As award shows rapidly decrease in both ratings and attendance, do we still need Hollywood to deem what is the best of cinema?
By: Sarah Grishpul
Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences distributes several prestigious awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, to a selection of elite figures Hollywood deems to represent the best of the industry.
The notion of such a ceremony was devised in 1927 when Louis B. Mayer, head of the acclaimed MGM Studios, wanted a beach house. Like most men with both an obscene amount of money and power, he called upon his employees to build it for him.
In fear of emerging ideas of unionization, Mayer organized a group with fellow Hollywood elites to stifle labour complaints by issuing prizes recognizing the so-called pantheons of the moving picture scene. Thus, the Academy Awards were born.
Following the success of the Oscars came the emergence of several other film and television award shows. The Directors Guild of America Awards began nearly a decade after the Oscars in 1938 to celebrate acclaimed directors. This was closely followed by the Golden Globes in 1944, run by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). The Globes recognize the achievements of both film and television in the industry and usually serve as an indicator of who the frontrunners or winners will be during the upcoming Oscars ceremony.
The ‘90s brought the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, which primarily recognizes actors, and the Critics Choice Awards, where entertainment critics and journalists vote on the best in show business.
Canada didn’t get its own award ceremony to advocate and promote Canadian talent until the creation of the Canadian Screen Awards in 2013.
However, recently audience attendance towards these types of award shows has been rapidly decreasing. Despite gaining a 58 per cent increase from 2021 in attendance last year, the Oscars still only managed 16.6 million viewers, making it their second lowest-viewed telecast. The Golden Globes faced similar numbers that year with 6.3 million viewers, a steep decline from the 18 million garnered in 2020.
One of the reasons behind general movie lovers’ aversions towards such an upscale event could be a lack of faith in Hollywood as an institution. Due to the dozens of controversies and systemic barriers in place, many question if these award shows truly represent the best of cinema.
Much like political campaigns, film studios spend exorbitant amounts of money pushing their movies to the forefront of the public eye. It’s common to see actors appear in advertisements, interviews and round-table discussions to promote their films.
In the early 1990s, former film producer and convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein was famous for his aggressive campaigning tactics. He was known to conjure an Oscar win for any of his films by reaching out to Academy voters, arranging private screenings and creating a consistent and ostentatious slew of promotional material.
While this campaigning strategy was effective, such obvious methods of bribery and coercion damaged the reputation of the award shows. It soon became apparent to audiences that whoever had the most money, power and influence in Hollywood would be guaranteed a win.
Such corruption has been exposed over the past years in the HFPA. The 87 Hollywood correspondents responsible for doling out the awards were revealed to have been easily swayed by film producers through bribery and press junkets in an investigation in the Los Angeles Times.
Additionally, these award shows are criticized for their lack of representation, reflected both in the nominations and within the exclusive voting groups. Recently, the 2021 Golden Globes ceremony abandoned a live telecast due to the explosion of controversies regarding conflicts of interest and the fact that there was not a single Black member in the HFPA.
This issue isn’t just exclusive to the Golden Globes. During the 2015 Oscars, not a single Black actor was nominated for an award — and the Oscars have only nominated seven female directors (Kathryn Bigelow, Chloé Zhao and Jane Campion being the only three to win the award). It’s a clear indication of the lack of diversity behind the scenes of what’s meant to be a ceremony to recognize the best in Hollywood—best becomes unmeaning when those who define it are fueled by a matrix of power and systems of oppression.
In an article published for Variety, Reign pointed out that audiences consume entertainment through their own lenses and experiences. Because the Academy was 84 per cent white and 68 per cent male in 2020, that would explain why so many nominated films reflect the stories of these demographics.
Recently, the Academy implemented new “representation and inclusion requirements” for studios when submitting their films for the Best Picture Award. By the 2024 awards ceremony, to meet the Oscar’s on-screen representation standard, a film must: feature at least one lead or significant supporting character from an underrepresented racial group, have at least 30 per cent of secondary roles be from two marginalized groups, or the main storyline of the film must be focused on a racial or ethnic minority group.
Aside from on-screen representation, the Academy enacted similar eligibility standards for the talent behind the scenes. In the leadership positions, at least six crew members or 30 per cent in a film must be from an underrepresented group. These rules also apply to internships and opportunities for below-the-line workers.
Underrepresented groups, according to the Oscars' requirements, include women, people of colour, people who identify as LGBTQ or people with disabilities.
Red carpet at 81st Annual Academy Awards at Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on Feb. 22, 2009. (Greg Hernandez via Flickr)
However, despite all these changes, Hollywood has yet to recapture the hearts and minds of the average movie-watcher. Apart from the lack of representation and blatant corruption, award shows have begun to grow out of touch with their younger audience.
According to CNBC, the key demographic of adults from 18-49 has dropped ratings significantly by 60 per cent from the 2020 Academy Awards. Since the decline in ratings, Hollywood has been desperately trying to reconnect with movie fans.
During last year’s Oscars, the Academy introduced the wildly unpopular most-popular-film category, the Oscars Fan Favourite, where viewers could vote online for the year’s fan favourite. Many saw this as the Academy’s way to shoehorn blockbuster films into the telecast and thus prove to sceptics that they have an appreciation for these types of movies.
Unfortunately, it was a lazy attempt to engage with average movie-goers. The results of these online voting polls were heavily distorted by a rush of bots and chronically online fandoms, leaving many fans upset with the outcome being Zack Snyder's Justice League.
In addition to that, eight of the categories (film editing, sound, makeup/hairstyling, original score, production design, documentary short, animated short and live-action short) were cut due to complaints over the length of the show. They were then pre-recorded and edited into the telecast, causing an uproar among many industry professionals.
So, does all this indicate that movie awards don’t matter to general audiences anymore? Perhaps.
However, as an avid film fan, I would say there is still something to be appreciated about these productions.
These events bring together some of the most talented filmmakers, actors and visual craftsmen to recognize a year’s worth of love and labour. It introduces millions of people to a vast collection of films and stories to reflect on and discuss.
An example would be Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite’s historic win at the 2019 Oscars. It became the first non-English-language film to have won Best Picture and gave Joon-ho a platform to speak unto Hollywood’s historic treatment of films outside the Western lens. This win also served to introduce a whole new audience to Korean-cinema, and the potential for the Oscars to widen its film pool from strictly American films.
So, while movie award shows may be unbearably pretentious and overtly cringe, they have the potential to lift up and recognize great talent and work from a diverse collection of actors, directors and creative teams. Although they have been slow to change, it’s steady progress I hope to see continue as I switch on the channel every year.