How Did The Oscars End Up Like This?

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A look into the machinery of the The Academy Awards and some of the forces behind the scenes that influence nominations, snubs and wins.

Sources:
[1] "Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr" by Robert Hofler p. 87

Footage and Images Licensed by Getty Images

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Chapters:
00:00 How Oscar Baiting was Born
03:22 Part I - The Anatomy of The Academy
06:43 Part II - For Your Consideration

[yodude]

I just like that "Meg 2: The Trench" submitted itself for Best Picture. We should all possess such unearned confidence

[madmanonyt]

I hate the fact that The Boy and the Heron and Across the Spider-Verse were ignored completely outside of Best Animated Feature, yet mediocre flicks like Napolean and Maestro got so much love.

[diethermanicat]

The real travesty about Academy is that they don't include Best Stunt Coordination in their categories.

[Advent]

All Oscar campaigns should only be like David Lynch's

[LittleCave]

One thing that frustrated me this year was that three of the animated movies this year (Across the Spider-Verse, The Boy and the Heron, and Elemental) had the potential to be nominated in other categories, most notably Original Score, and there was just…nothing. It was Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio all over again. Two years in a row where animation wasn’t seen worth recognizing anywhere. Sure there were some years where animation didn’t get recognition, but two in a row??

The last time that happened was in the 80s, and since then animation has been blessed with: Disney’s Renaissance and Revival eras, Pixar’s 3D animation, increase of competitive studios and voices with DreamWorks, Illumination, Laika, etc., foreign studios such as Ghibli, Aardman, and Cartoon Saloon finding American audiences, independent animation finding a wider reach, the founding of the Annie Awards, and of course the actual creation of the Best Animated Film Oscar.

Animation has been a major part of the most financially successful, critically-acclaimed, and audience-beloved movies ever made. And it’s tiring that the film industry as a whole hasn’t caught on to that.

[VoltaDoMar]

One weird trick to win Best Picture every time: cast John Cazale in your movie.

[RedheadDevito]

‘Anatomy of the academy’ is now my favorite combination of words.

[emillion]

"Best" is a misnomer "Favorite" is more apt. Truer still, "Preferred" or "Most liked" by the Academy. "The Best" just sounds....sexier AND marketable..

[indy-fsde]

4:11 my brain did a record skip at this footage of Cary Grant presenting an Oscar to Jean Simmons, which goes to show how much of a hyperfixation classic film is for me. Simmons unfortunately never won any Oscars (nor did Grant), and I had to look up what this footage was actually depicting. It was the 1958 Oscars where Alec Guinness won Best Actor for Bridge on the River Kwai, but couldn't attend so Simmons accepted on his behalf.

[nitinpariyar]

I'm wondering if you could make a brief explanation video of these; IMDB, Letterboxd, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic of how they make the database of movie criticizing and aggregates reviews. Would love to see the next video on this topic.

[willemdaho]

just watched the iron claw and its fucking baffling that people were upset that Barbie got “snubbed” for two awards, meanwhile everybody who worked on The Iron Claw didn’t get tf is wrong with y’all

[prateektripathi]

One thing that the Academy can do that would benefit a lot of cinephiles and ultimately lead to increased viewership and interest in the awards, is to get the previous winners of technical awards to do breakdowns and analysis of either current nominees or famous/ all time great movies.

The acting, directing and Best Picture nominations are easy to decipher for the general public. But the average moviegoer is not familiar with the technical aspects of filmmaking and the nominees in those categories. This would help the audience appreciate the movie more.

Also, making it compulsory for a movie to be eligible to be nominated being the release of home media would go a very long way in helping the industry.

[dragonverde]

So this is how Emilia Perez got so many nominations

[ShaneBaker]

Speaking of Driving Miss Daisy: it won best picture (for whatever reason) but its director, Bruce Beresford, wasn't nominated. Billy Crystal referred to it as "a film that apparently directed itself".

[kelskye]

The practice of the December release is particularly annoying for those of us who live overseas, with those December releases in the USA mean the films are often released in Australia the next year. So when critics lists come out, most of the films listed aren't even available to be seen here.

[relicreturns]

The campaign for the Bradley Cooper film Maestro was particularly egregious to me

[overseer]

Thanks for the video. Just a reminder, Louis B. Mayer created the Oscars to stop actors from unionizing back in 1920s. He, and rightly so, realized the actors and so many in the field, in that time, would relish getting an award over, say, important things, like health insurance, fair working hours, and so forth. And thus the Oscars were born, not to celebrate art, but to market films to the masses. And fair enough. However, so many self-declared pundits (especially on You Tube today) have zero, repeat zero, idea how the "town" Hollywood (both the physical location and the industry) really work. Many think that Academy voters choose "what is the best". And that's for the most part, not the case. In many ways, it's favoritism, it's an axe to grind, it's checking off the box, unfortunately, because they are too busy to pay attention. Here's the reality. Many, many great films, performances, contributions, were never, repeat, never nominated for an Oscar. And yet we celebrate them more than most Oscar winners. Here's the question any filmmaker should ask themselves. Would you rather spend a million dollars on a film that earned no Oscar nominations but was revered for all time or one that earned 10 Oscars but was forgotten within a year?

[codex]

I don't understand why it can't be complicated. Peer review in academic conferences is also completely volunteer driven but they make sure every submitted research paper gets a review from a qualified scientist. Only after the list is whittled down is a "best paper" awarded. I don't see why a similar two stage filter can't work here.

[Zeromus]

Saving Private Ryan was robbed. I remember watching the Oscars that year and the entire family sat silent, in shock.

[wheatart]

I think the year Frozen one the Oscar (I don't remember if it was that specifically) was where I really lost a lot of respect for the Oscars. Not for the film, but because I had read somewhere that the animated nominations had barely been seen by those voting, and the only reason they were voting for the Disney one was because it's what their kids had watched.
That's what I'd heard anyways. I'm particularly aware of how little animated films are considered for awards, so even without many oscars, the fact that Spiderverse has been sweeping awards across the country is quite satisfying.