NOW the Academy is requiring members to watch the movies before voting in the Oscars…
You’d think that to be able to vote for the Best Picture of the year, you’d have to have seen all the nominees. Right? Well, that is NOW a rule. Meaning it wasn’t the case for the previous Academy Award ceremonies.
The rule comes after many online were angry with reports that voters refused to watch all of The Brutalist because they thought the film, which gained Adrian Brody his second Oscar win, was too long. Now, the Oscars will take on the tradition that the BAFTAs have been doing of watching all the nominees before voting for them. What a concept!
This announcement also comes with news that the names of musicians will be included in the song category to vote. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shift happened because of Dianne Warren, who has 16 best original song Oscar nominations but has never won. Reportedly, it is because she’s done songs for projects the voting party wasn’t aware of. So Warren’s name would now be listed and the voting members would have to watch each project included.
It feels like a no-brainer. As a member of the Critics Choice Association, I make sure to watch every film nominated before voting for it. Otherwise, you’d curving the score to what you think is best without knowing what you’re NOT voting for. The fact that this wasn’t common practice for the Academy Awards is upsetting.
The news brings with it an unfortunately thought process: So how many Oscar nominations went to people or films that didn’t deserve it? Did something like Crash just win because no one at the Academy wanted to watch Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck? It baffles the mind that this wasn’t common practice.
Maybe if they watched movies, Green Book wouldn’t have won
I am aware that it isn’t an unbiased game. I’ve read reports of voters thinking one movie already got enough attention or one isn’t good enough for their standards. But it is a little telling that the Academy didn’t think it important to enforce a rule about watching movies when the Oscars are, in a lot of ways, the highest award a film can receive.
If I had won an Oscar prior to this rule, I’d second guess everything about it. Was it just because some voter didn’t want to watch another movie? Was my performance that good or was the other actor in a sad melodrama that some voter would rather skip? All of that plays into years of the Academy not forcing voters to actually watch the projects being nominated.
So, this is ultimately a good thing. But the fact that it took one anonymous voter complaining about how long The Brutalist is and how he wasn’t going to watch it for us all to know that it wasn’t REQUIRED of voters isn’t a good thing. Hopefully, this is the right path forward. But I can’t believe that, for once, the BAFTAs beat us to doing something.
(featured image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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