Alarmed by plunging television ratings for the Academy Awards, the organization behind the Oscars, in a desperate attempt to boost ratings, said on Wednesday it would add a category for blockbuster films and shorten the telecast by giving out some statuettes during commercial breaks.
To address the concerns of those who find the show to be too long and boring, Bailey and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a letter to members that the board has “committed to producing an entertaining show in three hours.” They explain that this will be achieved partly by “present[ing] select categories live, in the Dolby Theatre, during commercial breaks.” Those categories will not be removed from the telecast; instead, “the winning moments will then be edited and aired later in the broadcast.”
From next year, there will be an award for outstanding achievement in popular film, the first time a new Oscar has been introduced since best-animated film in 2001. Details on eligibility have yet to be announced. The moves are seen as new ways for the Oscars to appeal to a wider audience. This year’s ceremony saw the lowest US viewership in history and the contending films were mainly lower budgeted fare with solid box office returns.
No one yet knows exactly what that means as the Academy’s spare memo noted only that “eligibility requirements and other key details will be forthcoming.” But it’s easy enough to read between the lines of the announcement: There has never been a greater divide between the movies that win the big Oscar prizes (like The Shape of Water, Moonlight, and Birdman) and the ones audiences see in huge numbers (the Star Wars films or any of the Marvel Universe films). The Academy seems to be attempting to honour these big moneymakers in some way, as if money weren’t its own reward in Hollywood, while simultaneously rewarding moviegoers for their good taste. This is the pretty much the “Good Job, Moviegoers!” award.
This announcement has sparked a slew of negative responses. It’s been described as shameless pandering to the mass audience amongst other things. The popularity of a certain film has absolutely nothing to do with the film quality. Popularity is a very arbitrary form of measure. McDonald’s is arguably the most popular food establishment, however, that doesn’t in any way reflect their quality.
The institution of this award raises so many more questions than it answers, and it may be Hollywood’s ego talking more than anything else, as, for the past several years, the big Oscar winners have been smaller, independently financed pictures as opposed to large-budget big-studio prestige pictures.
Source: The Academy
