Is The World Ready For A Deadpool Oscar Nomination?

Year after year, we watch the pretty much same types of movies compete for the coveted Best Picture trophy at the Oscars.

Historical dramas and films based on true events always find their way into the mix (Spotlight, The Imitation Game, The Wolf Of Wall Street). Movies with diverse casts sometimes pop up, but only if they’re about slavery or civil rights movements(12 Years a Slave, Selma, Django Unchained). Oh, and usually at least one war film sneaks its way into the competition (Zero Dark Thirty, American Sniper, The Hurt Locker).

Obviously there are sometimes exceptions, but this trend has definitely trained us to think of certain movies as award contenders while we treat the rest like blockbuster popcorn flicks for dummies.

But that all might change with the upcoming Oscars, because it looks like Deadpool has a legitimate chance to compete with the big boys.

The first sign came when the raunchy superhero flick was nominated for Best Picture — Comedy Or Musical while Ryan Reynolds competed for Best Actor in the same category at the Golden Globes. However, this had to be taken with a grain of salt considering the Academy doesn’t always agree with Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Things got a bit more serious when the screenplay was nominated for a Writers Guild Of America Award, meaning the merc with a mouth has a pretty good chance to compete for a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

But the shit really hit the fan when it was announced that Deadpool was nominated for the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards, which means it has an actual shot at earning a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars.

That’s right. There’s an real chance that a superhero movie filled with dick jokes will be going toe to toe with some of 2016’s best, like La La Land, Moonlight, and Arrival, and that’s a pretty huge deal.

Like I said before, we definitely have an idea of what we think an Oscar contender should look like, and Deadpool definitely doesn’t fit that mold. In fact, it’s pretty much the exact opposite of the rest of the 2+ hour dramas that are expected to compete for Best Picture this year.

But why shouldn’t a quality blockbuster get the same shot as everyone else? Why are action flicks, comedies, and horror movies constantly overlooked by the Academy?

I definitely think it’s a long shot that we’ll be seeing Wade Wilson crash the Oscars next month, but even if Deadpool ends up not earning a single nomination, the fact that we’re even talking about it as contender shows a shift in Hollywood and really opens the door for popcorn flicks to be taken more seriously down the road.

Get your chimichangas ready, people!