Readers I'm getting nervous. I love the Oscars. Ever since I saw the shiny gold man on a TV guide cover as a little boy and was all "what is that?" I've been hooked. So their history means a lot to me.
It's actually because of that history that it's fun as well as uplifting to chart their progress over the years in dealing with diversity -- and there has been a lot of progress no matter what the current cultural rage would imply. It's been a thrill to see the "first this" and "first that" over the years.
But this year things are getting ugly. The Academy often makes terrible mistakes when its criticized (note all the 'we can't make up our minds' volatility with the rules following The Dark Knight year) and now they'll be meeting on possible rules changes including returning to 10 Picture nominees. President Cheryl Boone Isaacs promises "big changes". Some people are even floating acting fields as big as 10 nominees. This is probably the worst idea I've ever heard in relation to the Oscars. [More...]
If they moved back to a solid 10 nominees, which of these four would have been the extra two nods?
How will it even be special to be a nominee? Showbiz is a tough business. This is why they call actors "troupers" and why "The show must go on!" is such a mantra. Not everyone can be nominated in a given year -- even stars as big as Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio have to sit it out from time to time when they have a performance that's firmly "in the conversation." It's especially strange for Will Smith to raise a fuss this year since he's a two time nominee who showbiz has been enormously kind to over the years. And let's face it: it's hard to get Oscar nominated when your movie doesn't get good reviews. To protest in a year where you were a long shot and didn't make it comes across as being a sore loser; a lot of people probably don't remember this now but Leonardo DiCaprio refused to go to the Oscars when he wasn't nominated for Titanic (1997) and it was NOT a good look for him. It reflected poorly on him back then but he was young and he got over it and started being a good sport about awards.
Show business has never been a business for the faint of heart or the fragile. Not everyone gets a nomination or emerges from the big night a winner. And if they did, I'd wager that no one would care about them at all in about oh... two years time once the novelty wore off. And the Oscars, which have weathered 88 years of storms, would cease to be. 'Maybe that's not a bad thing?' Some people would argue. A truth: the people who would argue that should not be in the conversation about how to fix the Oscars because the Oscars have no value to them.
Expanding nominee fields, in addition to disrespecting 8 decades of history, would not necessarily help. At all. People will complain even more because the root of the problem -- which involves who makes decisions in Hollywood and who gets cast and what type of movies they're in -- will still be there. You don't cure a disease by treating symptons. If the movie industry is not changing around the Oscars there WILL easily be years with no visible minorities again (please note that no one on earth whose complaining about this seems to care about any minorities who are not famous actors -- note the lack of outcry over Todd Haynes, one of the world's most gifted filmmakers not being nominated.... again).
There are so many solutions to the diversity problem that do not require dismantling everything that makes the Oscars the Oscars. Here are a few to address a lot of problems, and not just the diversity problem:
- Get Rid of Non-Voting Members. i.e. those that aren't committed. This gives you more room to add new members and continue your worthwhile diversity push (please note: this does not mean ditching older voters. There's nothing wrong with ageing; we all do it.)
- Blue-Ribbon Panels. Set up executive blue-ribbon panels for more open dialogue with general voting populists -- they could send out suggestion lists... THROUGHOUT THE YEAR that's something more than just the punditry of "who will get nominated?" or "who should" that voters may or may not see or care about.
- Eligibility Lists With Visuals. Send out reminder eligibility lists for the actor's branch with actual faces on them - like the Emmys do... maybe if actors voting are looking at all that while they're voting they might even notice their racial bias themselves without all this shaming fuss and reconsider a vote or two.
- Mid Year Report. Set up some sort of mid year system (this was suggested by Siskel & Ebert back in the day) of semi-finals or reminder lists for later. So that films don't feel the need to arrive all at once and make it hard for everyone to stay informed about what they're voting on. Hell you could even have a televised "Oscar Preview" special if you really put your mind to it and get voters thinking about their ballots early.
- Require Voters to See the Movies They're Voting On. Older voters aren't the problem but voters who don't see the movies could be. As fun as Steven Soderbergh's published lists of his daily screenings are that he releases once a year it was shocking to peruse them and realize that he didn't see half films he would have been voting on as a member. And Glenn recently pointed out to me another non-old voter who offers an egregiously upsetting example. Glenn writes: "It was only a few months ago that Quentin Tarantino admitted to not even seeing SELMA... there are actually likely plenty of people who just aren't watching the movies. Quentin Tarantino of all people, a man who has made his career off of African Americans and their language and their stars and their genres didn't even bother to see a best picture nominee about Martin Luther King. If that's not a tell tale sign then I don't know what is."
- Bake-Offs/Semi-Finals. If things don't improve after a few years consider, at least partially, what the foreign film committees do with checks and balances and a special panel who can insert a couple of names into the finals (though members still get to vote on the final outcome) or what the craft branches sometimes do where the field gets slowly whittled down.
The comments at the NYT article about all this linked up top are disheartening too. Just yet more ageism as if everyone has peered upon the secret ballots of all the members and has determined that anyone over 60 that doesn't work much doesn't know what the f*** is going on and is also racist. Never mind that they're the only ones who have time to attend massive amounts of screenings -- as is required by the documentary & foreign film committees and really ought to be required in other fields since people should actually see the films they're voting on. Maybe it's just me but I'd trust the ballots of, say, Warren Beatty (78) and Sidney Poitier (88) a helluva lot sooner than I'd trust the ballots of, I dunno Tom Hooper (43) and Jennifer Hudson (34), you know?