Is Best Really The Best? Thoughts on the 2020 Oscar Nominations
Like everyone else with a toe dipped in entertainment world, I’ve been thinking a lot about the #OscarNoms this week. That thinking, admittedly, had mostly been centered around how bothersome I found them.
First, I feel the need preface this and say that I LOVE awards shows. Always have. I was that psycho from the second floor of your dorm who hogged the communal TV room on Oscar night, that crazy person who FaceTimed with my family back home for four hours straight in the middle of the night when I was studying abroad for a semester so I could know who won Best Picture in real time. (Birdman, in case you’re wondering.)
But now that I live and work in LA, my perspective on awards shows has shifted.
A few years ago, if the award winners lined up with the films I loved, I was elated (The Shape of Water, Spotlight). On the other hand, if my favorite lost (La La Land), I felt that loss deeply and personally. But more recently — in part because the nominees and winners have lined up with my own picks less and less — I’ve started to become frustrated with the lack of, for lack of a better word, originality.
Year after year, categories are filled with the same names. As if voters just go down through the ballot and write the same couple of titles over and over again.
A big part of the problem, I think, is nomenclature. BEST Picture. BEST Director. BEST This. BEST That.
“Best,” by its very definition, implies objectivity. It implies that one thing is objectively *better* than another.
But awards are not objective. They are not measured by calculable statistics or numbers of any kind, nor are the people in the voting pool free of bias.
Awards are subjective.
It’s a game of favorites, preferences, biases, judgements, and opinions.
And the problem with using a title that implies objectivity on a prestigious award that is decided by completely subjective means is that the winner of that prestigious award is then presented to the public as the *factual* winner. As the BEST, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
But “best” has become a matter of the prevailing opinion of the predominantly white, male voting body of The Motion Picture Academy. It’s not objective at all. There’s no balance, no attempt to remove bias.
Now, I don’t think we need to change the nomenclature. “Best” is what it is. There will be another Best Picture crowned next month, and next year, and for years to come. Just as it’s been since the 1940s. I take no offense to the name. I take offense to the fact that absolutely no attempt seems to be made — in any category — to award winners objectively instead of subjectively.
I get it. That can be difficult. Probably almost impossible.
How does one compare a story of 1970s Hollywood with one of young sisters in the Civil War era, with one of brave soldiers in WWI, with one of brave women who spoke up when it was hard, with one of lies told to a relative, with one of two high schoolers‘ last hurrah, with one of an imaginary Hitler?
I genuinely don’t know. I’m not a voting member of the Academy by any means and even I have a nearly impossible time saying which movie is my favorite of any given year, let alone which was empirically the “best.”
But you can try.
You can examine each category individually. Carefully. You can attempt to remove your own point of view, your own biases and opinions. Instead of filling in the same five titles for each category, you can actually consider the question at hand.
If “best” is what you’re supposed to be looking for, consider the definition.
Best (adj): of the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality.
The word means excellence, but it also implies originality.
“Best” is a sliding scale. Or it damn well should be, considering the subjective way members of The Academy treat an award that is supposed to be objective.
As a society, our values are constantly changing. In big ways and small. What was “Best” last year may not be what’s “Best” this year.
Those changes affect the movies we make, and the way we view movies as an audience. Best Picture — Best Anything, for that matter — should reflect those changes, big and small.
Every year brings fresh takes on genre, new ways of telling story, and new technology to aide in that storytelling.
If the award is subjective anyway, the winner should be the film that pushed boundaries, that did something new or important, that elicited an unexpected response.
The movie that wins the highest, most prestigious award should be innovative. It should inspire.
Because the storytellers Best Picture inspires will be the people who create the movies that might, and should, be in contention for that same award years down the line.
Best Picture is a reflection, of sorts. Historically, a reflection of where filmmaking has been. But the award should be a reflection of where filmmaking is going, of the future.
Only then will the nominees and winners truly represent the *best.*