if that means giving less attention to the Oscar season roll call so be it, feels like it’s time to evolve or slowly die for Cinema. For one thing, events going on in the news are far more gripping, diverse, complex and dramatic than pretty much anything they made this year.
Yes, Steven – NBR takes a bashing every year for being an unqualified bunch of hacks whose choice of Best Film is tainted, but we really have to wonder who are the real hacks. I have my suspicions.
Daveinprogress, don’t count out Cotillard. Remember when Julie Christy had that Oscar in the bag for playing a similar role? I still think Moore will win but after yesterdays nominations we can’t ever say anymore what is and isn’t absolutely certain and guaranteed.
Gregoire, I always felt that “Everything is Awesome” was a great song with great placement and meaning. But “Glory” is simply better written and the placement and use of it is absolutely perfect.
I saw somebody comment on HR that it’s been over 40 years since an National Board of Review best picture winner was completely shut out at the Oscars. RIP A Most Violent Year 🙁
if we start the conversation that awards are not about rewarding the best at all, they become easier to tolerate.
Sasha your passion and angst are palpable and reflect, in my opinion the sad reality that it is very hard to love quality film and love awards at the same time.
So, the Academy should nominate films based on ascriptive characteristics instead of film quality, I see. The Butler was a terrible movie. Fruitvale Station, a good movie, was also a very small movie more analogous to Whiplash, which deserved more nominations. This year, Selma had a phenomenal lead performance, but a lousy directing job done and some miscasting (Wilkinson just didn’t work as LBJ). There is no more a problem of minority underrepresentation than if it were minority overrepresentation–what if three of the five nominated best actor performances would be black actors? That’d be completely non-representative. And who cares?
Totally agree with Sasha in wanting more diversity in the make up of the Academy and changing the preferential voting system. Worth noting that voters only really get (in most cases) one vote that counts (at most) at the nomination stage so even if Sasha was an academy member and part of the director’s branch she’d have had to effectively either ‘snub’ Gone girl or Selma in picture/director in favouring one of those films so I think accusations of rampant sexism/racism within the Academy in reference to certain snubs are pretty simplistic/unfair. Personally I’d love to see voters getting (up to) five picks that actually count at the nomination stage and a longer time to view movies.
While I agree that it is possible Selma could have been treated better..I find your characterization of The Imitation Game” as typical..check the box Oscar fodder.uttrerly insulting and indefensible, Really ..being Gay is a disability. Really we have already covered thet subject matter…why every life matters. We have had a Gay Hero… boldly presented and the folly of the intense prejudice that not only still exists… but was enough to wipe away the sin of Brokeback Mountain’s ugly snub. Because a battle you care obviously less for …is FINALLY broached and a real advancement made. You choose to denigrate it as A WHITE MALE FILM with ALL THE CHECK MARKS. I am a great fan of yours . And in fact an ally year after year… so let me say this: FOR SHAME. Finally a gay hero young people can look up to…. Now for once, one that doesn’t end up commiting suicide. There was ground broken here… whether you choose to recognise it or not… just because it was not the ground or battle YOU preferred. And I say UNFAIR… Shame on you… in particular because it is entirely unlike the brilliant, evolved forward-seeking …and looking writer I have long admired… I look forward to your return after the smoke clears… and you have some perspective… NOT just based on anger over your preference not doing as well as it should… GUESS WHAT… gay men and woman have seen that for decades as well… so we appreciate even this baby step… shouldn’t you?
The Golden Globes vs. Oscars box office bump comparison is utterly stupid. If you think about it for about 12 seconds, you can figure out why the Globes win is “perceived” to be worth more at the box office. By the time the Oscars are over, the vast majority of its big nominees are either out on video already or winding down their big screen runs. THAT’S IT. The studios rarely re-release or vastly increase the theater count of a film in theaters post-Oscar victories. When the Globes occur in the middle of January, many of the Oscar movies are just starting to go into wide release. By the time the Oscars are over, the current year’s movies have pretty much taken over at the box office. There won’t be many 2014 movies in theaters at the end of February. Why is this even a debate? It’s NOT because the Golden Globes are somehow more relevant or important than the Oscars now. Gimme a break.
