Time for a confession that won’t come as a shock to anyone
who has followed the site: I am a longtime Academy apologist. If you have read
my reviews of past Oscar ceremonies, you know this. If you have listened to me
argue for Crash as the superior film
to Brokeback Mountain, you know this
– though I would argue Capote was
that year’s best nominated film. I enjoyed the ceremony where Anne Hathaway
tried her best to host with a high-out-of-his-mind James Franco, fully
understanding my friends and I might be the only ones.
The Oscars ceremony is an event I look forward to all year,
every year. It is not an exaggeration to say my calendar year revolves more
around the Academy Awards than New Year’s Day. I say all this so you will
understand it is out of deep love that I say this: Bluntly, I fear this year’s
ceremony will suck. I don’t know that there is a better, more elegant way to
put it. Sometimes, simple is best, and simply, this year might suck.
The Academy and its host network, Disney-owned (isn’t
everything?) ABC have tripped all over themselves throughout this awards cycle,
making mistake after mistake, correcting some, leaving others, until the
ceremony they are proposing has begun to sound not like a classical celebration
of movies but a grinding chore.
Let’s take a look at some of what’s gone on so far:
The Best Popular Film
category: This was a clear disaster from the start. Before we get into it,
let’s keep in mind that the driving force behind all of this is ratings.
Ratings equal money, and there is no decision that has been announced, at least
initially, that is not brutally aware of the bottom line. Of course, we all
know how well bottom-line thinking and art co-exist.
Clearly, this attempt at broadening the variety of films
nominated was aimed at including blockbusters like Black Panther, which of course is a popcorn masterpiece that was
recognized in the top category on merit. The thinking goes: Blockbusters equal
viewers because people will tune in to see movies they know about and enjoyed.
Supporters of this theory will point to years like 1997 (1998 ceremony), when Titanic won Best Picture and the awards
received their highest viewership ever.
This is a juicy premise, and it is understandable why the
money men and women would choose to believe it, but it does not hold up to
scrutiny. The Titanic ceremony drew
55.25 million viewers, the most ever, but the most watched ceremony by audience
percentage was in 1970, when Midnight
Cowboy – the X-rated drama about a gigolo, which no one would confuse with
a blockbuster – won the top award.
The telecast numbers have gone down every year since 2014,
five years of declining ratings resulting in last year’s show being the least watched
ever. The Best Picture winner: The Shape
of Water, a weird Cold War fish-sex romantic drama, which happened also to
be the best film of the year. Perhaps understandable that no one tuned in for
that? But keep in mind, box-office-wise, The
Shape of Water outperformed every Best Picture winner since the downturn
began.
The Academy and ABC are under the misconception that the
nominated films somehow are keeping people away. They are not. Let me suggest
the obvious – meaning I will not have been the first to say this. It is simply
choice. When Titanic was named Best
Picture of the year in 1998, 55 million people tuned in because what else were
they going to watch. Hell, The Sopranos
had not even debuted. Last year, roughly 26 million people watched, nearly half
of the Titanic numbers. That looks
bad, but in a different light, that represents half as many viewers who had 100
times the choice.
No single similar event but the Super Bowl (which, by the
way, suffered dramatically reduced viewership this year) will ever draw 55
million viewers again. It just doesn’t happen in an era when there are 800
channels to watch and infinite streaming options.
The hosting debacle:
Let’s say this right off – Kevin Hart would have been a fine host, in the vein
of a Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart, or Chris Rock. He would not have been blatantly
offensive like Seth McFarlane, and he would not have been overly milquetoast
like Ellen DeGeneres or Neil Patrick Harris, both whose hosting gigs I
genuinely enjoyed. He likely would have hit the sweet spot in his opening
monologue of pointed political humor and general inside-Hollywood jocularity.
It would have been fine.
That said, I cannot fault anyone for their reactions to his
past homophobic material, and Hart did not help himself with his half-hearted
non-apologies. The Academy then suffered the unfortunate look of no one wanting
to host the show, which has led to a host-less ceremony, the first of its kind
since 1989, when 42 million people tuned in to watch Rain Man win Best Picture. That is roughly equivalent to the 42
million who watched Rock host in 2005 (Million
Dollar Baby) and the 43.7 million who watched DeGeneres host in 2014 (12 Years a Slave), the highest-rated
ceremony of the new century.
A good host is a bonus. He or she makes the ceremony more
fun, more enjoyable, perhaps more whimsical. It is not, however, a
make-or-break proposition. No one tunes in to see the host, which is among the
most thankless jobs in Hollywood. No one ever likes the show, so you do your
best, you try to have fun, then you try to forget about it. This should not
have mattered as much as it did, but welcome to the modern era.
The tyranny of the
three-hour show: This is ABC’s latest scourge, which has been evident in
all of its decision-making and was painfully obvious at the normally loose and
fun Academy Awards luncheon, where producer Donna Gigliotti stressed repeatedly
the importance of keeping speeches short and getting the ceremony in in under
three hours.
As we discuss this, keep in mind the longest Academy Awards
on record came in 2002, when A Beautiful
Mind was named Best Picture. The show lasted four hours and 23 minutes. The
number of viewers: 40.5 million. Don’t let anyone tell you length matters to
the viewer, or more specifically, the viewership numbers.
