Best Actress Updates, Or: Get Right With God. Stop Category Fraud!
Monday, September 7, 2015 at 9:01AM 
REVISED ARTICLE
News, or shall we say "scuttlebutt," recently broke in regards to Todd Haynes long-awaited Carol that Cate Blanchett would campaign for Supporting Actress and Rooney Mara for Lead. Speaking at length to someone who has seen the picture they say, and I quote, "...either demotion absolutely insane. Even moreso than Notes on a Scandal." referring of course to the last time that Cate Blanchett pulled out the category fraud stops to get nominated for a lesbian drama. Only this time she's the title character, making it even more ridiculous.
Then Cate's agent denied it.
Which is all along way of saying... that discussions and are still forming. But why should they be when it comes to Supporting/Lead campaigns? why should they be?
If it were to go that way the reasoning is clear: to have Cate avoid competing with herself for Truth, the Rather-Gate movie in which she plays Mary Mapes to Robert Redford's Dan Rather, and defer to Rooney Mara since Rooney took Best Actress at Cannes. If you remove all concerns about ethics, this is just fine and makes sense... but really now. Shouldn't power players within Hollywood have some ethics and set good examples? Cate has two Oscars already. It's time for actors, particularly those of Cate's magnitude, to stop with the greed and start standing up for what's right: let actual character/supporting actors have a shot at Oscar nominations in the category designed to honor them rather than pretend you're not huge star in a leading role just so that you can be feted again. (See also: Julia Roberts in August Osage County recently who also had no excuse for the greed, and whose very stardom ruined the property's ending by insisting on a cutaway closeup that dampened the meaning)
And yes stars do approve their campaigns. They are not blameless though the strategies come from elsewhere.
On the other hand this particular Carol proposition would not likely be the type of Category Fraud that voters would go along peacefully with. Especially not with Cate having top billing, being the title character, and getting 3/5th of the movie poster for her face. Every once in a while they do balk at fraudulent campaigns as when they "promoted" Keisha Castle-Hughes to her true category (Lead for Whale Rider despite a supporting campaign) or when Kate Winslet greedily attempted a double nod by pretending she was supporting in The Reader to clear the way for her lead campaign in Revolutionary Road. Instead AMPAS voters just ignored the latter and "promoted" her for the Holocaust drama to the category she belonged in anyway. For now I'm demoting both Rooney & Cate on both charts until we see further evidence that anyone beyond SAG (who are required to vote by how the studio submits) is going to buy this 'Carol is the supporting player in Carol' business.
Finally, there is no reason to believe that both Rooney and Cate couldn't be nominated in Best Actress if they ran a truthful campaign as it's happened before, and not just once either. One could argue that the only reason it doesn't happen anymore is that its only very rarely attempted it. In supporting where it's frequently attempted it happens frequently.
Spotlight's ensemble features Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo in the largest roles. But technically they could go any which way with campaigning, even trying "all supporting" like The Departed did
In other strange categorization news I forgot to add Jason Segel (in another two-hander same-gender film) to the Supporting Actor chart last time round for End of the Tour so there he goes. All Acting Category Charts are now updated:
LEAD ACTRESS - lots of strong contenders
LEAD ACTOR - lots of strong contenders
SUPPORTING ACTRESS, - very vague at this point. much will still happen
SUPPORTING ACTOR - starting to take shape
Reader Comments (56)
FYI: Stars always have had a say in the matter of their campaigns for awards attention. For example, many people attribute Bette Davis's loss for All About Eve to Anne Baxter's refusal to be "demoted" to the supporting category, thus splitting the vote between the two in the Best Actress race and giving Judy Holliday the win for Born Yesterday. That was 65 years ago.
Totally agree with your post except in blaming Julia Roberts for ruining the ending of 'August: Osage County". It is unfair. And untrue.
I'm sad that Kyle Chandler doesn't seem to have a chance in Supporting. Alas, no one is singling him out as a contender, so I can't argue with the chart.
Other than that, I'm rooting for Lily.
Blame the studios, not Cate or Julia, for their "egregious" category placements. It's not that serious an issue regardless, so keep ur panties on about it.
"It's not that serious an issue regardless..."
This casual dismissal is part of the problem. If an organization is giving out an award, no matter how silly, and they can't even stand to follow their own supposed rule for categorizing, why bother with it at all?
Julia Roberts in 2013, Hailee Steinfeld in 2010, Casey Affleck in 2007. Those were NOT supporting roles in their nominated performances. And there are many more that are very debatable too.
I honestly think they need to have a defined rule and then a small committee to really judge those questionable/on the fence campaigns. The rule should start fairly at 50%-screentime-and-you're-automatically-Lead and go from there. You can have someone with a impactful supporting role be bumped up to lead (Hopkins in Silence/Lambs) which makes sense thematically but then the opposite cannot be true in any way: a lead role does not turn itself supporting, it's then a co-lead, especially if they're in more than half of the screentime.
Just googled & saw the latest update: http://deadline.com/2015/09/oscars-weinstein-campaign-carol-cate-blanchett-lead-actress-1201528521/
Weinstein is goin to campaign Cate as lead in Carol, so she had two big juicy Oscar baity roles coming out in Oct (Truth) & Nov (Carol) respectively. lets keep our fingers x she dun crossed herself out.
I tink Weinstein will push Mara in the supp category although she is co-lead & bets actress winner at Cannes. I tink its good as Mara will have a good chance winning if she's campaigning as supp