Five more nominees, but still just one of these.

Is the Change Good or Bad?

Cliff – This past June it was announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that it would increase the number of nominees for Best Picture from 5 to 10, starting with the upcoming 82^nd Academy Awards taking place March 7^th. Reportedly, the reasons for the surprise change were to, among other things, increase viewership of the Academy Awards. It was felt by the academy board of governors – which delegate certain awards such as the one for lifetime achievement – that there were more than five films that deserved to be nominated for Best Picture last year, with The Dark Knight being the most popularly cited example.

It can be said that every year there are films that get “snubbed” by the academy that deserved to have been nominated for Best Picture. Last year was no different. The main reason for the change, which the academy admits is only one of many, is to attract more casual viewers. Many filmgoers have expressed either dissatisfaction or disinterest in the Oscars over the past few years because none of the movies they saw and enjoyed were nominated for any kinds of awards outside of special effects, sound, or editing – the kinds of awards that people tend to spend the time using the restroom or refreshing drinks. Last year The Dark Knight became the fourth-highest grossing film of all time worldwide (second domestically behind only Titanic). This alone should mean nothing to the academy, but the film was also one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year (ex., it earned a 94% on RottenTomatoes.com). For such a popular and well regarded movie not to get a Best Picture nomination seemed rather perplexing to many people, including yours truly. Luckily, however, Heath Ledger’s win for Best Supporting Actor helped alleviate some of this frustration.

It’s safe to say that had the Best Picture category included ten nominees last year as opposed to five that The Dark Knight would have been included. However, I would only have bet on that based on the incredible quality of the film and not on its popularity. That being said, I’m not convinced that had it been nominated that it would have won the award anyways.

The Academy is paying lip service when they insist that the addition of these types of nominees will increase their chances of winning the Best Picture award. What the extra nominees will really be – if box-office sensations are indeed the kinds of films that will plug the remaining five holes – is an attempt at pandering; A proverbial dangling of the carrot. Being that there are 5,800 voters who collectively determine which films get nominated and which film wins the award it is impossible to predict with certainty which film will win for any given year. But the fact remains that the voters themselves are not changing. This means, also, that their tastes and evaluative judgments are not changing. The increase in the number of final nominees does not change the selection of films eligible for nomination. So, increasing the number of nominees from five to ten is meaningless from an odds standpoint. There would have been no greater chance for The Dark Knight to win Best Picture last year had the category’s alteration occurred then.

This begs the question of what exactly is the value of a Best Picture nomination, both to studios and audiences. Studios obviously love them because they allow them to print “Nominated for Best Picture” on the covers of DVD boxes, which research has proven can help sales significantly. For audiences, the value is tougher to gauge. Everyone likes seeing their favorite films being nominated, if for no other reason than it helps validate their personal opinions. But the Oscars should not become popularity contests in an effort to attract viewers and raise money from television networks and commercials. If anything, one can claim that the awards are already too much of a popularity contest when it comes to awarding the Best Actor, Actress, or Director (complaints of which have been heard for decades).

Herein lies the potential problem facing the Oscars: that adding more nominees begins to take popularity and box-office success into account too much when determining an award winner. The correlation, if there even is one, between a film’s popularity and its level of quality is weak at best. For example, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen grossed over $400 million domestically but yet was panned heavily by critics (ex., earning only 19% on RottenTomatoes.com). Because the film was so popular could it potentially be considered for nomination? Critical consensus technically doesn’t mean anything, but if it doesn’t then why should box-office numbers? If the financial success of a film is to be considered a measurement of its popularity, and that popularity should be considered in evaluating a movie’s merit for nomination for Best Picture, then doing so takes away however much attention from that film’s artistic merit. Meanwhile the Academy Awards’ entire purpose is to evaluate said artistic merit. The Academy – whether one accepts their authority or not – takes it upon itself to determine the artistic quality of films and awards those films which to them prove exemplary and worth cultural acclaim. The key words here are “artistic quality” and “cultural acclaim.” The film medium is an art form, and the Academy has long since adopted the position to consider it as such. I believe that with the addition of five extra Best Picture nominees, for the reason of nominating more popular films in order to attract more viewers for the Oscars, the Academy is in danger of losing its position as an authority on art. Come March 7^th we will have a telling indication of exactly how the Academy plans to handle the extra nominations. Hopefully my fears will turn out to be unfounded.

Marisa – While I fully agree with Cliff that increasing the number of nominations in the Best Picture category lessens the Academy’s authority, I do not agree on the means of this loss.  The central problem is that the honor of conferring a Best Picture nomination on a film is undermined by the fact that nine other films will now receive the same honor.  An Oscar nomination, especially for Best Picture, is a tremendous achievement and the whole point of the process is to choose the films that best represent the artistic potential of the film medium.  This brings me to Cliff’s central argument that the goal of changing the number of nominations from five to ten is meant to include more popular films, especially those that have high grosses.  Certainly, basing nominations on box office success would defeat the purpose of the Academy Awards as a judge of artistic value and I dread the day a film like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen receives a Best Picture nomination.  However, I do not think that expanding the category is primarily aimed at including only popular films to thereby increase viewership.

As Cliff said, many films each year are snubbed.  And each year audiences that are dissatisfied with the nominees ignore the ceremony because the films they believe deserve recognition are overlooked. At the heart of the change is an attempt to combat what many casual viewers consider a fundamental problem with the Academy Awards: its perceived elitism.  Many argue that this perception of elitism caused the show’s lowest ratings ever during the 2008 ceremony with 32 million viewers.  That year No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were the top contenders among the nominees, but Juno, a very popular film which grossed over $143 million domestically, was also nominated.  So while the ceremony could attract more viewers by including more popular films, their main concern should be how the 5,800 voters who determine the winners vote.  Until the Academy’s voters become more inclined to following the tastes of mass audiences, there will always be dissatisfied viewers.

So the only thing the Academy will probably achieve in changing the number of nominations in the Best Picture category is to lessen the honor of a nomination.  More popular films will not automatically be included in the category because the opinions of the voting body have not changed.  The category will be filled with more of the same limited release films many of the ceremony’s potential viewership will not have had a chance to see until long after the broadcast is over.