Now that the
Golden Globes have passed (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the uneven ceremony Sunday
night) and the Oscar nominations are set to be announced this Thursday, the
2015 movie awards season is officially reaching peak frenzy. As intense as this
time of the year can be for film fans, I haven’t felt a great need to write
about this year’s race, in part because the majority of my thoughts, hopes and
gripes aren’t all that different from last time;
the dynamics of each season are essentially the same, just with a new set of
names in the spotlight. While the particular debates
and
controversies
this time around haven’t piqued my interest, I have found myself lately
thinking a lot about what it really means to be “Oscar-worthy”, or even what it
means for art to be good in general, and what, if anything, that says about our
interests and values as moviegoers and a society.
The phrase “Oscar-worthy” gets
tossed around a lot, but there’s rarely any explanation of what that actually
means. Though it’s often said with some level of derision or irony, it seems to
be used as a sincere marker of artistic quality just as often, even by those
who turn their noses up at the Academy. It implies some kind of standard that
movies must live up to in order to be deemed deserving of awards consideration,
though no one ever articulates exactly what those standards should be. To what
extent should a film’s technical/aesthetic prowess, cultural or popular impact,
or political, social or moral significance be taken into account? Do Academy
members have any greater responsibilities to the industry or the public when
making their selections or should they simply choose what they legitimately liked
the most based on their own personal preferences? For the most part, it’s
agreed that the Academy has little actual credibility as a tastemaker, and the
Internet has made it too easy to follow industry politics and the PR campaigns
specifically designed to influence voters for even the most naïve person to
believe they’re completely unbiased. I keep wondering why so much time, money
and effort is invested not just by the industry itself, but by critics and
moviegoers on awards that few treat with anything other than contempt. I’ve suggested
before that the awards season is worthwhile because it provides an
opportunity to celebrate filmmaking, even if the specific objects of
celebration aren’t always the most laudable, but perhaps what really makes it
worthwhile is that it forces us to consider and articulate why we think certain
films deserve wider recognition and why others don’t. It pushes us to
interrogate our own ideas of what makes some art great instead of just taking
our gut instinct of “I liked/didn’t like this” at face value.
In a way, “Oscar-worthy” has
become synonymous with prestige, another concept so frequently associated with awards
season. Though the label generally has a positive connotation, prestige doesn’t
relate to quality so much as the idea
of quality, a nebulous combination of star power, intellectual or social
gravitas, an elaborate production and, most of all, money. Prestige pictures tend to boast historical
settings and focus on well-known or at least singular figures whose lives can
be easily tied into broad, inspirational themes and ideals that suggest universal
significance. For better or worse, these are the movies that usually attract
awards attention, hence the shorthand term “Oscar bait”. You can generally
figure out if something falls into this category by whether or not pundits
start predicting it for Academy Awards a year in advance. This is why, though
many seem to disagree, I maintain that 12
Years a Slave was a typical Best Picture winner, despite being centered on
people of color (which makes it depressingly exceptional) and being stylistically
more in the vein of art house flicks than commercial ones. I say this not to
diminish that film’s accomplishment, but rather, to say that, if your film is being
crowned the
Best Picture winner before it has even officially opened in theaters, it’s
not an out-of-left-field choice, and any suggestion that its victory signified anything
regarding racial progress within the mainstream film community is, to be blunt,
laughable. Because the pool of potential candidates is so limited and
self-selecting, Oscar success is less about actual skill or artistry than about
fulfilling a set of predetermined expectations as competently as possible. Savvy
marketing and a studio willing to spend tons of money to back a film don’t hurt
either.
Considering how deeply ingrained
the Academy’s predilection for middlebrow fare has become, it seems futile to
wish or demand that they expand their tastes. Of course, in a better world, the
Oscars would be much more inclusive not just in terms of race and gender
representation, but also in terms of the genre and scope of the works they deem
worthy of praise. In a better world, this year’s prospective Best Picture slate
wouldn’t be almost entirely comprised of realistic dramas about white men, not
when 2014 was so rich with wildly diverse pleasures, from the thrilling
spectacles of Edge of Tomorrow and Interstellar and the vaguely political
zeal of Snowpiercer and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to the
unabashedly complex women in The Babadook
and Wild. The fact that David Oyelowo
is pretty much guaranteed to be the lone non-white acting nominee is downright
embarrassing, especially when Oscar Isaac (A
Most Violent Year), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle
and Beyond the Lights), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler) and Carmen Ejogo (Selma), among others, are as deserving
of a spot as any of the probable nominees.
Two years in a row. You’re being very disrespectful, Academy voters
Yet, as frustrating as the Oscars’
lack of variety is, I still get uneasy whenever I read articles like this
lamenting the Academy’s preference for art that comforts rather than challenges
and their overall conservative approach. It’s not that I disagree with the
general argument, but rather, its conflation of quality with diversity (or lack
thereof) feels misguided, and it still adheres to a certain ideal of what the
Academy should be doing, even if it
has historically never actually done those things. For the first point, the
assertion that the Oscars reward specifically “mediocre” movies about white
guys suggests, however unintentionally,
that the homogeneity of awards season would be less of a problem if only they
just recognized the “right” movies about white guys; the standards being used
to determine whether something’s good are never clearly stated, though it’s
implied that “good” is whatever critics – or whoever is making the particular
argument – liked. Whether The Imitation
Game and The Theory of Everything,
for example, are actually mediocre is beside the point (having not seen either,
I have no stakes in this fight), but it does films like Selma a disservice when people argue that they’re Oscar-worthy
solely by taking down other contenders or saying “Hey, this one actually has
black people in it!” instead of focusing on their actual merits. Furthermore,
people keep treating the Oscars like a useful marker for social progress when,
in reality, they rarely suggest anything insightful about the industry or
society as a whole. Selma losing to Boyhood wouldn’t mean that Hollywood
supports white supremacy any more than 12
Years a Slave beating Gravity and
American Hustle meant that that
Hollywood was no longer racist. Yes, racism, sexism and other forms of institutionalized
inequality are still very much prevalent, but those issues extend well beyond
the Academy and mainstream cinema, and it’s hard to get outraged over the
exclusiveness of the Oscars when women, people of color, the LGBTQ community
and other marginalized groups still face so many obstacles in getting
opportunities to tell stories at all. Why is it so important for Ava DuVernay,
Steve McQueen and other filmmakers to get validated by a much-scorned awards
group in the first place? To be frank, I doubt they really give a damn one way
or the other.
Perhaps it shows how relatively
populist my taste in art still is, but the truth is that, while Oscar wins or
nominations are far from the most reliable indicators of a movie’s quality, I
find the opposite sentiment to be equally suspect. Believe it or not, I’ve quite
frequently seen people say that they look at the Oscar nominations to see what not to watch. My first reaction is
always to think, well, if you want to cut yourself off from an entire segment
of art, including stuff that you might love if you gave it a chance, then
that’s your choice. The problem with the Oscar-worthy label isn’t just that
it’s primarily applied to a very specific sampling of movies, but also that the
entire concept of Oscar bait completely distorts how we view even the films
that happen to fall into that category. When you go into a movie after hearing
that it’s expected to be a major awards contender, you approach it with a
certain set of expectations, just as you do with ones that are extremely
popular or critically-acclaimed. More often than not, you’re going to come out
of that movie disappointed because it has to compete with both your
preconceived notions of what it’s going to be like and any movies you’ve
already seen, burying the movie itself beneath the weight of those
expectations, fairly or not. The most recent, popular example of this is American Hustle, which won a few
precursor awards from critics’ groups and all of a sudden became crowned a
frontrunner, only for people to eventually realize that it was mostly a fun,
unapologetically over-the-top romp that, like pretty much every other film that
year, felt trivial when compared to 12
Years a Slave. Rather than adjusting expectations accordingly and
discussing each work on its own terms, many people rejected David O. Russell’s
movie for not being something that it clearly was never even trying to be.
