How “Dear Basketball” Hurts the Oscars
Artless self-promotion begets more artless self-promotion.
The Oscars would be nothing without disagreement. They are a competition, after all, and had we no disagreements we would have boring competitions.
Still — there are some disagreements the Oscars could do without.
Since 1932 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded an Oscar for an animated short. Disney used to dominate the category, winning 18 times, followed by MGM with 9, but more recently the contestants and winners have come from smaller contributors, ones without the deep pockets needed to make feature length films.
And that egalitarianization has been good, unequivocally good for we, the audience, growing the variety of styles, topics, and technologies we are able to enjoy, allowing us to watch everything from watercolored European folk tales to Pixar’s style of digitally rendered lovable silliness — until now.
This year the Oscars, and the Academy have gone too far.
The Academy members’ politics have always bubbled, usually out of view, although lately they seem more often to bubble to surface, and one or more wonderful film or magnificent artist will be inexplicably ignored in favor of other less wonderful or magnificent film or artist.
And when it happens, we sigh, knowing who should have won.
When last year’s loser, “La La Land” was mistakenly announced Best Picture winner none of us were surprised, because “La La Land” was clearly the best picture. Neither were we surprised when the proctors subsequently took the statue away from Ryan Gosling, of “La La Land” and gave it to “Moonlight”, because “MoonLight” obviously aligned better with the Academy’s politics, and though “La La Land” was about them, to Academy members, their politics were even more important than their egos.
Still — though “La La Land” is the greater artistic and cinematic achievement, “Moonlight” is no slouch. It is an exceptional film from an exceptional script, punctuated with exceptional performances; and very much deserved its nomination —
— it just didn’t deserve to win.
By nominating “Dear Basketball”, the Academy has put us on notice: We’re coming out!
From now on we care not how good or bad your film is, or how creative or pedestrian you are. We care about what makes us popular, and if we have to nominate bad films to appeal to a wider audience — we will.
We don’t care about film, we care about our popularity!
“Dear Basketball” is 5 minutes and 22 seconds of Kobe Bryant telling us how much he loved basketball, from age six, accompanied by charcoal drawings of him playing basketball, from age six. It is undoubtedly the least creative, least ambitious, and by far the least justified short animated film the Academy has ever lowered itself to nominate.
And — as of today…it’s favored to win...
My argument has nothing to do with Bryant’s past. I’m not protesting the film because of whatever he may have done, (Polanski’s child rape doesn’t lessen “Chinatown”.) I’m protesting the Academy’s prostration before the altar of pop culture politics. Its members have nominated as Best Animated Short a boring, artless recitation of an athlete’s career, rendered on a sketchpad, that has been commissioned by that athlete!
Understand? The Academy appears to be preparing to give Kobe Bryant an Oscar for making a paid infomercial about himself!
It’s not as though there are not worthy contenders. This year’s nominees include a handful of short films that excel in one or more areas, excel to such an extent that mighty Pixar’s entry, the one people may have expected to be the favorite, looks instead to be one of the weakest in the field.
“Lou” is the morality tale of a bunch of inanimate objects joining together to teach a lesson to the playground bully. The animation is typically good Pixar stuff, but breaks no new ground, neither does the story. It’s “be nice to each other” for 7 minutes. One could (and we do) hope for more from Pixar.
Another contender that comes up short is “Garden Party”, an exquisitely rendered moving digital image from Illogic, a collection of French film students so talented we can only hope they stick together and try again.
“Garden Party” doesn’t fail us in style or imaging, it fails in story. It is less a story than a vignette, in fact, not even a vignette, it’s really just a glimpse.
It allows us to watch frogs and toads enjoying free run of a Caribbean style mansion, and almost as an afterthought, finally shows us why. Think of it less as a stand-alone short, and more as the first 3 1/2 minutes of a feature film, the hook, not the film. Want to win next time? Hire a writer and tell us a story!
“Negative Space” from Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata is stylistically crude, using coarse stop motion figures in coarse stop motion habitats.
Narrated by the protagonist, it reveals a son’s relationship with his father, formed first by watching, then by learning to pack, and finally by packing his traveling father’s suitcase. It ends on a twisty note as fitting as is it out of wonderfully deep left field. If there’s a sentimental favorite, this will be it.
“Revolting Rhymes” is by far the longest and most ambitious of the nominees. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, it blends three fairy tales, “Snow White”, “Little Red Riding Hood, and “The Three Little Pigs” into one amusing story, told from the unique perspective of the wolf…not the wolf or wolves, a wolf, one we’ve never met, but with a personal stake in the aforementioned stories.
If you’re a wolf, at least this wolf, Red’s a fraud, much less a vulnerable young girl than is she a cold blooded killer — for hire. She knocked off two of his less clever relatives, and now he wants revenge — a very clever revenge we’re only aware of at the tale’s very end. “‘Rhymes” employs a digital rendering style that’s not meant to be realistic, it’s cartoonistic, and these characters are adult caricatures of the originals, entirely appropriate to the adult version of a child’s story we’re not meant to take seriously.
It’s visually satisfying as well as narratively captivating, and would last year have been the hands-down winner, but this year will face an uphill battle.
Too bad the BBC could not have turned this clever twist on three timeless tales into a boring, artless, tribute to a black American basketball player instead.
QED
The Oscar Shorts are showing in select theaters now, and will be available via several VOD platforms beginning on February 27th. Find theaters and more information at the link below:
