They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Stage Three Begins With a Bang and a Whimper
By J. Don Birnam
January 18, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
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The Bang: #OscarsSoWhite Redux
One of the reasons I, and I suspect many others, enjoy following the Oscars, is because, however improbably, we glean from them some wider meaning about our culture, and therefore ourselves. Indeed, look no further for proof that the Oscars matter on a personal level to people than to the fact that the Oscars, too, have befallen to the incessant cacophony of online sniping culture wars that have come to define the age of social media.
Last year, we noted that the Oscars had come under criticism, with the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag, for nominating 20/20 white actors, in particular given that the obvious black actor who gave a magnificent performance, David Oyelowo from Selma, was not nominated. This year, too, much has been already made on the blogosphere about the race of the nominees (no Idris Elba, no Michael B. Jordan), the Best Picture miss for Straight Outta Compton (though its two [white] screenwriters got a nod), and the shutout of Creed (except for the nomination of the one [white] star, Sylvester Stallone).
Lest we hide our head in the sand and ignore what is happening in the world of entertainment right now, we must briefly weigh in, however redundantly and unnecessarily, into this controversy.
On the one hand, there can be no doubt that, as a simple matter of numbers and math, the Academy and the Oscars skew white. The L.A. Times’ now infamous expose revealed that over 94% of voting members are white, and the nominations, this and last year’s included, follow a similar pattern.
But it would be incredibly reductive, not to mention pointless, to parlay those facts into a conclusion that the Oscars or the Academy are racist, prejudiced, or somehow unfairly predisposed against minorities. The Academy, if anything, has been making persistent efforts to grow its ranks in more inclusive and diverse ways, and has sponsored several initiatives aimed at increasing the role of women and minority filmmakers and stars in Hollywood. My yearly defense of the Oscars - reserved usually for the day after the broadcast, when the (hopelessly trite and predictable) accusations of predictability and boringness of the show emerge - has come early, it seems.
To accuse the Oscars of prejudice is like accusing the floor for being wet after it rains. The reality is that they like what they like. We all do. It is not a matter of rejecting or disliking other groups. The fact that a group of mostly white old men pick movies that appeal to white old men is not racism, it is the intractable nature of humans.
Me, a white Hispanic gay man, a stats and finance nerd, respected and enjoyed Straight Outta Compton and Creed and Beasts of No Nation, and would have voted for not one of the three for Best Picture - not one of them made my top ten list of the year. Instead, my favorite movies revolved around a troubled genius (Steve Jobs), lesbians (Carol), indigenous Maya culture (Ixcanul), and nerdy, procedural reporting (Spotlight). The movies that resonated with me all had elements that, for whatever reason, were relevant to my own personal experience.
The voters of the Academy are no different. It is, simply put, unfair to malign them for being such. Indeed, the calls for growing the ranks of the Academy to include a more diverse makeup (which I support wholeheartedly, more on that in a second), implicitly acknowledge as much - how else, otherwise, would increasing the diversity of the makeup result in greater diversity in the nominees?
Rather than the oversimplified #OscarsSoWhite meme, it is #HollywoodSoWhite that really should be making the rounds. Spike Lee nailed it in his reactions to the nominations, blaming not the Academy, but noting instead that it is the locked-and-keyed Hollywood boardrooms that have succeeded in shutting out women, minorities, etc. This does and should bother us as a culture - the Oscars and, by extension, Hollywood, are supposed to reflect our cultural consensus, and we are a richly varied and diverse culture. For the same reasons we protested when Crash ousted Brokeback Mountain, we should care that Hollywood has for so long been insensitive to the existence of other types of stories.
But, to blame the sweet old codgers of the Academy - the septuagenarian, anxious about legacy, hopelessly myopic and endearingly sheepish voters - is like blaming your ailing grandpa for global warming.
