Disney-ABC request for popular Oscar category sparks Backlash

[Powerboy]

Twilight movies were not that bad, if Black Panther can win, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 can win too as the best Twilight film. Though I am surprised everyone is assuming Black Panther would win, it highlights the power of what we see 24/7. My mind was programmed to Black Panther too but after thinking it through, Mission Impossible 6 is the winner right now. Black Panther is average, Mission Impossible 6 is fantastic.

I'm not really assuming Black Panther will get an auto-win but it seems to be the movie that is the primary focus of this thread.

The real solution though is not making a special category. I'm told there was a time, many decades ago, when the Best Picture Oscar did not go to small movies that hardly anybody saw or cared about (and that's not so much sarcasm as just reality) but was awarded from among movies that people actually went and saw in significant numbers. At some point, the Oscar committee started moving more and more toward those movies that the majority of movie goers didn't see. Granted, being nominated for or winning the Oscar probably boosted ticket sales but still.

So, while what Disney is doing is certainly self-serving, there may be other factors. Ratings for the Oscars being down indicates that more and more, people don't care anymore if there's little there that represents what they are interested in.

That's sad in a way. There are Oscar-winning movies that I really liked once I saw them. "How Green Was My Valley" comes to mind. "Unforgiven" comes to mind. But "Green" was in a time when popular movies won and "Unforgiven" was a relative rarity in being a very popular movie and winning the Oscar. "Million Dollar Baby" is another one and possibly illustrates the problem. I went to see it because it was advertised as a sort of female Rocky movie. Stepping out of the theater with two friends, I said something they agreed with. "Now that it is thankfully over with, I'm glad I saw it but I would never have watched it to begin with had I known it was going to be like that and I can almost guarantee you that I will never watch it again."

It's just too painful to watch someone suffering like that even when it's a fictional character. I would never actively seek out such a painful experience, especially within the context of fiction. It's the equivalent of spending two hours stabbing yourself with a fork. I want to be entertained, not tortured.

But I think more often, it's just that most people would find many of the so-called better movies to be two hours of boredom. Unfortunately, that translates to: "The movies I saw and loved never get nominated or win so why would I have any interest in watching the Oscars?" When that happens with enough people, that equals low ratings and a desire to do something to boost those ratings. Maybe nominate some movies people saw. Maybe not write scripts the hosts have to say that involve trashing the popular movies that are paying for the little movies.

[Tuck]

That's sad in a way. There are Oscar-winning movies that I really liked once I saw them. "How Green Was My Valley" comes to mind. "Unforgiven" comes to mind. But "Green" was in a time when popular movies won and "Unforgiven" was a relative rarity in being a very popular movie and winning the Oscar.

Popular movies seem to be in the mix. Off the top of my head, Star Wars and E.T. were both nominated for best picture. Braveheart won, and was a very popular movie (and Apollo 13 was also nominated that year).

Would make more sense to me to go the Golden Globes route and split off comedies and musicals from dramas.

The value (what there is) of the Oscars to me has always been that they'll sometimes make me aware of a movie I might like that I otherwise may not have heard of or considered. I don't need a category "reassuring" me that the movie I already like has been given official approval.

[Powerboy]

Popular movies seem to be in the mix. Off the top of my head, Star Wars and E.T. were both nominated for best picture. Braveheart won, and was a very popular movie (and Apollo 13 was also nominated that year).

Would make more sense to me to go the Golden Globes route and split off comedies and musicals from dramas.

The value (what there is) of the Oscars to me has always been that they'll sometimes make me aware of a movie I might like that I otherwise may not have heard of or considered. I don't need a category "reassuring" me that the movie I already like has been given official approval.

Truth to tell, it's probably more fun to complain about movies we liked not being acknowledged than to have them get nominated or win but only in the "Participation Award" category.

But a separate category for comedies is something that should happen. I remember many years ago Richard Dreyfus and Johnny Carson having a discussion about how great comedies make us laugh and forget our problems yet only serious dramatic movies are deemed valid when it comes to the Oscars or sometimes a "serio-comedy" that wins rarely but almost leaves you thinking, "THAT is what they define as a comedy?"

[AJBopp]

Popular movies seem to be in the mix. Off the top of my head, Star Wars and E.T. were both nominated for best picture. Braveheart won, and was a very popular movie (and Apollo 13 was also nominated that year).

Would make more sense to me to go the Golden Globes route and split off comedies and musicals from dramas.

The value (what there is) of the Oscars to me has always been that they'll sometimes make me aware of a movie I might like that I otherwise may not have heard of or considered. I don't need a category "reassuring" me that the movie I already like has been given official approval.

Star Wars was not nominated for best picture.

