television
It's that time of year again — the annual ritual known as "Oscar night". The Academy Awards offer an excellent opportunity for students to explore the political side of North America's film industry. What is the process that a movie must undertake in order to be nominated? What strategies are used to "sell" a film to voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? What does it take to win a coveted Oscar? In this essay Derek Boles answers these questions and provides fodder for classroom discussion and research into this fascinating example of North American popular culture.
The Academy Awards telecast is the most visible, though not necessarily most important, activity undertaken by AMPAS. The most valuable work done by the Academy is in the area of film preservation. Thousands of Hollywood movies are in danger of being lost forever because of deteriorating negatives made with old silver nitrate film stock. AMPAS is attempting to transfer these negatives to a more stable medium. The process is expensive and labourious. Other AMPAS activities include trade publications, annual student film awards, research, film festivals, a scholarship program, and the maintenance of one of the best film libraries in the world.
Membership is by invitation only and consists of approximately 5,000 members who represent about 10 percent of those actually working in the film industry. One does not need to be a member to be nominated for an Oscar. Only about 50-60 percent of the membership can be counted on to vote. AMPAS does not release statistics on how many potential applications for membership are declined but there are many working in the industry who have tried to join and have been refused. The annual membership fee is $100.
Each branch has its own rules of admission but they generally include solo credits in at least two critically acclaimed or commercial hit movies and sponsorship by two members. Being nominated is a sure way to become a member.
Except for the Acting Branch, which has equal numbers of men and women, the AMPAS branches have been male-dominated. There are only a handful of women in the Directors Branch and some of the technical branches have no female members.
AMPAS members are often mailed videocassettes of the nominated films after they are announced since many of those who vote haven't seen the nominees. This service is not provided by AMPAS but by studios seeking to promote their films.
Because the Acting Branch is the largest within AMPAS (25 percent), actors have a disproportionate influence in choosing the nominated and winning films. This also explains why so many films nominated in the major categories feature show business themes, usually involving performers.
One of the frequent criticisms of the Academy Awards is that its aging membership does not reflect popular demographic trends. In fact, there is a full generation gap between the ages of average members of AMPAS and the ages of active filmmakers. There are two or more generations between the ages of average members and average filmgoers. Some voting members are octogenarians who haven't been to a theater in years.
At least two major stars (Henry Fonda and James Garner) have admitted publicly that they let their wives fill out their ballots for them, prompting AMPAS to tighten up its voting procedures.
The Oscar is a 13 1/2 inch tin and copper statuette of a naked, but anatomically featureless, man holding a sword and standing on a reel of film. The award weighs 8 1/2 pounds and is plated with gold.
Since the list of winners is kept secret until the telecast, the awards handed out on television are blanks. The Academy reclaims the statuettes the morning after the telecast and has them engraved before they are shipped back to the anxious recipients. The personalized engraving is on a small plaque attached to the pedestal on which Oscar stands. The engraving includes the year, the award category and the name of the recipient. Each statuette is also engraved with a serial number on the back of its base.
The Oscars are manufactured by the Chicago factory of R.S. Owens and they cost AMPAS about $200 each. Since some awards can have up to three or four recipients in each category, several additional Oscars are ordered to cover all contingencies. AMPAS usually orders about 100 Oscars each year. R.S. Owens also manufactures the Emmy awards, Miss America statuettes, the National Football League's Most Valuable Player trophies and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame awards.
On occasion, old Oscars have shown up for sale at auctions. Marlon Brando's 1954 Best Actor Oscar for On the Waterfront sold for $13,500 in 1988. AMPAS will buy back an Oscar from the recipient for $1. To date, about half a dozen Oscars have been sold, none to AMPAS. Recently, Vivien Leigh's Gone With the Wind Oscar sold for $563,000. The statue was nameless until 1931 when, according to Hollywood legend, an Academy secretary claimed that it looked like her uncle "Oscar". A columnist repeated the remark, the name stuck and, today, is a more familiar term to those outside the industry than "Academy Award." There are at least two different versions of this story and no one is sure which one is true.