In a way, the films that often seem to suffer the most during the course
of each awards season are those that, on the surface, conform to the mold of
typical Oscar bait but lack the flash or social significance perceived
necessary for them to actually deserve awards. Think, for instance, of Foxcatcher. At first glance, the Bennett
Miller project looks primed for Oscar consideration: a familiar but still relatively
fresh director who earned Best Picture nominations for both of his previous
efforts; a bizarre true story centered around a memorable, eccentric character as
its source material; a cast of well-liked actors who undergo noticeable
physical transformations for roles that force them outside their usual comfort
zones. Yet, as of now, the wrestling movie has barely generated any passionate
chatter and could conceivably get only a single major nod, for supporting actor
Mark Ruffalo, who, as fantastic as he was in the film, is probably benefiting
from a surprisingly sparse field. Though publicity and campaigning have no
doubt played a role, Foxcatcher’s
inability to gain meaningful traction arguably also stems from the fact that,
instead of being the scenery-chewing actors’ showcase many (including me)
expected, it was minimalist almost to a fault, reveling in long stretches of
silence and relying on physical movements and visual cues instead of dialogue to
convey key information.
And then, there’s Wild. The
Reese Witherspoon vehicle has largely been sold as a comeback for the star,
with its campaign emphasizing the memoir-based nature of the tale,
Witherspoon’s newfound status as a notable Hollywood producer and how
unglamorous her role is. The actual movie is much more contemplative and
intimate than the schmaltzy inspiration porn pitched by its trailer, but like
even the season’s most prominent contenders, its nuances and specific pleasures
(or flaws) have generally been lost in the dazzle of awards hype, which
encourages sweeping generalizations and easy-to-digest narratives at the
expense of more thoughtful, levelheaded conversations.
All of this is really a long way of saying that maybe we need to stop
acting as if the Oscars actually mean anything beyond possibly providing some
good PR or a career boost for people in the film business. While criticism of
the status quo is always necessary, it’s time to accept that the Oscars and other
awards ceremonies aren’t – and likely will never be – all that progressive
either politically or artistically, in large part because they reflect the
biases of the industries they’re judging and because, when you have 6000 people
voting on anything, the agreeable and likable are usually going to triumph over
the divisive and provocative. They will always be flawed and unsatisfying,
because they are an attempt to define art, which is powerful precisely because
it’s so subjective and personal, through an ostensibly objective process.
People love art for different reasons: because it makes them think;
because they feel a strong emotional connection to it; because it feels
relevant and speaks to them on a political, social or cultural level; because
they admire its technique or aesthetics; because they associate it with particularly
cherished or defining memories, relationships or experiences; because it’s just
an enjoyable way to spend a couple of free hours and escape from the pressures
of their day-to-day lives. The same work of art may prompt vastly different
reactions from different people and for different reasons, and understanding why
individuals respond the way they do to certain things seems infinitely more
interesting to me than acting as though there’s a single right or best response.
Because, in the end, not all art is produced or consumed with the same goals in
mind, which is as it should be. Something destined to be analyzed in film
classes for years to come isn’t inherently more valuable or admirable than
something merely designed to please a mass audience; after all, Birth of a Nation played an integral
role in the development of film as an artistic medium, yet its historical
importance doesn’t erase the fact that it’s also appallingly racist, while
blockbusters like The Avengers may
feel superficial in some ways but also brings real joy to millions of fans.
You tell them, Paul Thomas Anderson!
In other words, traditional distinctions between the highbrow, middlebrow
and lowbrow are really nothing but the efforts of the cultural elite to maintain
control over what’s
deemed Real Art, since if something is considered unworthy of serious
thought, then it can be easily dismissed, its power defused. They have little
effect on how we generally view art in the real world, and elements of all
three can exist within the same text. We should embrace art for its variety
instead of pushing individual works to conform to arbitrary, uniform standards
of quality, and that’s why, when it comes to awards season, I’ll be perfectly
happy for anyone who manages to win, even if I personally prefer a different
film or person. For those that miss out by either not getting a trophy or not
being included in the race at all, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just the
Oscars.
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