Also, do you REALLY believe there’s some kind of link between Weinstein making Imitation Game because Fruitvale failed to secure major awards attention? As if The Imitation Game isn’t exactly the kind of movie they’d have made regardless? I say there’s absolutely zero connection there.
So your detractors can flail about and claim that everything is just fine or the same as it has always been, except they are just too dull to recognize the obvious trend.
I love this line, Mac. It’s so close to what I was planning to write, you even use some of the same wording I was turning over in my head.
If you’re up to it, you might go see if you want to address another reader in the Jessica Chastain piece. He’s one of these people who is unable to see that people who personify diversity are getting tired of being told that our need to see our diversity reflected in movies doesn’t matter.
Because he’s getting what he wants, and that’s just fine for HIM, so he thinks we should be satisfied to like what he likes and stop trying to get our own foothold? Sorry, No. He doesn’t seem to understand how crude and insensitive he sounds. I want to challenge the silly bill of goods he’s trying to pawn off as “things are just fine as they are,” but I’m too burnt out from this very long and draining day.
You nailed it here with your comment, Mac. You get it. We’re lucky to have you around so you can help balance out the site and help forge more interesting pathways out the stiff old ruts that this other guy is happy to slog through, year after year.
Because, hey, we don’t want to obliterate what that guy wants. We want him to have what he likes. We just want to see some more diverse things that we like too, right? Because he have as much right to see our diversity reflected as he has to see his own preferences remain available.
This guy on the Jessica Chastain page can’t see what a stubborn brute bully he is, and I’m honestly not in the mood to try to explain it to him. I’m not interested in changing his mind about what he likes. All I want is for him to get the fuck out of our way and let the rest of us have more of what we want TOO.
It’s not something I even want to fight about with that guy. The fight is fucking over. We’re going to win it. We’re going to get what we want. It’s up to him whether or not he wants to make room for us or else try to stand his ground and get his ass crushed by what’s coming.
I really wanted to see Fincher and DuVernay get nominated for their wonderful efforts. Gone Girl should have gotten a screenplay and Best Picture nomination as well.
Of course, you are right Sasha. Those that disagree with you about the the Good Ole Boys Club that is AMPAS hated Gone Girl/Selma or are just being trolls (Larry) . What they fail to realize is right now is absolute low point in gender diversity among Best Picture nominees ever. It has been trending that way for a long time now, since the late Eighties, early Nineties, with only the occasional movie with a female protagonist/lead winning taking the prize. When one of those films does win, it turns into an extremely contentious issue (Titanic, Shakespeare in Love). Gone are the days when actress-led pictures like All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, and Born Yesterday make up 60% of the Best Picture field, like in 1950. Maybe throw in King Solomon’s Mines (with Deborah Kerr as lead) too, and Father of the Bride (Elizabeth Taylor was fast becoming a mega star at that point) and that’s 100%. 1955, 1958, 1965, 1968, 1973, 1977, 1986, 1987 were years in which the BP nominees were mostly films with female leads… and that was with only 5 slots available. Nowadays, with up to ten slots available, we only see one or two of the nominees in a given year are dominated by actresses. Or none, like this year.
Unfortunately, the line-ups have always lacked color for the most part, but I believe that IS getting better… although not this year, even with the exceptional Selma at hand.
So your detractors can flail about and claim that everything is just fine or the same as it has always been, except they are just too dull to recognize the obvious trend.
American Sniper? Really, Academy? What a by-the-numbers, unoriginal suckfest film. And Bradley Cooper occupying a spot instead of Ralph Fiennes, David Oyelowo, or Jake Gyllenhaal is pure bullshit.