The emcee most frequently identified with the Oscars was Bob Hope who performed this function 22 times. Hope was a star of virtually all of the major media forms of the 20th Century including vaudeville, movies, radio, concert venues and television.
Johnny Carson was a witty and engaging host for a few years but, as he was a television star with virtually no credibility in the film industry, his presence was considered inappropriate by many.
In 1984, the single host was abandoned in favor of a format that allowed for a number of different hosts during each telecast. Robin Williams and Chevy Chase were among the most popular emcees during this period.
In recent years, the single host format has prevailed, with Billy Crystal being a popular emcee. Crystal was a television star before becoming a movie star and his good- natured yet acerbic humour have been appreciated by bored audiences. Actress and comedian Whoopee Goldberg has also hosted the ceremonies.
The economic beneficiaries of the Oscar telecast include:
The TV program earns AMPAS $2 million per year and pays for most of its other activities.
ABC makes millions by selling advertising during the show for $10 thousand per second. Expensive stars, who would never otherwise appear on television, will work for free. The show itself is relatively cheap to produce compared to a movie or mini-series.
the telecast promotes Hollywood movies and the entire broadcast is virtually a commercial for the previous year's films.
prestige, truly international stardom and economic benefits result from winning an award though grateful recipients value the peer recognition as much as many of the more tangible benefits.
The film winning the Best Picture Oscar can usually count on increased box office revenues of $20 to $50 million in the weeks after the telecast, providing the film is still being exhibited in theaters.
Examples of winners that have directly benefited from Oscar wins include 1990's Dances with Wolves ($48 million) and Driving Miss Daisy ($32 million).
If the film is already available on video, rentals and sales of the video will increase, but this has a negligible influence on total earnings. 1991's big winner, Silence of the Lambs had already been out on video for several months and was showing on PAY-TV when the film won in the "big five" categories including Actor, Actress, Screenplay and Director. For this reason, Hollywood studios will usually release their serious Oscar contenders in December, both to capitalize on the huge Christmas market and so that the film is "fresh" in the minds of AMPAS voters in the new year.
The Best Actor/Actress/Director awards have limited box office value. The other awards have virtually none except as an advertising come-on to try and lure people into the theatre.
There are about 5000 voting members of the Academy. Only a few hundred live outside the Los Angeles area. To qualify for the calendar year for which the awards are given, a film must have been exhibited for at least a week in the L.A. area before December 31.
All voting members of the Academy get to vote for nominees for Best Picture. The other nominees are selected only by those who work in their specialized areas. (Only directors vote for directors, etc.) The members of each group nominate up to five individuals who, they feel, have demonstrated excellence in their respective areas of expertise.
The top five recipients of votes in each category become the official nominees. All voting Academy members get to vote for all the major categories, even technical areas in which they may have no expertise. This policy has been subjected to much criticism and has often resulted in Oscar winners that are an embarrassment to members of a particular branch.
There is much politicking, back stabbing, influence peddling etc. during this period. Special screenings, publicity campaigns and media events are arranged by the studios for voting members although, in recent years, there has been a backlash against obvious and lavish attempts at "vote-buying."
Foreign film nominees must have English subtitles and are submitted by each country's equivalent to AMPAS. There is only one nomination per country. The few AMPAS members who bother to vote in this category must attend special screenings of all five nominated films before they are allowed to vote. On occasion, even Canadian films from Quebec have been nominated in this category.
AMPAS voting members mail in their choices and the votes are tabulated by the accounting firm of Price, Waterhouse and Company. The results are kept secret from all but the three tabulators who are locked in a guarded counting room, make the final tabulations on the day of the telecast, and prepare the sealed envelopes announcing the winners.
