How to Fix the Oscars: Save Them or Kill Them

Academy members are suffering silently. The Ankler published an anonymous account of one such member.  Most of us who have been doing this a while understand that there is something wrong with the mechanism that decides the Oscars. It was already leaning towards kind of bad before COVID, but the pandemic really did mess with the industry, the public and the Oscars in ways that seem to indicate that if something isn’t done this might be the end.

It does seem like we’ve woken up in 2022 with hardly anyone having any interest whatsoever not only in the Oscars themselves but in the movies earmarked for the Oscars. Here is what our favorite doom and gloom columnists Richard Rushfield has to say today:

3. AWARDS SHOWS COLLAPSE

This year, the Emmys fell to the five-million viewer range. A similar decline next year would put them at three and change.

We’ll see what happens in Oscar season. The Globes are returning, but after the absence, will the audience still care? The Academy’s new CEO Bill Kramer made a shrewd move, putting a TV producer in charge of its TV show, but this decline is not about any one show, not even the biggest one. So if this is a year where the needle can’t start to inch back up, we’re in real trouble.

The trend line here pretty much looks like our media stocks these days — downward. The future looks much more like a trade association dinner than a string of giant international live spectacles. The question is how soon do we get there?

The awards sector has been such a part of the firmament for so long. It’s how we organize ourselves; it’s the excuse for doing the things we believe in — not to mention it’s what keeps the trade press afloat. If it goes, does the already over-indexed prestige category — in TV and film — have any reason to exist without a big public awards parade?

The Oscars won’t end if they have one really bad ratings year. They could theoretically head to streaming and that will be that. But those who wish for that to be the fate of the Oscars must also understand that the Globes and the Oscars are useful to people trying to make a name for themselves because the public sees them. If the public knows them, they can theoretically get better jobs.

If they head to streaming it will be like asking if a bear shat in the woods and no one was around to see him or hear him, did he, indeed, shat in the woods? That’s the sound of one hand clapping.

The Oscars do have a choice, and the industry writ large has a choice: save the Oscars or kill them.

Killing them is easy. They simply announce that times have changed and there is no more use for an awards show that is based on merit. Those who run Hollywood can’t afford to tell the truth about who actually deserves to win because then they will be targeted as racists or sexists or whatever the moral panic of the moment is. They can’t afford it so why not fold up shop and leave the Academy museum as one big apology that says — sorry about the last 90 years. We meant well.

Oscar twitter will be mad, and, as Rushfield points out, an entire ecosystem that keeps the entire Penske media empire afloat, will collapse. Is that the worst thing, though?

When I first started covering the Oscars, the trades looked askance at people like me. This hilariously out-of-date Variety story talks to other early Oscar adopters in 2002 and me. But the benefit of being an independent voice was being able to, theoretically, cover the Oscars in a way the trades didn’t. Other than their film reviews, they mostly had to provide advertorial-like content or puff pieces. Hey, not pointing fingers. We all do it.

But I, for instance, could write a little more honestly. We were rogue voices out there in the ether. The publicists knew they had to control us one way or another because, unlike the trades, we weren’t yet making our living on the Oscar race. Eventually, that would change. But it wouldn’t change until we were seen as influential. It wasn’t enough to criticize the Oscars – everyone did that in nearly every outlet that covers entertainment. It was more about the war between who SHOULD win and who WILL win. This is Oscarwatch old school, but it continues to this day.

The only difference now is that there isn’t an audience anymore. The public has not only been completely shut out, we’re literally in “let them eat Marvel” territory, with even Film Twitter happy to jettison the Proles. Who cares about their populist tastes? Well, unfortunately, that is what has driven the Oscars these many years. Movies are made for people, not for critics, not for Oscar voters.

Except that we can’t really say that anymore, can we. Movies are made now for Oscar voters full stop. They don’t seem to exist for any other reason. This is why people have mostly tuned them out, have no idea what gets nominated in a given year, and don’t care. The Oscars are now the Tonys. COVID really did make that fear a reality.

I am just stubborn enough, though, to not let go of the hand, like Steven in Poltergeist. “Steven! Don’t let go!” “Never!”

I don’t want to watch the Oscars die, much less have had any hand in their destruction. And I have. We all have. We didn’t intend to, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So now we have to ask the question, can the Oscars be saved? The answer: I think so.

It’s a soft conviction but a conviction all the same. Here are my five suggestions. We’ve tried Quint on his Orca. That didn’t kill the shark; it wrecked the Orca. We tried Hooper and his shark cage. Hooper goes into the cage. Cage goes in the water. Shark in the water. OUR SHARK.

Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies…

Now we’re at the Brody phase. Brody, a guy afraid of the water, must get in the water with a shotgun and kill the shark. Okay, so it’s not a perfect metaphor. The point is simplicity…

Here are five ways to save the damn Oscars.

1. Men are not the Enemy

When I was just starting out and believed, wrongly, that I had what it took to be a filmmaker or a writer, I never imagined the industry would part the Red Sea to allow me to make movies and win awards BECAUSE I was female. Or that I would not be judged on merit. I always assumed I would have to be as good as men.

It will dim the entire industry if you dim the lights on your best and your brightest. If they’re the best, let them loose to make great movies. True, there have been many barriers put in the way of under-represented groups. But we can’t go so far in the direction of equity that we lose the best filmmakers and the best stories.

