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This complaint some time takes on a variation: they don’t recognize popular movies enough, or, the mirror version of it, they do not recognize artsy, independent movies enough. I will admit, the Academy’s obsession with “prestige” does sometimes peeve me, and the complaints that a movie does not have a great “story” and therefore does not deserve to win Best Picture annoys me insofar as it glorifies the Screenplay award as if the marvelous hard work of technical masters did not matter.

But, aside from that, do we really want the Academy to veer more into popular movies, or into more artsy movies? Do we really want them recognizing…Twilight? Paranormal Activity 5? And do we really need them to become a mirror of the Indie Spirits Awards or other such bodies and focus on the Mulholland Drives and Blue Is the Warmest Colors of the worldr? This year’s supposed snub of the indie film was Inside Llewyn Davis, a movie that, I might add, received little recognition by other critical or guild circles. And, frankly, if you look at the Academy’s recognition over the last 15 years of product from smaller studios such as Focus Features and Fox Searchlight, it is hard to argue that they are oblivious to non-studio fare. This year’s winner was independently financed. Perhaps the real problem is the studios; they are not making serious fare, making it harder for those movies to be made - but that is as much a fault of audiences not interested in seeing those movies than it is a fault of the Academy.

Worse still, this plethora of complaints about what types of movies get recognized has led the Academy to try to appease more groups to sometimes suspect results. The expansion of the Best Picture field, supposedly in reaction to the snub of WALL-E and The Dark Knight for Best Picture, has led to questionable choices and to the dilution of the award itself. I would rather the old system - imperfect to be sure - than to continue to tinker with something that, at best, is not broken and, at worst, is only broken to the same degree all other awards-giving bodies are broken.

Counter-Point: The Oscars Matter

And tinkering with the formula risks destroying something that matters. Do not make the self-centered mistake of thinking that because the Oscars are self-congratulatory pageantry or because you do not watch them, then they must not matter. The Oscars matter, of course, to stars who get recognized - it is unarguable that people like Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Renner have careers because of their association with prestige Oscar movies. The Academy’s work in film preservation is also of high importance because film is the most widely accessible and easily disseminated form of art, and art has always served to inspire and move societies.

More importantly, however, the Oscars matter because they dictate what movies may get a green light and, by extension, what movies will have an effect on the popular consciousness. Do you think movies about the AIDS epidemic would get a green light if the Academy turned its back on Philadelphia, a daring movie in its time? Of course not. To be sure, audiences also vote with their dollars, and influence what movies do or do not get made and even recognized. But in a world where most moviegoers flock to mindless horror movies, the Oscars are honestly all that is standing between us and utter movie Armageddon, no pun intended.

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