A Price, Waterhouse official takes charge of the 22 sealed envelopes, brings them to the awards and hands them to the presenters just before the winners are announced. A duplicate set of sealed envelopes is kept by an anonymous "back-up" official who is seated in the audience in case something happens to the first official. The "back-up" has never been needed. The official and his "back-up" will not travel to the ceremony in the same car in case of an accident.
Las Vegas bookies will give odds on the major winners who are only announced on camera during the telecast.
Watching the Oscar telecast has become the equivalent of a secular religious experience for many. The Oscars occur every year at the same time and there are strict rules and regulations and hundreds of commandments. The Oscar itself has become a sacred icon within the industry, prominently displayed above the "altar" during the ceremony. Many of those who participate by watching the ritual don't really understand what it's all about and find themselves bored by much of it. Yet, for the average viewer, it's all beyond criticism. The vast majority of the television viewing audience has seen few, if any, of the films nominated.
Given that the vast majority of films are wholly fictional, AMPAS shows a clear preference for docudramas, movies based on real events or people, among nominated films. AMPAS voters also show a penchant for honouring successful movies that are still playing in theatres and whose box office take can be "helped" by an Oscar. Movies that were not already profitable or were out on video during the voting period tend to be ignored.
In recent years, AMPAS has consistently ignored superior performances by young actors in favour of one-shot star turns by elderly character players. Twenty-one year old Eric Stoltz's gifted portrayal of Rocky Dennis in 1985's Mask wasn't even nominated even though it was acknowledged by many as one of the finest screen portrayals in years and was performed under several pounds of makeup. In 1992, 72-year old Jack Palance won an Oscar for playing a character in the movie City Slickers who was so moribund that, when he died, it took the other characters several minutes to notice that he was dead.
Biographies of remarkable individuals and portrayals of the mentally ill are heavily represented among Oscar winners, particularly in the acting awards. Acting Oscars tend to be given for a total body of work by a particular actor rather than for individual accomplishment in a film, contrary to the stated rules of AMPAS.
Certain film genres have been historically ignored for Oscar nominations for Best Picture (horror, youth, adventure, science fiction, action, etc.) Genres that used to receive many nominations, but which were practically extinct, include westerns and musicals. The last two Oscar winners for Best Picture reversed this trend: Silence of the Lambs, a horror film and Unforgiven, a western.
Serious dramas with weighty themes are much more likely to be nominated than "popcorn" movies. These movies tend to be released in the latter part of the year rather than during the summer though, again, the last two Best Picture winners reversed this trend.
It helps an actor's chances of winning an Oscar if the character dies during the movie. In Oscar-winning films, the two most common occupations for men are soldiers (14 percent) and law enforcers (9 percent). For women, they are actresses (15 percent) and prostitutes (12 percent).
AMPAS was practically destroyed by a talent boycott during the 1930's when movie moguls successfully used the organization to prevent the formation of artists' guilds and labour unions.
Everything in the awards telecast is planned with regard to how effective it will be on television in serving the interests of the film industry. This priority even overrides the requirements of good television itself.
The Oscars are hegemonic in that they affirm many of the values associated with American dominant culture. These include: democracy, equality, hard work, individuality, competitiveness, upward mobility, occupational achievement and monetary success. While the Academy Awards purports to celebrate these values, a closer analysis reveals the inherent contradictions.
While the Oscars go out to the world, no foreign equivalent is beamed back to the United States. It is the most visible example of U.S. dominated cultural imperialism. American values and ideology are embraced by hundreds of millions of people around the world who are unaware of the contradictions.
The Oscars are an American equivalent of British media events involving the royal family. The British influence is also heavily represented by Best Picture nominees and Oscar-winning performances (18 percent).
Other countries have virtually no influence. The Last Emperor, the Best Picture winner of 1986, was made in China by an Italian director but, was financed by Hollywood. The occasional Canadian film recipients (usually in the short film or documentary category) are often devoid of any Canadian identity unless they are French films made in Quebec, in which case the film is nominated in the "foreign" category.
