Yesterday, the Motion Picture Academy announced some changes in its annual broadcast including the addition of a new award for "Most Popular Film" or something like that. I made a mental note to write this morning about why all their changes are mistakes but every single other person on the Internet seems to have beaten me to the proverbial punch. And everyone's making the same arguments.
So I'll just refer you over to my buddy Ken Levine and a post which, with great restraint, he entitled The Incredibly Stupid New Oscar Rules. Oh — but I will add one other point…
Ken says "…these changes have only been instituted to improve ratings. They have nothing to do with righting wrongs or ensuring that deserving artists are given their due. This is just because they want better demographics. Period." I can think of one other reason and it's probably even stupider than just wanting to boost the Nielsens.
Hollywood, you may be shocked to learn, abounds in egos and insecurities. There are people out there who make some movie than grosses more than Portugal does in a year but feel a gaping hole in their self-esteem because their mantle has no Oscar. They have three homes, five cars and enough money to make Donald Trump care about them…but they whine about the lack of respect more than Mr. Dangerfield ever did.
They made their bucks off Black Kung Fu Hooker Teen Academy IV and it makes them mad that, that year, Best Picture went to something arty and socially-aware. They think something like, "My film reached and entertained a lot more people than that piece of pretentious crap! I'm more in tune with today's audiences!" They may even cite the ever-dwindling Oscar tune-in as proof that the Academy is sadly outta-touch with its awards.
Powerful folks are always lobbying the Academy to alter the rules to make it more likely they'll receive trophies. For a few years, I found myself semi-unwillingly on a committee at the TV Academy that was supposed to study and issue recommendations about the rules for Daytime Emmys. The committee, as far as I could tell, came to no conclusions whatsoever. The Chair just lost interest and stopped having meetings before our work was done.
But I came to two conclusions. These are mine, not the committee's since it never concluded anything. One was that just as you might find certain foods less appetizing if you witnessed how they were processed and prepared, you might have less respect for the Emmy Awards if you really knew how the choices were made.
Secondly: They have too many awards but that's because everyone's suggestion is, though they don't say it this blatantly, "There should be more of them so I have a better chance of winning one!" On that committee, I saw a lot of politicking that was kind of like if I'd proposed an Emmy category for "Best Writing by a Writer Who's 6'3" and Half-Jewish for a Cartoon Series Featuring an Orange Cat That Eats Lasagna." That kind of thing.
I've segued here from writing about the Oscars to writing about the Emmys but I'll bet it's the same deal. There have been people (and studios) who've wanted a category where their film could win an Academy Award while still containing massive special effects and monsters and violence and car chases and women with their shirts off and gross humor and other key selling points when one is maneuvering for Big Box Office. They want to be able to do that and get an Oscar without having to address deep human values and/or hire Meryl Streep.
That kind of pressure led the Academy a few years ago to up the number of nominees for Best Picture from five to ten. This time, I think it's spawned this category for "Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film" (that's the announced name of it) which is kind of insulting to the folks who make the films that do belong among the nominees for Best Picture. They might as well change the name of that award to "Best Picture That Most People Didn't Want To See."
By the way: Speaking of Ken Levine, I hope you're a frequent listener to his fine podcast. This week, his guest is Animation Voice Actor Bob Bergen. If I were trying to get into that profession, I'd not only listen to that conversation, I'd hunt down every Bob Bergen interview I could find. No one knows more about that industry and how to be a part of it than Bob does.