Considering that the old people who vote for oscars are the ones who chose Midnight Cowboy as their best picture in 1969 I don’t think they are as conservative as you would like to paint them…at least compared to my Dad.
“The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay; it is the only X-rated film to win an Oscar in any category, and one of three X-rated films nominated for an Oscar (the others being Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange and Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film Last Tango in Paris). Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Best Actor awards and Sylvia Miles was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, in what is one of the shortest performances nominated (clocking at about five minutes of screen time). In addition, the film won six BAFTA Awards. It was also entered into the 19th Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1994, this film was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.”
Seeing Cotillard get nominated (I assume deservedly, based on what you guys are saying) almost out of nowhere, I feel even sadder that they couldn’t find it in themselves to nominate Adele Exarchopoulos last year, when she was in just about the same position…
Stephen Holt – I couldn’t have said it better myself – I totally agree with everything you said re Cotillard. It’s the performance of the year and, thankfully, voters noticed that…probably after the critics awards AND maybe other actors (Julianne Moore, Jane Fonda) who were vocal about how great this performance was, although bringing much-needed attention.
Shame on SAG, BAFTA and Golden Globes for believing the Aniston hype and publicity machine and ignoring COTILLARD
You say the preferential ballot system is ruining the Oscars, and the turn around and celebrate Cotillard’s nomination, basically all but admitting she only got in BECAUSE of the preferential balloting system. Not sure you can have it both ways 🙂
Marcus Perriello, congrats on listing 14 artists of color who’ve won an Oscar, many of them in the past decade. But I’ll save myself the trouble of listing the hundreds and hundreds of white actors who have won Oscars through the 86 years of Academy history. Do you realize just how miniscule a percentage that artists of color make in that equation? Since you mentioned Haing S. Ngor (”The Killing Fields,” 1984), let’s note that he was the first Asian to win the Supporting Actor Oscar in 48 years, and 30 years later, Ngor is still the ONLY Asian to have won that prize. There have been amazing actors of color throughout the history of cinema, but it’s still rare when they get the opportunity to be recognized, let alone win the Oscar.
Of course, quality actors should be nominated for their work, not just their skin color, but this condescending statement is galling: ”There are some terrific minority actors out there who, if they seize the opportunities, may find themselves as part of Hollywood history in the ranks of the Oscars.” Whoa. It’s the fault of the minority actors who aren’t ”seizing the opportunities”? Last time I looked, it’s white studio execs who greenlight movies, it’s mostly white directors who cast them, and a membership of Oscar voters (that’s 94% white) that determines the Oscar nominations. Geez. If a police department or a fire department of any metropolitan area were 94% white, they’d get sued for institutionalized racism. But in Hollywood, it’s just showbiz.
She (Marion Cotillard) may have surprised before, but not this time. Julianne Moore has her Oscar.
Whoa! We all have to hold on a minute and turn once again to the wonderful Marion Cotillard for hope and guidance. Her nomination is a triumph of the human spirit. And of the Actor’s Branch of the Academy, who nominated her. And no, it wasn’t just Eurpopeans nominating her.
I think it was the entire New York membership of said branch. That’s what happened with Marcia Gay Harden, too. Everyone in New York voted as a bloc. I think. Of course, I can’t prove this statisically, but everywhere I’ve gone in the past several weeks of the voting period, people were talking about Marion Cotillard’s superb, heroic performance in “Two Days, One Night” NO ONE IN NYC were talking about Jennifer Aniston. That was totally an LA thing and a total Lisa Taback-hype thing.
Everyone who has seen Marion’s performance in a French-speaking film, no less, loved it and raved about it, and it was THAT the quality of her performance that got her nominated. MERIT! She got nominated on MERIT. And I’ll tell you something else extraordinary. I don’t think, to my knowledge, that they sent out SCREENERS! That’s right, no screeners. But they did have an abundance of SCREENINGS here in NYC. It was screened almost constantly. And Marion herself said that “We have no money, so there will be no nomination.” Of course, bien sur, she was WRONG! And it’s the best performance of the year and she should win. Et oui, she has an Oscar already, why not have two? She deserves it. And y’know, who also helped her get this nomination, the critics. Specifically the New York film critics. They gave her their Best Actress award and everyone then had to pay attention.
