Nate Silver, who's pretty good at predicting elections, tries his hand at the Oscars…and I question some of his methodology. I do not believe the Academy Awards are predictable in some of the ways people think. There is a strong sense of "buzz" about them — you hear that The King's English is likely to sweep and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy — and I think Silver's right that if the call is close, voters will favor a drama over a comedy. I also think there's a strong trend to vote for courage: The studio that risked making a film with a decidedly non-commercial premise…the actor who risked his image and success on an emotionally-raw and/or controversial part, etc. All that can matter.
But when Silver starts in with how they might give Best Director to David Fincher for The Social Network because otherwise that film's likely to get shut out of the major awards…well, I think that's a theory out of thin air. There's no data that voters ever think like that. In fact, there's zero data as to why they've ever voted the way they have. When Mr. Silver tells you who's going to win a Senate seat in Maryland, he has all these stats on past elections that tell him that 46.7% of all Republicans with 2.8 children won't vote for a candidate who supports gay marriage or just listens to Liza Minnelli CDs. But when it comes to predicting Best Director, Silver has almost nothing. He has no exit polls on past voting. He has no vote totals that tell him if last year's winner got 92% of the vote or 37%.
He knows who won in the past but that doesn't translate to who'll win Oscars on Sunday. In politics, you can say, "In this Congressional district, Democrats have won the last six elections" and that tells you something about how the Democrat might do in the next one. But if you know that Sandra Bullock won last year for Best Actress, what does that tell you about Nicole Kidman's chances this time? Nothing.
Silver does lean heavily on who's won the other film awards this year, especially those not bestowed by critics…and that is an indicator. But I think what happens too much is that people make up a narrative to explain the unexplainable. If Jeff Bridges wins for Best Actor, someone will decide, "This is Hollywood flexing its muscles to assert Americanism over the British invasion of The King's Speech." If Bridges loses, we'll hear, "Obviously, it's because Bridges won last year so voters feel he's had his due." But whatever theory is pushed after the fact is just someone making up a reason. No one interviews the voters. No one does exit polls. No one even stops to think that the voters don't speak or vote with one voice. Not everyone who voted for Barack Obama had the same, easy-to-summarize reason but folks like to distill the Academy voters down to a body that votes en masse with one thing on their collective minds.
My predictions? I predict I'm going to TiVo the ceremony, watch it later with my thumb on the little button with the >> on it…and have a much better time than those of you who watch the whole thing and start wondering, around half past Best Sound Mixing, exactly why it is you're watching. (Oh, and listen for our friend Tom Kane as this year's announcer. Tom was on one of our Cartoon Voice Panels at Comic-Con last year and people loved him. Being The Voice of Oscar is a comedown from that but not a big one.)