[Tuck]

Star Wars was not nominated for best picture.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076759/awards

Nominee
Oscar Best Picture
Gary Kurtz
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Alec Guinness
Best Director
George Lucas
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
George Lucas

[Raiders]

Why not just nominate popular movies in the existing categories.

[Zero Hunter]

Anyone who thinks the Oscars are really about quality films are naive. It is all about which studio spends the most to give their movie the biggest push. Every year there are tons of better movies out there that don't get noms because they come from smaller studios that can not afford to push them as hard as the big giants. Also lets not forget that the voting members of the academy have the attention spans of goldfish which is why all of the "Oscar bait" movies are released in the last few months of the year. You see that almost every year where a really great movie will be released in the spring or early summer and is totally forgotten by the Oscar time.

[Powerboy]

Star Wars was not nominated for best picture.

It was nominated. Having not really paid much attention to the Oscars before, I tuned in in 1978 to see Star Wars get best picture only to have it lose when the winner and the other nominees are long forgotten but Star Wars changed the face of movies and was a phenomenon and still is. I think it was the 1990s before I watched the Oscars again and only because someone else in the house was watching them.

[Hiromi]

Some really wild and frankly dumb speculation running rampant

This doesn't sound like some ploy to boost Disney's oscar count, it sounds like a ploy to boost the oscar's ratings, which have been plummeting for years

the oscars have been accused of snubbing popular films and only truly considering artsy indy stuff that barely anyone sees for decades even when they do throw out the occasional bone of a nomination.

In short this doesn't sound any different than when they introduced best animated film

[Tuck]

It was nominated. Having not really paid much attention to the Oscars before, I tuned in in 1978 to see Star Wars get best picture only to have it lose when the winner and the other nominees are long forgotten but Star Wars changed the face of movies and was a phenomenon and still is. I think it was the 1990s before I watched the Oscars again and only because someone else in the house was watching them.

Annie Hall won best picture. Not sure about the other awards, but I wouldn't call that a long forgotten movie.

[jump]

Some really wild and frankly dumb speculation running rampant

This doesn't sound like some ploy to boost Disney's oscar count, it sounds like a ploy to boost the oscar's ratings, which have been plummeting for years

the oscars have been accused of snubbing popular films and only truly considering artsy indy stuff that barely anyone sees for decades even when they do throw out the occasional bone of a nomination.

In short this doesn't sound any different than when they introduced best animated film

They don't even consider indy films that much either.

[AJBopp]

In short this doesn't sound any different than when they introduced best animated film

Awards are generally perceived to be given on the merits of excellence in some craft or trade, so animated film recognition makes sense within the context of what the Academy Awards want people to believe they are about.

Most Popular Picture is just throwing up their hands and saying "it's all BS, and we know you know it's BS, so here's us just stopping with the pretense."

That can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your view.

[Scott Taylor]

Some really wild and frankly dumb speculation running rampant

This doesn't sound like some ploy to boost Disney's oscar count, it sounds like a ploy to boost the oscar's ratings, which have been plummeting for years

the oscars have been accused of snubbing popular films and only truly considering artsy indy stuff that barely anyone sees for decades even when they do throw out the occasional bone of a nomination.

In short this doesn't sound any different than when they introduced best animated film

If they really want to boost the Oscar's ratings, it is true that they need to fix those perception issues. The introduction of best animated film is a good example of that.

But I'm sure its just a coincidence that the category has since benefited Disney primarily. Just like this new category will.

[Hiromi]

Awards are generally perceived to be given on the merits of excellence in some craft or trade, so animated film recognition makes sense within the context of what the Academy Awards want people to believe they are about.

Most Popular Picture is just throwing up their hands and saying "it's all BS, and we know you know it's BS, so here's us just stopping with the pretense."

That can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your view.

And people said the exact same thing about the animated film category, the biggest criticism was that it gave the Academy an excuse not to seriously nominate animated films for the top awards. And frankly given the way the voters are known to treat the category there's a lot of ammunition for that theory.

[Osiris-Rex]

Anyone who thinks the Oscars are really about quality films are naive. It is all about which studio spends the most to give their movie the biggest push. Every year there are tons of better movies out there that don't get noms because they come from smaller studios that can not afford to push them as hard as the big giants. Also lets not forget that the voting members of the academy have the attention spans of goldfish which is why all of the "Oscar bait" movies are released in the last few months of the year. You see that almost every year where a really great movie will be released in the spring or early summer and is totally forgotten by the Oscar time.

Didn't help with Wonder Woman. Warner Bros. lobbied hard for Wonder Woman and in the end Wonder Woman didn't even get nominated. This even shocked the professional film critics that Wonder Woman was completely shut out.