I hope Academy voters get sent screeners now. But just looking at how motivated people were to SEE THIS FILM IN A THEATER(well, all right a screening room) shows that voters CAN do the right thing. Not always, but sometimes. It gives me hope for the Oscars and for the future. She’s surprised before. She could surprise again.
Here he is…I cannot believe this shit….so what? AMPAS will feel they have to nominate non-white actors every years regardless they deserve or not!
Way to go…affirmative action at the Oscars!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/al-sharpton-calls-emergency-meeting-210136185.html
Selma gets a Best Picture nomination, and that’s considered a “snub?” About 250 other films would like to be “snubbed” like that.
“Very little in the Oscar race this year, in the Best Picture lineup, is going to tell you a single thing about American culture.”
Except the frontrunner, Boyhood. And Whiplash. And Birdman. And…..Selma.
@JEREMY C.
24% of “old conservative white guy problem” is female.
I’m a fan of this blog and I’ve also been following since it was called Oscarwatch. I agree with Sasha that the Academy prefers to ignore race and gender or anything remotely edgy and nominate films that reflect their own staid, homogeneous selves. I haven’t been as upset by Oscar’s snubs since the Brokeback/Crash disaster. The preferential ballot system, I think, is really hurting some great films, but the Academy has a problem beyond that. It really is an old conservative white guy problem.
Yep. Here we go again. Yet another political controversy in the midst of the Oscar race. And all after just last year, ’12 Years A Slave’ won Best Picture, and Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actress. Let’s not forget the likes of Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morgan Freeman, Jamie Foxx, John Ridley (wrote ’12 Years A Slave’), Steve McQueen (co-produced AND directed ’12 Years A Slave’), Mo’nique, Jennifer Hudson…WHEW! Have I forgotten anybody (OF COLOR)? We also have names like Dr. Haing S. Ngor (Best Supporting Actor – The Killing Fields), Benicio Del Toro (Best Supporting Actor – Traffic). Oh yeah! What about the famous acceptance speech from Halle Berry (Best Actress – Monster’s Ball)? HA! The Academy has failed colored people. Yeah right! There are some terrific minority actors out there who, if they seize the opportunities, may find themselves as part of Hollywood history in the ranks of the Oscars.
What I’ve noticed is that the majority of films that appeal to the public (minorities included) are films that are mostly flash and style with little to no substance. Movies with substance strikes a deeper chord than movies that are all about the outward presentation. It’s obvious as we see what kind of films the Academy votes for. Just because movies like ‘Ride Along’, or ‘Baby Boy’, or ‘Friday’ don’t get any Oscar attention, all of a sudden Hollywood is racist. Give me a break! I think the films that are nominated are usually great films that have a lot to offer the viewer. Of course, not everyone looks at a movie for its mechanics and underlying trappings along with the story. Some of those great films are films about mionority groups; such as ‘Glory’, ‘Ray’, ‘Crash’, and of course ’12 Years A Slave.’ I really wish these folks would stop complaining about such trivialities and focus on what’s really important in life.
Mark Harris said this about Life Itself’s omission:
“The omission of Life Itself from Best Documentary Feature would, I hope, have amused Roger Ebert as much as it will appall everyone who knew Roger Ebert. It is a good reminder of a couple of things, namely that one should never take the Oscars too seriously or expect them to be nice to a movie critic, even in death.”
Gregoire, “Everything is Awesome” over Glory? Are you serious? Glory DESTROYS that song.
>>I think the problem is larger than sexism or racism — it’s just shear laziness.
