‘Popular’ category at Oscars sparks backlash
NEW YORK — Not since Faye Dunaway shouted “La La Land!” has an Oscar announcement caused quite as much chaos as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decision to create a new Academy Awards category for “outstanding achievement in popular film.”
The film academy’s surprise announcement proved remarkably unpopular, at least among film critics and some academy members.
But the introduction of a “popular film” category, beginning with the upcoming Feb. 24 ceremony to be televised by ABC, raised a lot of questions. Here’s an attempt to answer a few of them.
Why are the doing this?
Low ratings. This year’s nearly four-hour-long Oscars, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, was watched by 26.5 million people, an almost 20 percent drop from the year before and well below the days of 40 million-plus viewership. That’s troubling news for the academy, which depends on broadcast revenue for most of its budget, and ABC, which owns broadcast rights for the Oscars through 2028. But whether that broadcast is cause for desperation is debatable. The Academy Awards still rank as easily the biggest non-football broadcast of the year.
Whose decision was this?
The measures were approved by the academy’s 54-member board of governors. Its roughly 7,000 members were not consulted, and many of them said they considered a “popular film” category a pandering move for a 91-year-old institution. Adam McKay, who won best screenplay in 2016 for “The Big Short” and whose upcoming Dick Cheney film is expected to be in the mix this year, joked on Twitter that the Oscars will also have new categories for “best knife throw” and “hottest female alien.” But the academy’s decision was also influenced by the demands of its broadcasting partner, ABC, which has pressured Oscar producers to make the telecast more broadly appealing.
Have hit films not ever been nominated?
This year’s Oscars actually included a number of major box-office success including best-picture nominees “Get Out” and “Dunkirk,” animated feature winner “Coco,” cinematography winner “Blade Runner 2049,” and other nominees like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Baby Driver” and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” If anything, the academy has shown increasing willingness to nominate genre movies, from horror (“Get Out”) to sci-fi (“Arrival,” “Gravity”). “Logan” this year became the first superhero movie nominated for a major award, for adapted screenplay. Some, though, had hoped “Wonder Woman” would have landed something.
What’s a popular film?
Most perplexing of all may be the academy’s definition of a “popular” film. It said the details were still being worked out, but that the academy “supports broad-based consideration of excellence in all films.” So how does one measure popularity? In ticket sales? “Solo: A Star Wars Story” made $213 million in North America, but few cared much for it. Do overseas sales count? Would a traditional Oscar nominee like “La La Land” ($446 million worldwide) have been a “popular” film? And how would a box-office threshold work for late December releases just opening at the time of nominations? Should the winner also be chosen purely on a basis of highest box-office gross?
Will anyone want one?
Never underestimate how much people want an Oscar, any Oscar. But it seems certain that a “popular film” Oscar will not be looked upon like a “real” Oscar, but rather a kind of MTV Awards-ish half-Oscar. For many, it reeks of patronizing, of ghettoizing “popular” from “art” in a popular art form. Even in today’s blockbuster-driven Hollywood, many believe both can still coexist. And the year has already offered up an especially good example of just that: Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther.” The acclaimed Disney film was already seen a best picture contender; now, some fear it will be relegated to the “popular film” corner.