Let the Oscars Telecast Die
Its viewership isn’t coming back, so let it die with honor.
Last week, the Academy Awards succumbed to one more humiliating defeat in its years-long battle to preserve its mainstream relevance: they are pruning the number of awards broadcast on its live show from 23 to 15. The casualties? Eight categories of oft-overlooked movie-making craftsmanship, from Best Production Design to Best Sound, along with their short film entries.
The idea was once considered back in 2019 but was quickly dropped after an outcry from the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorcese — not too long after it was forced to drop its derided proposal for “Best Popular Film.”
Yet, in 2022 they have embraced both.
With its new “Fan Favorite Award,” voted on by Twitter, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is sacrificing every element of integrity and will receive little in return.
The central question is why the Academy is taking low viewership so personally. The truth is all awards shows have taken a hit. Although the Oscars experienced an 81.2% drop in peak viewership from 1998 to 2021, the Emmys experienced a comparable 80.6% drop since 1986. Meanwhile, the 2021 Grammys saw a 51% drop in viewers from the previous year. The dismal socially-distanced pandemic shows account for some of these numbers, but the plummet in popularity for award shows is a symptom of a broader cultural change.
In the past, when viewership wasn’t an issue, the average casual movie fan (or rather, non-fan) watched the Oscars for mainly one reason: the star factor. Viewers made sure to turn on the TV half an hour early for the red carpet show, where all of their favorite actresses flaunted in pretty Marchesa dresses and answered pointless questions from E! correspondents.
The ceremony itself was a chance at voyeurism; there was a certain intimacy and excitement at watching your favorite actors you’ve seen only on screen interact with each other in real life — better yet, live. You watched closely for their faces as the camera panned the audience, and any expression out of place would become fodder for gossip. Of course, interest piqued at familiar, beloved movies in contention. Like when 87 million people watched in 1998 to see whether Titanic would win Best Picture. But most of all, the Oscars provided a rare glimpse at America’s de facto royalty in action.
This all changed, as did a lot of things, with the advent of social media. That intimacy is now everywhere and more cheaply bought. Now, the red carpet feels more staged than those Instagram stories where we can see actresses putting on those same dresses and seducing us through the camera in their makeup chairs.
Now that the celebrity allure of award shows is dimming, all of them are increasingly irrelevant. They’re becoming a relic of a bygone time, and the Academy is inexplicably trying to carry the legacy of award shows on its back. Its mission-statement — a celebration of serious and innovative filmmaking, arthouse or otherwise — was never the cause behind its mainstream popularity. The average viewer never cared for who won Best Sound Mixing.
So with its induction of Twitter’s Favorite Movie Award, the Academy isn’t fixing any problems. The Oscars will only obtain a younger and larger audience if their movie preferences are reflected in nominations. Fans want to see Spider-Man: No Way Home and other popular films honored at the Oscars. But a fan favorite award isn’t it. It’s a defective case of affirmative action that is almost condescending in nature since it’ll never achieve the same level of prestige as the other awards. The Academy isn’t going to win long-term engagement with a 3-minute segment while allotting the greater part of its energy toward movies these fans don’t care about.
These coveted viewers want to see their favorite movies — MCU, or whichever — actually in play with other Oscar contenders. They want the excitement of seeing big-budget films actually compete with what the rest of the industry considers an art form. But that’s a pipe dream that will never happen. Why? Because Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Power of the Dog are two completely different kinds of movies that are watched and admired for vastly different reasons. And there’s no need to disparage one for the other. The Oscars isn’t a legitimate vehicle to honor movies like Spider-Man on its own terms unless it dramatically changes its mission statement. What’s more, the categories that Marvel films have been nominated for in the past are now being expunged from the broadcast!
In the end, the Academy’s efforts are not only pointless but self-inflicting. On its website, the Academy Awards describes itself as the “highest honors of filmmaking.” Everyone else believes that, too. In fact, it’s why people respect the Oscars and spend so much time discussing its viewership, rather than the Golden Globes’ or the Critic’s Choice Awards’ numbers. Everyone understands the inherent value of a Pulitzer equivalent in filmmaking, so why undermine the vessel that’s responsible for it? Shunting craftsman responsible for the unsung and fundamental elements of filmmaking in favor of a Twitter popularity award makes the Oscars feel vapid and unserious. Even worse, it disrespects the loyal movie fans who love the Oscars for what it already is.
In a world that makes little use for award shows, the only thing the Oscars have left is its integrity and its cause. By diluting their own product, they’ll lose that, too.