In any case, I do believe a shift is coming. Hollywood has taken notice (of this and other important issues, like pay disparity between men and women), particularly as different demographic groups have flexed their dollar/muscle. Compton and Creed each out-grossed Brooklyn, Room, and Spotlight combined. The last word on this subject, I suspect, will not be that of Twitter — it will be the movie-going audience's.
Better yet, the shift will happen much less violently than the increasingly loud debate over the #OscarsSoWhite issue would lead you to believe - I doubt there will be much, if any, resistance from within the Academy to this change. In fact, I believe they will welcome it. Like the Church they spotlight in Spotlight, an institution of this venerability does not last this long without being able to self-examine. They think in millennia.
That aside (for now at least, expect the topic to come back with a vengeance on Oscar night), we can turn to the business of prognosticating.
The Whimper: Critics Capitulate to Academy
On Sunday, the BFCA completed the stunning embarrassment of itself that began when it belatedly added Star Wars to its Best Picture nominee list for the year and culminated in its half-hearted crowning of Spotlight its Best Picture, in one of the most flagrant attempts to kowtow to the Academy I have seen in years.
During the Critics’ Choice, the BFCA gave acting awards to Leonardo DiCaprio, Brie Larson, Sylvester Stallone, and Mark Rylance. The screenplay nods went to Spotlight and The Big Short. Every technical award with the exception of Cinematography (from Editing to Sound to Art Direction), went to Mad Max, with the Revenant’s Emmanuel Lubeszki lining himself up for a stunning third-in-a-row Oscar for Cinematography. The BFCA even named George Miller Best Director and gave Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy acting awards for action movies.
Indeed, looking at critical ratings of the two, it is impossible to not notice that Mad Max is squarely ahead of the Boston drama with the critics - both regional and aggregated awards scores show as much.
Why, then, it must be asked, did these group of critics anoint Spotlight their favorite movie of the year? It is hard to imagine, at this point in the race, that the lineup we saw with the Critics’ Choice (Spotlight/Miller/Leo/Brie/Sly/Vikander) won’t be the lineup we see at the Academy Awards. What is the relevance, then, of separate critics' awards?
The answer for them is sadly nothing. With due respect to the individual members of the BFCA, of which I know several, the leadership of the society really screwed it up this year. Nothing is more of a turn off than trying too hard, or wanting it too much. We should have known something was up when the BFCA announced, after its nominations had been released, that they’d be adding Star Wars to the list of Best Picture nominees. The impact of such a movie, calculated at increasing ratings I suppose, is to forever destroy the credibility of the awards.
And nowhere is this lack of relevance reflected more than in the fact that neither DiCaprio nor Larson even bothered to show up to collect their prizes, and that the ensemble prize for Spotlight was picked up by Rachel McAdams. Prognosticators may scream when voting groups like SAG give you left-field nominations, but, hey, at least they’re voting for what they like rather than trying to copy the Academy.
What’s worse for groups like the BFCA or the Globes, is that they later look even more foolish when the Oscars go another way. The Globes, of course, had the added embarrassment of trying to make up for it by going with The Revenant this year, but those picks at least look somewhat fresh compared to what the Critics’ Choice just did. Again, I come down on the Academy’s side on this one - their picks, Birdman first and foremost, reflect an exasperation with this cheapening of their medium. Being an Academy member is not a full-time job - it is a membership in an honorary society that should be taken seriously, but voters have their separate, moviemaking careers (or retirement homes) to tend to. Critics, by contrast, rank and analyze movies for a living. They are in the business of telling people what to like. To eschew that obligation in favor of star-struck popularity is, no joke, a tragedy for them.
When you consider that the awards season has become a grueling marathon for its participants - the PGA awards are next week, the SAG after that, the DGA prizes follow, and the BAFTA are the weekend after that - it is simply inexcusable for voting bodies to behave like sheep to the, oh, ironically, sheepish Academy. If the whole industry becomes a dog chasing its own tail, then why will anyone bother tuning in?
Well, we will, anyway.