>It’s also the tight voting window between December 29 and January 8. They can’t see anything in that amount of time…
What should they change it to? Does anyone miss the long drawn-out schedule that went into late March? I’m already tired of the awards season.
“By this outcome, The Grand Budapest Hotel would be the likely winner for Best Picture. Still don’t think it will, but…”
Yeah, just like American Hustle would have been last year (12 Years – fewer nominations; Gravity – no screenplay nomination; you forgot to include screenplay in your list, by the way). If TGBH wins BP like American Hustle did last year, that’s alright by me…
“There are usually only 2 or 3 movies with a realistic chance at winning anyway, so why just fill out the ballot with fodder?”
Are you saying we should only nominate 2 or 3 (or 4, to be safe) instead, then?
I like 10 nominees, old system. Sasha’s right.
“KBacon– perhaps that’s what happened, they checked Selma for BP but not other categories cause they hadn’t seen it.”
Yeah, and they may have just listened to the song for the other nomination it got, without actually seeing the whole movie. So there’s a theoretical chance Selma got nominated for two awards, one of which being BP, without having been seen by anyone in the Academy. 🙂 Pretty funny!…
“But lamenting that no animated film has gotten a Best Picture nomination since 2010 is rather silly. There haven’t been many acclaimed options.”
Frozen not good enough?
“Argo won Best Picture without a Best Director nod and someone is saying Birdman cannot win without a Best Editing nod. Hilarious. Best Editing doesn’t matter.”
Tell that to Brokeback Mountain!… Anyway, Argo won without the BD nod but with every BP win from every major award under the sun to make up for it, which is something Birdman has already failed to get, as it lost the Globe.
“With the expanded Best Picture slate you can pretty much throw out the rules from here on out about what CAN win.”
Based on what? The rules (yes, ALL the rules, the guild rules, the other precursor rules, the nomination rules, all put together, not just the ones X conveniently chooses from among these to prove this or that point) have prevailed every year, including those after the expansion, and including the Argo year; nothing had won BP without any of the big 4 guild wins – SAG, PGA, DGA, WGA, not to mention Globes and such, yes, not even Braveheart -, and there was no such movie that year except for Argo; yet there already WERE exceptions to the BD nomination rule in the Academy’s history, but no exceptions to this guild wins rule, since it had become applicable (1996); you were there in 2013, you were probably even the first to point this out at the time, so why switch sides now?! I don’t get this about you at all…
“I’m beginning to worry about an “American Sniper” clean sweep: Picture, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Film Editing.”
Don’t. No director nomination, no SAG nomination. It’s not a threat.
““Nothing in the Oscar race this year, in the Best Picture lineup, is going to tell you a single thing about American culture.” Really?!? I understand you’re upset Sasha, but…really!?! You’re better than this. I’m pretty sure you’ve written pieces about Boyhood, Birdman, Whiplash and others that suggest otherwise.”
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking…
“I remember back in 2010, every film nominated for Best Picture was also on Peter Travers’ top 10 list of that year, and he STILL got angry over the nominations.”
:)) That’s pretty funny too!…
The worst part about Selma’s poor showing is that voters will feel obligated to give the Oscar for Best Original song to that AWFUL Common song when that award should be going to Everything Is Awesome from LEGO Movie. The award should go to the best use of a song as well as to the quality of the song itself.
I’m always struck by those that feel the need to defend The Academy and bag Sasha, as if Sasha is the problem. One film in 86 years that explores the racial crimes and trauma from a black perspective and wins, and another where A woman directs A picture and wins Best Director; is seen as enough already?
Art needs to be progressive and hold up a mirror to the society of the day. I applaud the advocacy that is eloquently and robustly made on this site.
