by Nathaniel R
Ah... the annual tweaking of the rules is upon us again. The Academy has been frantically trying to keep up with societal changes and has made quite a few strides with their gender parity and racial diversity inititiatives over the past handful of years. We've also seen Best Picture winners that would have seemed impossible ten years before like Moonlight (2016) and Parasite (2019). The Academy is continuing with their diversity initiatives over the next five years which you can read about here we won't attempt to summarize it as it's definitely in the planning rather than implementing stages. But a lot of it sounds really smart like unconscious bias training and screenings and discussions and industry-focused inititatives (as we've long said, the Academy can only vote on the films that Hollywood actually makes!).
Nevertheless there are two concrete pieces of news we must discuss...
One of the most celebrated tweaks in recent history was not prompted by concerns about racial diversity or gender parity but about the range of the kinds of films Oscar was willing to honor. For years and years Oscar just stuck to their message movies and biopics and war films and prestige dramas. Those types of films are still very popular with Oscar --their taste is their taste is their taste -- but in 2009 the Academy expanded the Best Picture field from 5 to 10 nominees in the hopes of widening the net of the kinds of films which might be honored. Would an expanded field help them avoid future embarrassing shutouts of non-typical beloveds like The Dark Knight and Wall*E (both of which were wildly acclaimed and received numerous BEST raves but couldn't crack a very retro feeling list of 5 Best Picture nominees in 2008 that nobody outside of the Academy seemed all that excited about.)
The expansion worked at first allowing more sci-fi films and comedies and LGBTQ films and animated films in. That tweak was in place for just two years (2009 & 2010), after which they moved to a sliding scale based on percentages of votes.
The current system allows for anywhere between 5 and 10 Best Picture nominees. But in the nine years this system has been in place thus far we have only ever seen either 8 or 9 Best Picture nominees. We've also seen some unfortunate side-effects like less films being nominated overall in the craft categories as if the expanded Best Picture list actually narrows the voters interest in their screening stacks and focuses them on maybe a dozen hopefuls overall. The Academy has no plans to addres this problem of course as it's hard to explain or even quantify but it's the truth (check out last year's Oscars for a startling example of the increasing amounts of nominations for Best Picture players and very little remaining for anyone else.)
It's no secret that we've sometimes missed the 5 wide lists, which felt more 'special' and statistics-interesting, but we'd prefer an even 10 to the sliding scale (which is too messy/inconsistent -- yes, we're looking at you Emmys). So we're happy to report that the sliding scale expansion experiment will end with this upcoming Oscars (dates still in flux due to concerns over COVID-19 and theaters still mostly being closed). The 94th Oscars honoring the films of 2021 will return to that 2009 system of a full top ten list! What'cha think?
FINALLY...
Here's one initiative that we're VERY excited and shocked about that might help with some long-standing problems we thought Oscar would never address. A quote from the Academy:
The Academy will also implement a quarterly viewing process through the Academy Screening Room, the streaming site for Academy members, also starting with the 94th Academy Awards. By making it possible for members to view films released year-round, the Academy will broaden each film’s exposure, level the playing field, and ensure all eligible films can be seen by voting members.
That change is still a year away but it's long been needed as a way to counter the problems of the December glut and increase the likelihood (even if only a little) that studios will release Oscar-calibre films in all months of the year and not just save them up to dump in a tiny window around Christmas.