Are The Oscars Worth It?
The New York Times publishes two opposing critics on the worthiness of the Academy Awards. A.O. Scott notes
The Oscars themselves may be harmless fun, but the idea that they matter is as dangerous as it is ridiculous. Releasing ambitious, serious films into theaters has become a brutal blood sport, while going to watch them has become, for the most part, a seasonal activity. From January through August the theaters are crowded with highly commercial franchise entertainment, most of it designed for the adolescent palate, with a sprinkling of alternatives for grown-up cinephiles. There follows in the last third of the year, roughly from the Toronto International Film Festival in September through Christmas, an avalanche of art. Movies arrive on autumn weekends by the dozen: tiny gems and aspiring masterpieces, heavy with significance or filigreed with nuance, all craning toward February, when their midsize budgets and grand ambitions will be validated like parking receipts at a shopping mall on Hollywood Boulevard.
David Carr takes the opposite side of the argument, noting the “water cooler effect”.
As juicy a target as the Oscars are — the bacchanal is like the large-chested blonde in the horror movie who always gets mauled first — they continue to occupy an important and irreplaceable role in our culture. In an age in which all is niche, where in most households someone is checking a Facebook wall while someone else is customizing an iPod, the Oscars are where we meet in the glorious, frothy middle. As a people with less in common every day, it is a social good to have an event that is so large, so full of hype that it animates the broader conversation. So what if we are talking about the fashion faux pas or the freak who turned on the waterworks for no apparent reason?
Read both pieces and then let me know who you think has the right side of this argument?
I go to maybe 4 movies a year. Interesting is a far bigger pull than popular. Big ideas pull me in. Big stars don’t.
I remain convinced that mass media exists solely to create a mass market. Within the framework of the quotes in this post, I’ll take ipods and Facebook over the Oscars any day, and regularly do.
There’s a lovely little interactive graphic posted on the NYT website today describing The Ebb and Flow of Movies.
Personally I’m with the commenter above and don’t follow the masses much. I like to watch what I want, when I want to and lean towards indie documentaries, classics and foreign films over blockbuster Hollywood productions.
Ticket price, film content, theater conditions (too cold mostly), over-charging for the food and over-selling the product are the reasons why I have found myself less and less interested in going to the movies these days. I stopped watching the awards shows many years ago because, well, they are someone else’s bought opinion of what is good, better, and most of all the best. Do I go to a film because it has won an Academy Award? No. Do I go if it has placed at Cannes, Toronto, or Sundance? Yes. Both articles state the obvious, the Oscars, can we do without them, Yes. Should we, No. We and they are part of a history of things that we shouldn’t lose sight of even as we recognize that they are more about money to the business than art to the viewer. But then that as it’s always been, right?
Oh yeah, I don’t trust Facebook nor use it since it seems to me that even more than Youtube it is about giving up your privacy in exchange for self promotion.
I love movies, but can hardly stand to watch the Oscars. I find it to be like slowing down to view a nasty car wreck. You don’t really want to look, but it’s hard not to take a peak as well.
Frankly, in the form of a major television event it’s little more than a marketing tool in my opinion. Awarding your industry players with honors at an industry convention is one thing, but putting in on TV to a non-industry audience is clearly about marketing. It’s a big cooperative ad by the movie industry and it’s related business. It’s there to sell movie tickets (and more recently DVDs and PayPerView as well), not to mention television advertising — like the Superbowl, it’s a yearly ad revenue bonanza.
On the other hand, it’s probably popular — and thus sells television ads — because a lot of people seem to like this celebrity infotainment show stuff. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous kind of thing. It’s a formula that’s been profitable for ages, and is as big as ever today.
I personally don’t much care for that stuff, but clearly a large audience does. And after all, if it’s on commercial television, it’s nearly always about making money. That’s the only reason it’s on.