This Sunday, the filmmaking world will celebrate the year in cinema at the 84th annual Academy Awards. Many consider the Oscars to represent the pinnacle of filmmaking accomplishment. To win one of those shiny naked gold man trophies remains an ultimate ambition whether for daydreaming tots reciting acceptance speeches in front of bathroom mirrors (I may or may not know something about this personally), or for film artists toiling within the industry today. After months of celebrity interviews, magazine features and pundit commentary, millions of eyes from around the globe will tune in to the ceremony. Morning headlines are sure to herald the evening's top prizes, including the ultimate distinction of "Best Picture," which reinforces the idea that "Oscar" is truly some indicator of artistic, or at least cultural, relevance.
This, however, is hardly the case. Without the widespread media exposure and historical footing, Oscar himself is no more legitimate than any other oversized paperweight. A recent investigation by The Los Angeles Times found that members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, those who vote on the Oscar winners each year, form a depressingly homogenous bunch. Men comprise over three-quarters and non-whites a pitiful 6 percent of its 5,765 voting membership. The fact that fewer than one in five members is below the age of 50 surely helps explain Oscar's ostensible preference for traditional, unfussy Hollywood products.
From its inception, the Academy has displayed a tendency to pass on innovative artistry in favor of more comfortable fare. In 1942, "Citizen Kane," a film that has since informed the technical crafts of just about everything churned out by Hollywood, lost the Best Picture prize to the moralizing "How Green Was My Valley." Half a decade later, the plodding racial parable "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989) took home the top prize, while two unrivaled groundbreakers Spike Lee's scorching deconstruction of urban racial politics "Do the Right Thing" (1989), and Steven Soderbergh's paradigm-shifting, low-budget drama "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1989) left the ceremony unadorned. Just last year, a nomination slate that included several forward-looking entries "Black Swan" (2010), "The Social Network" (2010), and "Inception" (2010) among them ultimately took a backseat to period costume drama "The King's Speech" (2010).
But if the Academy's ultimate selection of "Best" tends to resemble nothing of the sort, many of cinema's highest achievements have failed to even be nominated. It's an uphill battle to recognition for independent films, films with low budgets, films by new or unknown artists, animated films, documentary films, films from other countries and other varieties of less traditional films. Set against the totality of filmmaking in any given year, the Academy's preferences appear as blinkered and milquetoast as its membership.
Add in the absurd amounts of marketing dollars and campaign spending positively correlated with Oscar success, and a ceremony allegedly honoring artistic achievement plays out more like a political election, culminating in a Miss America pageant. Actual filmmaking merits are simply lost amidst the compounding clutter. What Oscar symbolizes and what Oscar truly is are two separate beasts entirely.
When we are confronted with this sort of cultural symbolism whether bragging rights to shiny naked gold man trophies in Hollywood, or even here at Dartmouth we must strip away unwarranted connotations to appreciate the reality of what's underneath. It may be innocuous to believe in the expressed legitimacy of the Academy Awards, but allowing this brand of assumption to stand unchallenged in regard to structures of power and class no matter how deeply entrenched or historically grounded serves only to empower ideas of questionable value and oppress slews of relevant voices.
So when I'm watching the Oscars this Sunday and Best Picture is inevitably bestowed upon the most obvious of choices it's hardly a contest with a mawkish, black-and-white film about old-school Hollywood in the running I will understand that, while glitzy, fun and sociologically interesting, the Academy Awards represent little more than the vetted tastes of a bunch of old, complacent white men. And I'll be sure to spend my movie-going money on the independent and marginalized voices that remain perennially ignored.
