The Oscars have long held a reputation for stodgy, safe choices that ignore groundbreaking -- and often very popular -- cinema in favor of increasingly calcified respectability. Examples are copious and run back almost to the beginning of the awards. As a result, the annual Academy Awards telecast -- which once ranked among the highest-rated TV programs of a given year -- has dropped steadily in the ratings, leaving the Academy facing increasing irrelevance even as the movies themselves face fundamental changes in a post-COVID world.
Its latest move likely won’t stop the bleeding. In 2018, the Academy announced the possible addition of a new category: Best Popular Film. It was immediately met with fierce backlash -- perceived as an “also-ran” for films deemed too “mainstream” for the official Best Picture winner -- and has yet to be officially implemented. And this year, it's trying something new -- and to be plain, it looks like a terrible idea.
The Oscars’ dilemma isn’t hard to spot. In 2021, the ceremony earned the lowest ratings in its history, dropping 58 percent from the year before and down more than 75 percent for seven years, according to figures from CNN. Many of its injuries were self-inflicted, though. A de facto “pedigree” exists for legitimate awards contenders, favoring high-minded projects such as period dramas and biopics. Popular genres such as comedy and horror are largely ignored as being insufficiently “artistic,” which often leaves the Academy with egg on its face.
And yet, ironically, the Awards themselves do much better in the ratings when popular movies are up for awards. 1997’s Titanic, for instance, brought a big boost to an Oscars telecast it ended up dominating, as did 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Both films were huge popular successes as well as critical hits. Yet, both also fell into “respectable genres” -- the former a historical drama, the latter based on a perceived work of literature -- which made them something of an anomaly. The Harry Potter movies make an apt comparison -- released at the same time as The Lord of the Rings movies, they ended their run without a single Oscar win. Viewers tune in when movies they see and love are contenders, and the Academy’s push for respectability rushes them out of pop culture relevance.
That came to a head in 2008 when Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight failed to garner a Best Picture nomination despite universal acclaim and a now-legendary (and Oscar-winning) performance from the late Heath Ledger. The bias was obvious -- as a Batman movie, it was locked out of consideration almost by default -- but instead of addressing the issue, the Academy responded with a superficial rules change. The list of Best Picture nominees was expanded from five to ten, in the hopes that more commercial hits would earn nominations. Instead, it backfired, with popular movies continuing to be shut out, while second-tier dramas and prestige movies gained nominations they might not otherwise have earned.
Now, comes what appears to be a surrender to populism in the worst possible way. On February 14, the Academy announced that a “fan-favorite” category would be tabulated by popular vote on Twitter and announced during the live broadcast, and a second “Oscars Cheer Moment” would spotlight moments that made fans “erupt into cheers” in theaters. Five winners selected from the ranks of voters will receive a prize package.
Of course, the crassness of the move has raised eyebrows, and while those awards included such populist gestures as part and parcel of their ceremonies, the Academy was supposed to be above all of that. The gestures feel of a kind with their earlier move, placing a bandage on the rating issue without bothering to consider the underlying issues causing it. More importantly, it continues to marginalize the sorts of movies that would bring them more ratings, creating a “separate but equal” category that continues to deny legitimacy based on perceived artistic importance. Ironically, this is one of the few years where popular movies seem to be getting more of a chance in the big categories, including genre films like Dune and Don’t Look Up.
It's not an easy issue to resolve. The Academy wants to retain its prestige status while still commanding the kind of viewership for the Oscars it enjoyed in its heyday. Doing so isn’t impossible, but it requires more than superficial PR moves. Academy membership needs to rethink their core goal -- promoting film as art -- and expand how they define art to include categories their members might be too inclined to dismiss out of hand. If they can’t do that, then this latest attempt to boost ratings will be no more effective than any of the others.