Award Inflation

And the Oscar goes to...

As I’ve previously mentioned, the Academy Awards are about the only nationally televised event that I can really get behind ever since the Foxy Boxing Network went off the air a few years ago. The Oscars are like porn for movie lovers – aside from, y’know, actual porn movies – and they give us a chance, once a year, to have people listen to us and respect what we’re saying. I don’t know what team Bret Farve plays for, nor do I know what all the hubbub about him is, but I’m still pissed that In Bruges lost out to Milk for Best Screenplay.

To be honest, I’m still pissed about a lot of stuff from this past Academy Awards, and so long as you’re here, I think I’ll tell you. I’m pissed that Mickey Rourke didn’t win Best Actor, I’m pissed that Milk didn’t win Best Picture, and I’m pissed that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button even got nominated. Also, I’m really pissed that Angelina Jolie has all those tattoos, because she looks like a legitimate fox in movies when they cover them up (save for in Wanted, where they covered the tattoos up with other tattoos), but then when I see her at the Academy Awards it’s a letdown because she looks an awful lot like a tramp. Honestly, I really don’t see the logic in getting permanent body modifications if you’re in a profession where your career depends on your ability to slip into wildly diverse roles an accurately play characters, some of whom might not have tattoos. This, I feel, is what’s holding Angelina Jolie back from getting any promising roles in movies about nuns.

There’s been a lot of angry mumblings from The Internet over the most recent Academy Awards, the bulk of it dedicated to the perceived logjam of good movies jockeying for five Best Picture spots (the rest of the rumblings were dedicated to Angelina Jolie, as is always the case when more than three people gather in one place). A lot of people are saying that movies like WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and The Wrestler didn’t get a fair shot at a sticker on the DVD case reading “BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR 2009” because the Academy only allows five Best Picture nominees. The Academy has responded by increasing the number of annual Best Picture nominees to ten.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the Academy Awards are a pretty big circle jerk. The whole ceremony is a big nostalgic look at Hollywood with lots of sentimental tribute montages designed to pad out the running time to four hours. It’s Hollywood patting itself on the back for being Hollywood – “Look at all these great things we’ve done and made! Look how awesome they are! You can almost taste the ad revenue!” But the thing is, while it is definitely a circle jerk, you’re still getting jerked off, so you may as well enjoy the ride. However!

However!

Expanding the number of Best Picture nominees is a damn stupid thing to do. I quote directly from the press release announcing this reprehensible turn of events:

“Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize,” commented [Academy President Sid] Ganis. “I can’t wait to see what that list of ten looks like when the nominees are announced in February.”

I’m sorry, folks, but that’s not how it should be. It used to be that way, but then they changed it, and that’s how it should stay.

Why do we feel like we need to hand out consolation prizes? Why do we need to give five more movies the pat on the head of a “BEST PICTURE NOMINEE” qualification? The Academy Awards are not about making sure everyone gets their fair share and goes home happy; these people are not six-year-olds, they merely act like them most of the time. The Academy Awards are about having six thousand wizened veterans of the industry vote on which movies out of the thousands produced in that year are the best ones, and then holding those movies up on a beautiful golden platter for everyone else to see, and then holding one of those movies up on an even more beautiful and even more golden platter so that everyone knows that it’s The Best.*

*Although it’s usually not. For reference, see the Best Picture winners for 2009, 2005, 2004, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990… (continued on page 32).

If you want to see fantastic movies in the race for the top prize, the key here is to apply a somewhat more rigorous standard to the movies you nominate, not allow people to nominate more movies. Benjamin Button was by no means a Best Picture worthy film; it wasn’t a bad film, but I can name 100 movies that had considerably more spark and originality to them, five of which came out this year. Why didn’t The Wrestler get nominated? Benjamin Button was Forrest Gump in reverse, whereas The Wrestler was something original that had the added benefit of being really good.

The problem with opening up ten Best Picture nominee slots is that there aren’t necessarily 10 Best Picture quality movies made every year. Hell, some years there aren’t even 5 – in 1974, The Towering Inferno, a stock big budget disaster movie about a skyscraper on fire got nominated for Best Picture alongside movies like Chinatown, The Godfather Part II, and The Conversation. Basically, they honored a popcorn disaster movie with a Best Picture nod because they needed a placeholder. Would any of you feel comfortable living in a world where Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a Best Picture nominee because they’ve got one more spot to fill? The only award Transformers deserves is the Denise Richards Award for Special Achievement in Cleavage, which it would soundly win, hands down, no contest.

What we’re seeing here is basically grade inflation. Grade inflation is all well and good when it lets me get an A- in a Spanish class where I did about 40% of the work, but not when it’s ruining one of the most important events in my year. The more they widen the Best Picture Nominee classification, the more sub-par movies will inevitably find their way in as the people doing the nominating scrape the bottom of the barrel for worthwhile films. Thus, it won’t mean as much to be nominated for Best Picture – it’ll be about as easy as graduating from eighth grade, and just as much of an honor. In this cockeyed attempt to recognize other great movies, the Academy has undercut the meaning of that very recognition.

This is just so upsetting.

Truman Capps will delete this update if ever a movie that he’s a part of is up for Best Picture.