I mean, I guess we CAN if Hollywood believes its role now is to make change rather than to entertain.

But where the Oscars are concerned, the goal that I used to complain about should still be the goal: If they made the best movies, give them the awards. If it is important to turn awards into activism, perhaps there can be another category, like the Toronto Film Festival did with their “Amplifying Voices” award. Can they make more opportunities without sacrificing what they know how to do – tell stories, make movies, win awards, damn the torpedoes?

I am not sure they can. I hope they can. I hope there is room for both things. Advocacy and merit. Or both.

The Oscars are supposed to represent the best, full stop. Yes, it partly comes down to baked-in bias, but mostly it doesn’t. Most people recognize what is great and what isn’t. The market decides that, but also — we can trust the nearly 10,000 Academy members that they more or less know what they’re doing.

The one thing they should not be doing is blacklisting men or white men. Don’t do that. If Top Gun and Elvis have taught us anything, it’s that if you’re going to serve the hamburger, don’t forget the meat. Men are uniquely built to be great directors because they are more visual/spatial than women. This is an evolved trait over millions of years because men have built-in predatory eyes, both in hunting and in terms of sexuality/mating. That doesn’t make them predators; it just means they’re great at the visual stuff, which is why they make great movies.

The truth: men are necessary for every area of American life, yes, even white men, yes even hetero-normative men. They make great movies, and they make great movie stars.

2. Bring Back Collaborations as Opposed to Writer/Director Joints

Only a small handful of filmmakers can write AND direct really really well. Most can do one or the other really really well. The best films in all of film history are usually collaborations. There are some who can do both — like Bong Joon Ho, the Coen brothers but for whatever reason, lately, this seems to be the high bar – someone who can do both. They might be able to do it, but should they do it? If it means something to them, then yes. But we seem to be missing those really great screenplays that used to drive the Oscar race.

This is why they often split Director and Screenplay with Best Picture. They have come to mean almost the same thing. But they didn’t used to. Aaron Sorkin is a great writer. Maybe he’ll be as great a director someday. But why can’t we just get screenplays by Sorkin, directed by someone else? I mean, every so often? There is just too much pressure on an artist to be able to deliver on both counts. I think.

3. Shrink Best Picture Back to Five

I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I have spent years making the case that ten Best Picture contenders is the way to go. It would satisfy both the need to represent popular films and be inclusive and diverse. It also means more money for sites like mine since more movies are in the running. Who’da ever thunk a little movie that could like CODA would pull in a win like it did when it only had THREE Oscar nominations?

CODA might have made the cut with five, but it might not have. I’m starting to see now that the ranked-choice ballot is too limiting for the final climax of the night. A climax is meant to be the big bang of the whole thing but more and more it’s starting to feel like eating your salad after your meal, or ending sex with foreplay. I’m just saying.

The only way we can get back the excitement of Best Picture the way it was intended was to shrink it back to five. The popular entries haven’t ever made it in. Without Spider-Man: No Way Home, the ONLY movie people will remember from last year, or without Top Gun Maverick this year, what is the point of having ten? So we can have more nominees the critics like?

I know people who love the Oscars love having ten. But if you want to SAVE the Oscars, shrink it back to five.

4. Open up the Ceremony to the Public

This is probably my most controversial suggestion. I am lucky enough to go to the Oscars every year. It’s really fun. I always feel like a Queen for a day (as opposed to schmuck for a lifetime). There is nothing more luxurious than attending any event the Academy throws. They are first class in every way. But I also wonder if we might consider making them bigger, not smaller, by inviting people to buy tickets to a live show. I know the idea is to invite Academy members and those getting nominations but is there a way to have them at a much bigger venue? Like the Hollywood Bowl?

Maybe this is a crazy idea, perhaps even desperate, but I just wonder what that would be like?

5. Hire a Great Host

We’ve been over this. I won’t foist Ricky Gervais upon you yet again. I would just say that this is the time to reconcile politics and understand that hundreds of millions of potential viewers might not be Biden voters. Already Democratic politics has merged with Hollywood, while at the same time, a wave of censorship has blanketed the industry and social media.

Can any awards show truly be free if it must also be held to the ideology of the politics of the left? What would happen if they, say, flirted with something more universal?  Hillary is on Apple-TV. The Obamas are on Netflix. Their documentaries are represented. Nancy Pelosi shows up. It wasn’t always like this. It’s only become this way recently, where everything has been sucked into Team Blue.

Now granted, this is also controversial. But I’ve noticed a barrier now between telling the stories of what is happening in our country and telling stories that make the Left look good and the Right look bad. This is just too limiting, I think. Though I understand how people feel and I know this is a lost cause. I still think it’s worth considering.

I’m just sure you can get anyone to really care that much if these awards are exclusive to begin with. Most Zoomers, if they think about the Oscars at all, don’t really see them as representative of awarding art or entertainment. They see them as overtly political. That might last a few more years but as the pendulum swings, it most definitely will not.

Maybe hiring a host who has no problem wading between worlds. More than anything else that will save the Oscar telecast, ratings-wise.  Hollywood has long relied on fish-out-of-water stories. The host, then, must not be an insider but rather an awkward outsider.

Look, maybe it’s never going to be fixed. I just hold onto hope that we can fix this problem.  We won’t fix it unless people start speaking out. They can’t really speak out until we shake ourselves free from this climate of fear.