The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences blew up Film Twitter yesterday when it announced a few rule changes. Specifically, that they would cut the broadcast down to three hours by announcing technical categories during the commercial breaks and re-editing them into the broadcast later and adding a new category to honor “outstanding achievement in popular film.” Here at The Pop Break, our reactions were just as mixed as the rest of the internet’s.
Matt Taylor: So, let’s get this part over with first: the idea of creating a specific award for “Popular Films” is ridiculously stupid. It somehow manages to be both reductive of the “traditional” Best Picture contenders, and patronizing to the films that will go on to win this new award. For one thing, the Academy may honor great films, but they are not known for stepping outside their comfort zone. The films they nominate may not always be four-quadrant blockbusters that will dominate the box office, but they are almost never experimental art house features that alienate general audiences.
And while movies like Call Me by Your Name or Phantom Thread may not gross record numbers, the Best Picture contenders, more often than not, perform in line–or even above–the expectations. There just isn’t evidence to back up the idea that the Academy is nominating obscure movies for big awards. And, on the other hand, why should blockbusters be graded on a curve? It’s not like the Academy ignores blockbusters … we’re living in a world where The Fugitive scored a Best Picture nomination, The Dark Knight took home two Oscars, and Black Panther stands out as a major frontrunner in this year’s race. If a blockbuster is good, it will probably be rewarded.
But no, the real tragedy here is that the Academy will relegate certain technical categories to the commercial breaks in the name of shortening the show. On a selfish level, it must be said: this is my Super Bowl. If I’m forced to accept a seemingly never-ending, concussion-causing sport game as a major holiday in pop culture; the least the universe could do is let me have a full night of red carpet interviews and envelope opening. More importantly, this decision will do nothing but belittle the men and women who work incredibly hard to make a movie worthy of awards consideration, with the understanding that they’ll receive only a fraction of the credit. Sure, cinematographers, costume designers, and composers are not household names–but they play an important part in the creation of virtually every movie, and deserve the 90 seconds of screentime they used to be awarded. This is, frankly, a shameful, populist decision that puts the Academy in a horrible light–I can only hope they take the hint, and forget that this strange announcement ever happened.
Josh B. Taylor: As I finished reading/hearing the news that the Academy had announced a new category, (Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film), and to limit the broadcast of the awards to three hours, I started to shake my head and laugh. Did they really think this was a good idea!? Don’t get me wrong, it sounded like a decent idea to add popular films to the category (so maybe some MARVEL, horror, or Star Wars movies might have a chance of winning an Oscar, besides in costumes and effects categories). Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way, hopefully it’ll turn out good! Something tells me, though, it might be like the year that Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner honored the horror genre at the Oscars, and I ended up disgusted with what I thought was an awful treatment of the genre.
Guess we’ll find out how this new category works out next year’s Academy Awards.
Matt Gilbert: Every year on Oscar night, Twitter bemoans the Academy for Honoring the Predictable “Awards-Friendly” Movies. instead of challenging any norms they themselves have put in place by recognizing the movies that have captured the zeitgeist to become cultural landmarks, the status quo is maintained and the cycle is repeated. This new popular movies category feels like a way to shake that up.
“Popular” does not mean the most financially successful movie. I have no assumption that the Academy wants to create an award that would essentially amount to “Best Marvel Movie.” Rather, this feels like a way in which the Academy could split the difference and honor both the movies that titillate their sensibilities and check their preordained boxes as well as the ones that mean something to their audience. Movies like Get Out, Wonder Woman and Black Panther all spring to mind as films that deserve recognition for what they stand for in the time of their release but that are too “against type” to be awarded Best Picture. For better or worse, the Academy rules and conventions aren’t going anywhere. But Best Popular Film, with a proper amount of curation, can still honor more mainstream, higher-grossing films without turning the Oscars into the People’s Choice Awards.
Allison Lips: I’m of two minds with the Academy’s announcement for Achievement in Popular Movies. The first is, absolutely not, this is a terrible idea because it manages to reek of snobbery and shamelessly pander to the masses at the same time. Then, I take a deep breath and come up with a more reasoned response to the news.
Right now, we don’t know the requirements to be nominated or earn the Achievement in Popular Movies. If they’re simply forking an Oscar over to the producer of the year’s highest grossing film, the Academy is in over its head. However, if the Achievement in Popular Movies is treated as a lifetime achievement for films that have stood the test of time, then it’s a great idea to honor films the Academy previously dismissed as pabulum or didn’t get a chance to honor. For example, Alfred Hitchcock or the Star Wars franchise as a whole should be honored for their Achievements in Popular Movies.
Dylan Brandsema: The Academy’s introduction of the “Best Popular Film” category is nonsense. First and foremost, it implies that “Oscar movies”, by their traditional definition, are not successful enough at the box office to be called “popular movies”—which is inherently untrue. Here’s a short list of nominated and winning films from the last few years that all drew huge returns at the American box office: Moonlight, Get Out, La La Land, The Shape of Water, Birdman, Dunkirk, The Revenant, almost every Pixar movie, and many more. The list goes on. Second, it’s implying that mass consumption of a film automatically equals awards-worthy merit. Anyone who knows anything at all about movies knows this to be untrue. Just because Black Panther and Transformers: Age of Extinction both grossed over a billion dollars, that doesn’t mean they are the same quality of movie. Come on, now.
When they say “popular film,” we know what kind of movies they’re talking about: MCU movies and other big tentpole products. The kinds of movies that only ever get rare technical awards. Here’s where they lose me. If their intent is to draw in the crowd of general moviegoers who only ever see tentpole movies, they’re gonna have to try harder. Those kinds of people have never cared about the Oscars and that will probably never change. Besides, do these movies really need it? When you break it down, all the Oscars really are in today’s modern movie age is a marketing tool for non-tentpole films. Do “popular movies” need any more marketing than they already have? What will Avengers 4 (hypothetically) gain from having the Academy’s stamp of approval? The past few years’ Oscars ratings aren’t low because they didn’t nominate any Marvel movies—they’re low because fewer and fewer people have cable and The Academy has yet to allow people to live stream it for free without channel-specific streaming subscriptions. Please, somebody give them an intervention.
Bill Bodkin: Call me a conspiracy theorist, (it’s fine I’ve been called much worse), but what if this isn’t what we think it is. What if this all a bunch of bunk and hooey. Smoke and mirrors. A red herring. Or…a publicity stunt. Right now we have no idea what “Best Achievement in Popular Film” really is. What we do know is this…people are talking about the Oscars. So what if in the end this is all just a way for the Academy to finally introduce the “best stunt work” Oscar — a long overdue Oscar category if you ask me (and many others). Think about it — which movies tend to have the most stunt work in — you guessed it POPULAR MOVIES.
However, sadly, I don’t think this will be the case. The Academy wants better ratings. They want to bring in the casual moviegoer who looks at the Academy Awards as this elitist, ultra liberal, masturbatory show that they have no connection to. “It’s too political!” “I didn’t see these weird movies!” “It’s too long!” Trust me I have heard the complaints from co-workers, relatives, and acquaintances for years. Yes, somehow this’ll end up being a big dumb move, but if somehow I’m right, the Academy would really have pulled off something fun.
