Last week, the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards were announced. Congratulations to all – not that they’ll be reading this.
I’ll admit it: Unlike friends who religiously live-blog the entire ceremony, I’m not an avid devotee. As a teen, at the height of my Titanic phase, the Oscars was compulsory viewing – but I can’t remember the last time I sat through an awards show.
My thoughts on this year’s picks? For the Kiwis involved, I was pleased the Avatar sequel got a Best Picture nod. It’s great to see Irish cinema get recognition with The Banshees of Inisherin. Michelle Yeoh is very talented and deserves her flowers. Aside from that? Can’t say I’m that excited.
And I’m not the only one. Recently, the Oscars’ television audience numbers have taken a sharp tumble. In 2021, 10.5 million people tuned in to the 93rd Academy Awards – a 50 per cent drop since the previous year, and significantly less than its peak crowd of 55.3 million in 1998. Last year was a slight improvement, with 16.6 million viewers – and numbers spiking during Will Smith’s infamous beat down of Chris Rock. To quote one of my favourite movie musicals: “Baby, you can’t buy that kind of publicity.”
Industry watchers have their theories. And no, nothing to do with “wokeness”. From Marlon Brando’s protest against the treatment of Native Americans in film to Vanessa Redgrave’s pro-Palestine acceptance speech, social causes on the Oscars stage are nothing new.
As a recent Boston Globe article pointed out, celebrity over-saturation plays a part. As writer Matthew Gilbert noted, the Oscars was once “our rare opportunity to see famous actors in action, walking the red carpet, making faces from the audience, and coming to the stage as themselves”. In today’s social media age, we have ready access to celebrities – we add them on Instagram, re-Tweet their words of wisdom, and watch them make breakfast on YouTube. A celebrity gala doesn’t have the same allure when said celebrities are living rent-free on our smartphones.
Others put it down to a changing market. Cinema viewership has declined, thanks to covid and streaming services. Scripted television has enjoyed a massive renaissance. Plus, with some exceptions, mainstream films rarely make the Oscars shortlist. So, why should viewers, in the midst of an active pandemic and spoilt for choice at home, watch an awards show for films they’re unlikely to see?
Plus, viewers are burnt out from, to quote the Boston Globe, the endless “kudos fest” of awards season. “Once again,” Gilbert wrote, “we are asked to watch wealthy, famous people celebrate themselves. That has become increasingly tiresome”.
Actor Seth Rogen cut even closer to the chase: “People just don’t care [about the Oscars]. I don’t care who wins the automobile awards. No other industry expects everyone to care about what awards they shower upon themselves.”
I’m not against celebrating excellence within any industry. But, when it comes to the Oscars, people are clearly starting to see through the BS. Audiences can, perhaps, no longer relate to the pomp, circumstance and clothes no one can afford. Perhaps they’re sick of the sexist banter squeezed in between the liberal rallying cries. Perhaps they’re tired of not seeing their communities represented – unless it’s a year when the Academy goes all out with self-congratulatory tokenism.
Either way, the Academy is hopeful for a redemption arc. But I’m wondering if the Oscars may be going the way of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard [another musical reference] – with its glory days heading for the rearview mirror.
Good luck to this year’s nominees – and may your faces remain unslapped.
