Why do the Oscars matter?
IMPERILED, then postponed, the 93rd Academy Awards are finally set to take place this month – on April 25. Not many know what to expect, save for the dissonance of glitz and glamour against the backdrop of a world decimated by illness and economic downturn. Perhaps the Oscars will serve as a reprieve; they are, after all, the most extravagant of award shows.
Sceptics wonder whether they’re worth the big to-do. Now tack on to this the logistical nightmare of organising the show during a pandemic and the telecast’s declining ratings.
Several Hollywood insiders noted that the Academy Awards still serve a few explicit purposes.
There’s the honour of peer recognition. But the Oscars are also a moneymaker for studios to leverage prestige to boost ticket sales and to attract bankable artists to work with.
And if the stars align, a nomination alone can transform a career. Said an awards strategist: “The talent wants the awards because of their egos and because it helps their careers, and the studios want to help the talent because it helps the studios. It’s all symbiotic.”
Being honoured by peers – as actors vote in the acting categories, directors for best directing and so on – is undoubtedly a career highlight; an Oscar nomination a remarkable achievement given the hundreds of qualified films in contention each year.
But there’s also an incredible amount of politicking behind the scenes, noted film industry analyst Stephen Follows, who emphasised that Oscar-nominated films may not always be the “best” ones released that year. “The more I look at the data or hear stories,” he said, “the more I realise it’s like saying the political leaders in charge are the best people.”
Perhaps the most shrewd Oscar campaigner was producer Harvey Weinstein – now a convicted rapist – who became the second person ever ousted from the academy as a result of decades of sexual harassment and assault claims. He treated the Oscars like a political election – allegedly putting out rumours about rival films, and wooing voters.
Box-office returns are where the awards’ ripple effect can be most easily measured; distributors often rerelease films after contenders are announced, taking advantage of their newfound ability to slap an Oscars tag on the posters.
For less-established names, an Oscar nomination can act as an industry stamp of approval.
Matt Damon once said it was “nearly indescribable” how the magnitude of his life changed after he and buddy Ben Affleck won best original screenplay for 1997’s Good Will Hunting.
Jennifer Lawrence was similarly little-known before landing a bestactress nomination for her role in 2010’s Winter’s Bone, a feat she followed by booking the Hunger Games film franchise just weeks later. The same goes for how winners fare. Cuba Gooding Jr, who memorably won best supporting actor for 1996’s Jerry Maguire, appeared in a string of critical duds he later referred to as “10 years in the wilderness”.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s celebrity went on to eclipse her actual acting career after winning an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.
Halle Berry, who became the first – and remains the only – Black bestactress winner with 2002’s Monster’s Ball, recently said it got harder to book substantive roles afterwards.
“I thought, ‘Oh, all these great scripts are going to come my way; great directors are going to be banging on my door.’ It didn’t happen … They call it the Oscar curse,” Berry said. As for calls that the the system be more inclusive, the #OscarsSoWhite campaign pushed that conversation into the mainstream.
In theory, an Oscar nomination can open doors to more ambitious projects – the kind leading to larger paycheques and budgets – but if “there’s an entire class of folks that can’t get access to those nominations because of how the industry tends to treat women and people of colour, said Franklin Leonard, a producer and founder of the Black List, “then there’s also a severe disadvantage to the existence of the Oscars”.
Despite a few notable snubs, this year’s Oscar nominees represent considerable progress in terms of inclusivity, a goal the academy will incorporate into new eligibility standards beginning next year.
Minari star Steven Yeun, for instance, became the first Asian American nominated for best actor, while Judas and the Black
Messiah is the first best-picture nominee with an all-Black team of producers.
This is also the first time two women have been nominated for best director – Chloé Zhao who called the shots for Nomadland, is also the first woman of colour nominated in the category.