Don’t recall this argument having been ventured when 12 Years a Slave, Lupita Nyong’o and Alfonso Cuaron won last year. There are valid points you make about the Academy’s selections not being very representative, but this piece still has a bit of an Ick factor, given its implicit suggestion that people who didn’t like Gone Girl as much as you did (I hated it) are sexist, and who don’t love Selma as much as we did (I loved it) are racist. You didn’t come out and say that, in those words, but….reading between the lines, that would seem to be the implication. If so, it’s a pretty extreme generalization to be making, and not a constructive way in which to frame a serious conversation that needs to be had about how to make not just the Oscars, but the film industry in general, more inclusive.
“Jake Gyllenhaal probably has the bigger beef to be honest.” 🙂 I’ve heard that about him 🙂 🙂 🙂
Not sure about Dick Poop – poor fellow. Wonder if he is an Academy ‘Member’.
Why do they have such a tight, two-week window for voting? This is supposed to be THE awards ceremony of the American film industry. Yet the Academy expects its voters to watch 10+ films in the span of two weeks?
The whole system is flawed. Sure, the Academy gets props this year for the Grand Budapest love. But most of the time, any film that releases before July is dead in the water when it comes to these awards ceremonies. Just look at what happened to In the Heart of the Sea. Due out in just two months, and Warner Brothers pushes the film all the way to December. Nine months. And the only reason I’ve seen cited is because the studio sees “awards potential.” It’s absurd. Instead of celebrating the best films of the year, the Academy celebrates the best films of the last 2-3 months of the year.
Hey, the Indie Spirits just called. They’re suing AMPAS for plagarism. Just kidding.
@LCBASEBALL22
Cap America is like heading into MTV Movie Awards territory in my opinion (I liked it, but I would not put it in), but I would consider Super 8.
Sasha, I think this is one of the best things I’ve read about the Academy Awards in a while. I think the real problem about the academy is not that they’re racists or whatever, but as you said, the preferential ballot. They ask people to vote for the films the member liked the most in order, and for me that’s a valid question. However that lowers the possibilities for movies like Nightcrawler, that is fantastic, but probably no one first choice. For example, I would have put Whiplash in first place, and Selma in second. In best actor, 1) Eddie Redmayne and 2) David Oweloyo. So I liked Selma a lot, but it’s not my first choice. Definitely I think the preferential ballot should go, and I wouldn’t be suprised if it happens, because the past changes have been made to make up for failures like the ones we saw today.
Good column, Sasha.
I haven’t seen Selma and I’m not as enthusiastic about Gone Girl as you are (even thought I think it deserved better today), but I share your desire for more diversity, both in the stories being told and the voices telling them. I don’t feel it as deeply as you, but I do.
Much like Jorge (and maybe others) before me, I also nitpick the Golden Globes chart. The original author of those studies raises one issue himself (that films, by definition, have a longer life after the GG’s than after the Oscar’s; at most it’s the same). I raise another: the Oscars matter quite a lot outside of the US (certainly more than the GG’s), which nowadays make up for a very relevant piece of the total return.
Interesting piece Sasha, although I don’t agree that Marion Cotillard’s nomination is because of support from the Europeans in the acting branch. She was nominated because it was an INCREDIBLE piece of acting; this is what acting is. In the past few years I’d started to give up on the Academy having the ability to reward great work that wasn’t part of a massive publicity push, but this nomination has restored my faith in them somewhat. If only Ralph Fiennes was up for Best Actor.
Julianne Moore will take this home because she is without an Oscar and is due, but Marion Cotillard in Two Days One Night gave the best female acting performance if the year. I have no doubt the preferential voting system helped her get that nomination as she would have received many number 1 votes by actors.
Absurd overreactionary article. Yes the Academy is racist – that must be why 12 Years a Slave and Lupita were handsomely rewarded last year. Dozens and dozens of African Americans have been nominated and/or won for major awards over the last 10-15 years, yet the Academy must be racist.
The race baiting on this site has to stop. David Oyelowo was the only performance that was deserving of a nomination this year, but Best Actor was just too STACKED so it is completely understandable. Jake Gyllenhaal probably has the bigger beef to be honest.
