The irony being, of course, that now that there’s finally a category for them, 2001 was a pretty weak year for animated movies. Shrek was clever, but not nearly as much as it thought it was. Monster’s Inc. was a fun kids movie, but I thought Oscars were supposed to denote more than that.
Jimmy Neutron? Jeez, Final Fantasy had it’s problems, (some inherent, some involved pissing off the SAG) but Jimmy #@!!ing Neutron?
And weren’t they only going to give an oscar if there were at least five nominees? Maybe that got changed with so many animation companies folding last year.
Actually, I thought Final Fantasy deserved the Visual Effects Oscar, but they obviously weren’t going to give that to an animated movie, even if “live action” movies use the exact same technology.
I understand the gettoization argument, but I’m not sure it’s reasonable. A ghetto is a huge step up for animation, it’s currently eating pizza crusts out of the Best Original Song dumpster. It’s not ideal, but progress is progress.
By comparison, look how anime has gained popularity in the last decade. Badly cut and loosely translated Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z were hardly the best examples available, and infuriated the old ‘no dubs, literal translation’ fanbase, but they increased awareness and broadened the fan base to a point where the companies who did it could release more than one or two series at a time in multiple generes. Now most video stores have an anime section that rivals the comedies for size, and the fanbase is diverse enough that it might eventually shake its ‘geeky virginal white guy’ image.
And the argument for it is not entirely unreasonable. Animation is produced in a radically different way than LA movies, even special effects based ones, are made.
I’d worry about ‘what if the best movie is also animated’ when it has a smurf’s chance in a blender of happening. The academy, as things are now, is not going to give best feature to an animated movie. It’s just not going to happen.
Likewise, I’d say anime, no matter how much a movie might deserve it, is not likely to show up on either Best Foreign Film or Best Animated Film. The Oscars exist for Hollywood to celebrate itself, after all. ‘Foreign films’ and native animation (even the stuff produced in Korean sweat shops) are tangentially related to Hollywood. Anime, unless name actors start doing voice work* for it or big movie companies start buying rights to it, is not. If it was a big enough hit, (and it would have to be a huge commercial success, not just a critical one) it MIGHT squeak it’s way into animated or foreign, but it probably wouldn’t win.
(Yeah, Disney bought all those Miazaki movies, I know.)
- Which I hope doesn’t happen. Generally speaking, actors aren’t very good voice actors, unless they’re playing animated versions of themselves.
Was MH even eligible for Best Foreign Language Film? The theatrical version was the English one, after all.
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“Is this a superviolent porn cartoon?”
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