This myth that a three-hour show will help revive viewership
has led to all of the worst ideas to come out of this year’s proposed ceremony:
the plan to perform just two of the five Best Original Song nominees (corrected
by virtue of nominee solidarity); the limiting of speech time to 90 seconds,
including walk time; and most offensive of all, the shunting off to commercial
breaks those categories that might be considered less sexy or viewer friendly.
I must believe – for sanity’s sake if nothing else – that
these ideas were proposed by ABC. Otherwise, I would have to reconcile the idea
that Academy has no idea what it is or what makes its show tick.
Limiting the songs to two is such a jaw-dropping idea one
wonders how it could ever have been pitched. Some of the show’s best moments
come from those songs – Common and John Legend’s performance of “Glory” from Selma is a watershed moment in Academy
history. The nominees rightfully revolted, and we will have a full complement
of songs – if shortened and bastardized to fit into a pre-determined window of
time.
On speech length – counting walking time is by far the
pettiest thing the producers can do to cut down on show runtime – let’s do some
math. With 24 categories, at 90 seconds each, that is 36 minutes of speeches.
With the allotted – and ludicrous – seven minutes to perform five original
songs, that is 42 minutes of show. Say – and this is a rough estimate – they
have to fill two hours and 10 minutes, with 50 minutes of commercials in their
dream three-hour show. What you are left with is 88 minutes of host-less banter
between awards speeches.
Throw in the In Memorium sequence and we have roughly 80
minutes of free-flowing, unmoored nonsense. This is the Oscars. It is about the
winners. Any other belief is misguided and wrong-headed. The speeches are why
one tunes in. We do not need to see comedians and actors and the like
performing stilted “witty” conversations in lieu of the honest emotion of an artist
reacting to the most important moment of his or her life.
Which brings us to the idea of hiding certain categories
during the commercial break – rumored to be five or six categories with no word
on which as of yet. The very idea is disgusting, and the Academy should be
ashamed for allowing such an idea to make it out of a brainstorm – and for not
firing the person who brainstormed it.
The Oscars are about celebrating movie-making, and there is
not one person nominated in any category who is less important than another in
the art of filmmaking. The show is supposed to be about giving them their
moment in the sun. Not to do so is a betrayal of what the Academy Awards stand
for.
I know it is all about commerce, and the show is essentially
one big commercial for the movie industry. Love us, buy tickets, see movies. I
get that. But at the same time, when the legendary Roger Deakins wins Best
Cinematography on his 14th nomination, that is a moment to cherish. When a
documentary filmmaker calls out the presidential administration for its lies
and falsehoods, that is a moment. The show is about moments, and the artists
are the ones who give us those moments. And that means all the artists, not
just the ones whose faces we recognize.
How to fix the Oscars
This year’s ceremony cannot be saved. We are in an
expect-the-worst, hope-for-the-best scenario already. But what can be done in
the future? I would make a single change that would address all of the current
demons haunting the Academy Awards.
Make it pay-per-view.
The dwindling numbers are evidence that given the
preponderance of entertainment options – be they on TV, the internet, your
phone, or some combination of all of these – only hard-core fans are going to
watch the ceremony. This is fine. In fact, in the age of new media, it is
ideal. It is impossible to survive by trying to be all things to all people. By
attempting to pull this off, the Academy is not drawing in new viewers, but it
is alienating its core viewers. With an entire media world at everyone’s
fingertips, it is important to fill a niche. The Oscars are a perfectly
constructed niche. Those who desire to watch will pay – a la carte viewership
is the current wave of television consumption anyway.
In addition, by divorcing itself of a network and of
corporate demands, the Academy is free to be its true self. This will be
offputting to some – even I, a fan, would describe that true self as elitist,
leftist, and self-congratulatory – but they would not watch to begin with.
Instead, the Academy would be free to form a deeper connection with those it
appeals to most. This creates loyalty and repeat viewership.
As far as the actual effect on the show, as we said, length
is not a problem for viewers who care to watch in the first place. Moreover, on
pay-per-view, commercial breaks are eliminated. For breaks when those in
attendance – or those at home – might want to hit the bar, visit the bathroom,
or just mingle, there are the montages the Academy loves so much each year. But
now, instead of taking up valuable network airtime, they are the breaks in
action, entertaining but disposable and perfectly suited to this function.
Ironically, this elimination of commercial breaks would
naturally bring the length of the show down to three hours or less, but of
course, that is not something the pay-per-viewers would care about. However,
perhaps the show could move to Saturday night, when the pay-per-view could air
live the entirety of the ceremony. Then, a network could buy the rights to an
edited version of the ceremony to air later the same night or the next night –
the traditional Sunday. This increases revenue and decreases running time.
Of course, by airing a tape-delayed version the next night,
everyone will already know the winners, but the primary function of the show at
that point would simply be as a piece of entertainment. With countless big-name
stars, big musical numbers from the Original Song nominees, and a smart opening
with a talented, funny host, it would be the best show on TV and would still
draw the 25 million or so viewers who are watching anyway.
***
So, there it is. I am only a fan, and maybe I am way off
base – but certainly no more than the Academy and ABC. I look forward to Oscars
night every year, but this is the first year a sense of dread has crept into
the equation. If the Academy cannot figure out what makes those who love it and
follow it want to love and follow, it will die. And that would be a shame.
Welcome to Last Cinema
Standing’s Countdown to the Oscars, which will proceed a little differently
this year. Keep checking back here at the site for more analysis and discussion
of the year’s Academy Award-nominated films.
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