BEN – and yet Hattie McDaniel had to enter the building through the kitchen to get her Oscar
Barring a Tom Hooper/Brokeback Mountain type of thing going down, all of this shouting is really over second place.
Biggest shock: Where the fuck is “The hobbit” in the VFX category??? We all knew it was never gonna be another LOTR but costume design? makeup? art direction? sound mixing? They had one last chance to honor this trilogy as it deserved. WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK ACADEMY??????
Here’s what blockbusters/popular films/specialty that deserve a nominations beginning with 2008:
2008: Dark Knight, WALL-E
2009: Star Trek
2010: none
2011: Bridesmaids, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2012: Skyfall
2013: Frozen (maybe), Star Trek Into Darkness
2014: Gone Girl, The Lego Movie (maybe)
Going by the CriticsTop10 these all should have at least been in the running…
2008: The Dark Knight, WALL-E
2009: Star Trek
2010: The Town, Shutter Island
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Super 8
2012: Skyfall, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hunger Games
2013: Frozen, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
2014: Gone Girl, Guardians of the Galaxy, The LEGO Movie, Interstellar, Edge of Tomorrow, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Captain America: Winter Soldier
You know, I don’t think there’s ever a year where people don’t get angry over Oscar nominations. It’s odd, but it always happens. I remember back in 2010, every film nominated for Best Picture was also on Peter Travers’ top 10 list of that year, and he STILL got angry over the nominations. I mean, really. What the fuck?
None of this is worth having a meltdown over, people.
NOW can I say that DGA will clarify all of this? I’m just not seeing a Tom Hooper rerun here, and if Linklater wins that, then BP, Arquette, and Editing follow.
I think Selma was the victim of an incredibly botched campaign rollout and a rather organized hit campaign. I don’t know if racism really explains it, but the barely restrained glee from right wing sites about the snub seems to make it all a distinction without a difference.
I’ve been critical of the agenda pushing of this site in the past, I don’t agree with the belief that every good film about race should necessarily be rewarded or that every good film with a female director should be rewarded, which is sometimes how it feels around here. I think that sometimes this site only wants the ‘most important’ or ‘most culturally significant’ films to win, rather than the best films, that the academy awards should be about rewarding films that say something rather than those that are the highest quality. I certainly think that films like that should be made and I’m glad that I live in a world where they are, but I don’t think that they deserve to win what the oscars should be (ie the zenith of filmmaking, the benchmark of the art of filmmaking).
But I think that sasha’s argument is inarguable here, not that Selma should have been rewarded, I haven’t seen it yet and will be doing next weekend when it is out in the uk. From everything I’ve heard it is good but not groundbreaking. So I don’t think that it should necessarily be rewarded just because of who directed it and the subject matter. Nor do I think that gone girl (which was one of my favourite movie experiences of the year, if not the highest quality film) should be rewarded because of what it says about society and the involvement of strong women within the production. However the fact that the oscars are CONTINUALLY overlooking challenging and boundary pushing film making (interstellar, night crawler, gone girl, under the skin which hasn’t even made the conversation at all) to repeatedly reward the same type of films, the same people (I like Bradley Cooper a great deal, but does he even deserve ANY of his nominations, does Streep really just need to put in a good performance in a film that achieve better than average reviews to get a nomination) and what’s worse rather safe films over and over again while there is much more interesting film making out there is undoubtedly making them less and less relevant and more and more out of touch. I think that is the crux of what sasha’s point us and she could not be more right on that point.
GONE WITH THE WIND
The hatred is misdirected. The film was a true reflection of the novel (Pulitzer Prize just two years earlier) and, moreover, a reflection of how American society treated African Americans back in that era (disgracefully; we still do, but that’s another topic). Remember this: Clark Gable, the biggest star in the world of the time (save Bette Davis, maybe), as Rhett Butler, said, and I paraphrase: “Mammy is the one person whose respect I care about”. That was huge. Yes, the other black people in the film were treated ridiculously, but not just Prissy, but many, especially the older women). The point is, at the time, Gone with the Wind was actually considered to be an advance in civil rights in some ways, because yes, there were the usual servants, but a servant who was genuinely respected. Other films, like The Birth of a Nation and Tarzan and Song of the South were genuinely racist even in their day; in historical context, GWTW was not like those.
I hope everyone youtubes Harry Belafonte’s amazing Hersholt Humanitarian Award acceptance speech from the 11/8 Governor’s Awards. He discusses Hollywood racism so eloquently.
From these nominations we can deduce that the average Oscar voter is 80, a white Republican Anglophile male who once got a free lunch from Harvey Weinstein, thinks Meryl’s still hot and hates scifi.
I’m not sure exactly how 12 Years a Slave made white men feel better about themselves. It’s fine to make the claim that certain types of films are underrepresented, but the idea that straight white men can only truly enjoy the type of films that make them look good seems to be predicated on a false assumption – that all these white male Academy members conform to the profile you’ve outlined, have the same exact taste, and are incapable of being objective when it comes to….well, anything. And – I’m speaking to you directly now, Sasha – if someone were to make the claim that women are unable to fully recognize and/or appreciate the merits of films that don’t feature strong female protagonists or speak to them directly AS women (i.e. “A woman couldn’t possibly ‘get’ Saving Private Ryan, because that’s a ‘masculine’ movie.”), I have to believe you’d find that statement as offensive – and, to be blunt, as sexist – as I find yours.
By the way, I’m a non-European white guy who LOVED Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night. Assuming your broad generalizations about my demographic are correct, my reaction must have been some kind of freakish anomaly. Guess I’m the one who slipped through the cracks.
Observations: Bradley Cooper third consecutive nomination – was Williams Hurt the last actor to do that? I can only think of William Hurt and Meryl Streep in modern times where this has been achieved. Hurt: 1985-7; Streep 81-3. It is pretty rare in the acting categories.
Meryl further propelling herself into the history books; never to be equalled or bettered! (come on Cate and Amy get cracking!) 19th nomination.
The greatest delight for me today was seeing Laura Dern return to the list – 23 years after her first nomination.
Overlooking David Oyelowo Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal simply makes me want to seek out there performances more so!
Fantastic and on point Sasha. Beyond the preferential ballot, the industry, not just the oscars have a woman and racial problem. The prejudiced exec who wrongly things movies about women can’t make money. The biased critics who has one measuring stick for Argo and one for ZDT and Selma. The critics and politicians and audience members who enable that by joining that cacophony. Etc.
It’s a pity and a shame and I agree with your prediction that it will lead the Academy to write itself out of relevance.
(Minor nit: the golden globes stat is probably meaningless because the movies are likely still in theaters and not so much so after the much later oscars.)
After defending the preferential ballot the last couple of years I think I agree it has to go. The two years where they nominated 10 films led to some much more interesting choices. I’d gladly deal with the occasional “The Blind Side” if it means we get Best Picture nominees like “A Serious Man,” “An Education,” “District 9,” “Toy Story 3,” “Winter’s Bone” and “True Grit.”
And I don’t really buy the whole “why should we feel obligated to award 10 films” reasoning that was given. If you can’t find 10 films you liked in ANY year, you just haven’t fucking watched enough of them – period.
I think too much is laid at the feet of the Academy in terms of how “white” these Oscars are. The far bigger problem, as I just posted in the other thread, is that your graphs above are a snapshot of the industry as a whole. When Gyllenhaal was bumped by voters there were 17 other white actors to take his place. When Oyelowo didn’t make the cut…well, shit, there goes the only shot for a black actor being nominated.
This is all because of Selma? It got a best picture nomination. It is obviously that Selma just didn’t seem to resonate with the industry at large. Just don’t forget that they did vote for 12 Years A Slave that was truly the best picture winner. Not everything AMPAS does is politically driven.