This just in. The Academy has announced their plans for which awards aren't going to be shown live this year and it's not actually as bad as we thought it would be in that it is not as MANY as we though it would be. They're leaving four off the air: cinematography, editing, makeup, and live action short. Not being as bad as we thought, though, is NOT to say that it is any less horrific. The decision remains as tone deaf in its disrespectful, self-destructive, and against-the-point way as it always was. It's easily in the top two or three most terrible decisions that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has made in its entire 91 years.
Once you start demoting categories to "less important" you're sending a message to the world that the craft of filmmaking doesn't really matter; just look at the gowns and sit through the commercials which make us money...
Once you've devalued your own identity, you should expect to find less respect from the multitudes from that point forward. Once you've made yourself after the image of your inferiors (aka other awards show, none of which present all their awards live and ALL of which are less popular than the Oscars) you can expect lower ratings and less respect... akin to what they have!
Decisions matter. Actions have consequences. I don't think it's a coincidence that since the Honorary Oscars have gone off the air that Americans seem even less knowledgeable and interested in classic cinema than they were before. The Academy has lost the thread and forgotten the whole purpose of their mission which is to honor the movies and support the industry.
How to talk sense into them? One wants to grab them, shake them, and quote Raising Arizona at them.
That's your whole goddamn raison d'etre!
We should all be using the hashtag #PresentAll24 (created by Amanda Spears) to let the Academy know how we feel about this. It's gross and it cannot stand.
President John Bailey needs to go and the problem is slightly worse than we feared because more members of the Board of Governors need to go, too. In their press release about the bastard stepchild categories this season they reveal:
The executive committee of six of the Academy's 17 branches volunteered to have their respective awards presented under the new system, and that the Academy selected four of them.
So obviously Cinematography, Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Live Action shorts need new executive committee members. Surely some of them reasoned internally that they were "taking one for the team" but the team in this case is ABC, not the Oscars. The team is certainly not the movies or the Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of it all! We are "Team Movies" first and foremost. Networks will come and go as will contracts to host the Oscars (we pray that AMPAS wises up and leaves ABC as soon as the contract is up) but the movies should not consider themselves so impermanent.
Under the Academy's new foolish decision, whatever category is not present live on air will be guaranteed a spot on the next year's Broadcast but this, too, is unwise. You cannot game the system forever. This year we will likely be losing both of Vice's acceptance speeches (Makeup and Editing where it's arguably the frontrunner) one of Cuarón's (Cinematography) and a speech from a live action short director (who knows which) and on the surface that might not sound terrible. Who really passionately looooves Vice and will be hurt to not here Adam McKay thanked? And it would have been a weak part of the ceremony anyway to watch Cuarón give four or five separate speeches. But you cannot game the system forever (eventually we'll lose a historic moment or an entire ceremony highlight because of this) and whether or not these four categories would give us great moments this year is not the point. It's not the point at all. It's the principal of the thing. And it's what it says about the Oscars. And about the movies. And about the future. These are the problems. Not missing Editing this one year.
If The Academy doesn't course correct immediately, we feel confident in saying that there will be no creative categories on the air by 2024 or 2025. They'll be shunted off to another night just as they are at the Emmys (you know, that less successful show that Oscar really shouldn't be trying to emulate).
To close here are four wonderful recent moments from those four categories that were broadcast live. Our favourite night of the year, that once-a-year eventful celebration would have been all the worse for losing these moments and others like them.
Is anyone at the Academy listening?
ROGER DEAKINS, Cinematography "Blade Runner 2049" TOM CROSS, Film Editing "Whiplash" RACHEL SHENTON, Live Action Short "The Silent Child" ROY HOLLAND, Makeup and Hairstyling "The Iron Lady"