Oscars are often given for sentimental or ideological reasons rather than for technical achievement, especially in the major categories. In recent years, these biases have reflected a "liberal" sentiment and have attempted to redress wrongs that the voting members perceive have been perpetuated by the movie industry.
The political and social upheavals and inherent contradictions of the late 1960's are well represented by the winners of the Best Picture award during that period.
Actors whose appeal is somewhat limited to begin with find it difficult to get good roles after they win the Oscar (F. Murray Abraham, Louise Fletcher, George Burns, Art Carney, Marlee Matlin). After winning an Oscar, some actors exploit their popularity by choosing film roles of consistently inferior quality (Rod Steiger, Louis Gossett, Sophia Loren, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson). Actors become typecast in the types of roles that won them an Oscar or nomination (Julie Andrews, Marsha Mason, Bruce Dern). Some actors have difficulty finding good parts because producers assume that their services are too expensive after winning an Oscar (Maureen Stapleton, Linda Hunt). Other actors find the hype surrounding Oscar so intense that they find it difficult to lead a normal life (Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange). Still other actors allow their Oscar success to go their heads and they become dysfunctional (Richard Dreyfuss).
"Two hours of sparkling entertainment spread over four hours" and "OK folks, we're into our fourth hour, let's check the tote boards and see how much money we've raised."
Johnny Carson
"The solemnity of the annual Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm with the cheerful bad taste of the grand opening of a shopping center in Los Angeles."
Vincent Canby
"When they sign you up for one of those so called 'special awards', you know it's time to cash it in."
Joan Crawford
"There are two types of people (who win awards). One type asserts that awards mean nothing to them. The second type breaks into tears upon receiving an award, and thanks their mother, father, children, the producer, the director, and – if they can crowd it in – the American Baseball League."
Dore Schary
"The man you never heard of, but you have to listen to him anyway."
Robin Williams introducing Jack Valenti
"What does the Academy Award mean? I don't think it means much of anything."
Sally Field, 1980 and
"[the Oscar means] you like me –you really like me!"
Sally Field, 1984
"What art? what science?"
D.W. Griffith
"Hollywood – that's where they give Academy Awards to Charlton Heston for acting."
Shirley Knight, 1963
"I know that I am not equipped to vote on the niceties and details governing the prize in set decoration or film editing, and conversely, I am not prepared to put too much credence on Sylvester Stallone's opinion of (musical) composition."
Composer Andre Previn, 1991
"The ceremonies are a two hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons."
George C. Scott, 1971
"The Academy awards are obscene, dirty...no better than a beauty contest."
Dustin Hoffman, 1975
"Watching it on television...I felt disgusted – as though I were attending a public hanging...No one should have a chance to see so much desire, so much need for a prize, and so much pain when it was not given."
Glenda Jackson, 1979
"It should be fun to go to – not agony. There's something barbaric about it."
Paul Newman, 1969
If teachers want to incorporate a deconstruction of the Academy Awards into the classroom curriculum, then here are some suggestions.
How do they explain the discrepancies between profitable films and those which are critically honoured?
Judging by the Oscar winners in the 1990s, what are today's social priorities and ideological concerns?
The following resources are useful for those wishing to delve into this topic in more detail:
Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards (4th edition) by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona; 1993; Ballantine Books. $25.00.
Available in many good book stores and in the reference section of many public libraries. A year-by-year behind-the-scenes expose of Oscar politics.
Behind the Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards by Anthony Holden; 1993; Viking/Penguin Books. $16.99. Better written and more essay-like in format than the above.
Just became available in paperback.
Oscar's Greatest Moments: Unforgettable Highlights from the Academy Awards – 1971 to 1991; RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video. Under $20 in many video stores.
This 110-minute videotape is a good sampler of the Oscar "style" and is far more entertaining than an actual Oscar telecast. Contains many of the most embarrassing moments described in this article
as well as the most excessive of the tacky production numbers.