As a Film Studies student here at Laurier, there’s always a lot of buzz around the announcement of the Oscar nominations.
With 2024’s nominations recently released, there’s the usual uproar as the public complains about the snubs.
I know I, along with I assume many others, was furious to learn that Jack Black’s Peaches from The
Super Mario Bros. Movie was not nominated.
I’ve been seeing online outrage at the lack of nominations for Past Lives’ Greta Lee, May December’s Charles Melton, and of course, Barbie’s Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie.
It might just be the cynic in me, but I find myself simply caring less about the Oscars every year. Rather than a genuine celebration of film, the night seems to be a worship of massive blockbusters.
No matter how much you liked Oppenheimer, there’s no way it deserves that many awards. Right?
Now I’m fully aware that I might just be falling into contrarian gibberish, so I wanted to actually take
a look into how the Oscars work and see if it changes my opinion.
The Oscars are chosen by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). AMPAS boasts over 10,000 members spread across 17 branches, each representing a different discipline
of fim production. Nominations are submitted by the branches.
Usually, nominations are provided by the relevant branch. The voting process is simple and
happens surprisingly close to the night of the awards.
For most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins.
In the case of Best Picture, they employ a preferential voting system in which the first-place nominee must receive over 50 per cent of the votes to win. If they fail to meet that goal, the nominee with the least amount of votes is eliminated and the cycle continues until a winner is selected.
Up until it is announced on stage, the winner is known only by a few members of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
They are the ones who organize handing the envelopes to the presenters, and who you can blame for the La La Land Best Picture fiasco.
Films vying for a nomination have a specific set of criteria to meet for most categories. A film must open in the previous calendar year and must have played for seven consecutive days with at least three plays a day. The films must be feature-length, at least 40 minutes, and must be in 35mm, 70mm, 24fps, or 48fps progressive scan digital format with a minimum projector resolution of 2,048 by 1,080 pixels.
While the process seems fair and simple enough, what gets me is the amount of advertising with an Oscar win in mind.
Studios will spend massive amounts of money just to get their lm nominated.
Fortunately, in 2023 AMPAS revised their rules surrounding campaigning films for Oscars.
These rules included guidelines for how their governors should act surrounding films they were not involved in and are meant to avoid bias.
I have to be honest, learning more about the process and requirements does make me feel a little better.
Now I feel like I have a better understanding of how a film gets from release to winning a statuette.
However, I still have the same cynical outlook I started with. With Hollywood as rich as it is, it feels like lms will rarely get the full recognition they deserve.
As frustrating as this is, there’s nothing we can do about it except for watch and share our frustrations online.
While I might not watch, I’ll definitely keep track of the winners and guiltily hope for some exciting drama.