# This is what's wrong with the Oscars **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 27, 2005, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137 "2005-02-27T09:25:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/21 "2005-02-27T19:48:27Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Cite? Seems to me that the Academy should be rewarding, with its “Best Picture” award, the movie that best integrates ALL the parts of film making. So if you had a movie with acting and a script that were 9.5/10, and then a different movie that had acting and a script that were only 9/10, but which also had fantastic special effects and costumes, then second movie should win. Actually, one can hardly tell which parts of movie making **are** rewarded. I can deduce that script doesn’t weigh heavily from the presence of a cliche-fest like **Million Dollar Baby** , but that’s about it. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/22 "2005-02-27T19:55:52Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Have you seen those movies? I haven’t seen _You Can’t Take it With You_. Seriously . . . Tom Hanks “funniest actor in a motion picture” for _Forrest Gump?!!_ Ok, it had some comic relief and fantasy, but it that movie was a drama and twice as sad as it was funny. I don’t really see how _It Happened One Night_ could be a _screwball_ comedy . . . but the category I file it under - Capracorn - isn’t an officially recognized category . . . yet :D. ---
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/23 "2005-02-27T20:15:06Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I don’t really see how _It Happened One Night_ could be a _screwball_ comedy . . . but the category I file it under - Capracorn - isn’t an officially recognized category . . . yet :D. _It Happened One Night_ is most definitely a screwball comedy. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/24 "2005-02-27T20:19:31Z")
The big dichotomy is this: Nowadays, the big movies each year are aimed at teenagers (and younger). The Oscar voters are adults. So they’re looking for more than flashy effects and a lot of action. They can enjoy mindless action films as fun, but they are not going to consider them great filmmaking. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/25 "2005-02-27T20:35:31Z")
Well, I, for one, _like_ the Oscars. 😛 Ducks and covers… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/26 "2005-02-27T20:39:42Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > The Academy rewards the “art” of filmmaking… Stop it, man. You’re killing me! Yeah, they reward the art of filmmaking. Right. Sure they do. Oh, my sides! I havent laughed that hard since I don’t know when. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/27 "2005-02-27T20:40:32Z")
It’s interesting how the criteria appear to have changed. Imagine if _Taxi Driver_ were released today. I can’t imagine there’s any chance that the Academy would nominate such a gritty film about isolation, despair, violence, addiction, etc. for [four Oscars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/awards) (actor, actress, picture, score). The most recent Best Picture winner with even remotely non-Disney-friendly themes was _American Beauty_, and the last truly great film to win it was (IMHO of course) _Amadeus_. Ho hum. I have a friend who throws an Oscar party every year. We eat a lot of good food, drink a lot of beer, and talk about good movies, occasionally stopping to make fun of some pompous ass’s acceptance speech. That’s my plan for tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/28 "2005-02-27T21:02:18Z")
> [@Tracy Lord](#): > > _Chicago_ clearly falls under the latter of the “comedy **or musical** ” category (no way is that movie a comedy, dude) I forgot that the on-line version of _The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures_ includes recent features. And here is their genre listing: _Chicago_ (2002): “Musical comedy” _Chicago_, based on the stage comedy _Roxie Hart_, treats subjects like murder in a comic way. You can call it a dark comedy, but comedy it is. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/29 "2005-02-27T21:07:29Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > Imagine if _Taxi Driver_ were released today. I can’t imagine there’s any chance that the Academy would nominate such a gritty film about isolation, despair, violence, addiction, etc. for [four Oscars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075314/awards) (actor, actress, picture, score). The most recent Best Picture winner with even remotely non-Disney-friendly themes was _American Beauty_ Jodie Foster was nominated for Supporting Actress. How about the top five Academy Awards that went to the non-Disney friendly _Silence of the Lambs_ in 1992? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/30 "2005-02-27T21:21:49Z")
Cisco writes: \> In what way were most of these comedies? What constitutes a comedy for you? Is it only a comedy if it’s a laugh riot about teenagers who get drunk, stoned, and laid? There are comedies out there besides slapstick ones. Screwball comedies, musical comedies, black-humor (i.e., this means being pessimistic, not being about African-Americans) comedies, and comedies of manners are all part of the comedy tradition. Yes, the Oscars are slanted too much toward dramas. They don’t treat comedies, and particularly slapstick comedies, as well as they should. Comedies like _Airplane!_, _Animal House_, _American Graffiti_, _City Lights_, _Duck Soup_, _The Gold Rush_, _The Great Dictator_, _Groundhog Day_, _MAS\*H_, _Modern Times_, _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, _The Princess Bride_, _Some Like It Hot_, and _This Is Spinal Tap_ should have received greater respect from the Oscars. They don’t reward comedies and particularly slapstick comedies as well as they should. Let’s not exaggerate though. They have given Best Picture Oscars to comedies, although never to slapstick ones. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/31 "2005-02-27T21:47:21Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Jodie Foster was nominated for Supporting Actress. Thank god you’re here. > [@Walloon](#): > > How about the top five Academy Awards that went to the non-Disney friendly _Silence of the Lambs_ in 1992? That was eight years before _American Beauty_; as I said, AB was the most recent non-Disney-friendly winner. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/32 "2005-02-27T22:15:03Z")
> [@Wendell Wagner](#): > > Comedies like _Airplane!_, _Animal House_, _American Graffiti_, _City Lights_, _Duck Soup_, _The Gold Rush_, _The Great Dictator_, _Groundhog Day_, _MAS\*H_, _Modern Times_, _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_, _The Princess Bride_, _Some Like It Hot_, and _This Is Spinal Tap_ should have received greater respect from the Oscars. Academy Award nominations: • _American Graffiti_: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing. • _The Gold Rush_ was released in 1925, before the Academy Awards were established. • _The Great Dictator_: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Score •_MASH_: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing. • _Some Like It Hot_: Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Photography (b&w), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/33 "2005-02-27T22:33:00Z")
> [@Tracy Lord](#): > > I agree with everything but these two. _Chicago_ clearly falls under the latter of the “comedy **or musical** ” category (no way is that movie a comedy, dude), and even if the American Comedy Association or, whatever the organization is, thinks that Tom Hanks was “funny,” that doesn’t automatically make the movie a comedy. No way is it a comedy? I guess everybody in the theater that laughed at it were seriously deluded… How can the puppetshow song [where Billy holds her on his knee like a howdy doody doll and gives a press conference] that ends with the lawyer drinking a glass of milk that is patently obviously in ref to a lawyer putting words in his clients mouth to manipulate the press… Or where she is just coming out of the examining room after ostensibly fainting, Billy asks the doctor if he will swear that she is pregnant, and then tells the doctor to do up his fly… The scene where Billy is telling his dinner guests about his new case and describes how the man that the daughter of the ‘pineapple queen of hawaii’ when caught in bed with 2 women and says he is alone says ‘are you going to believe what you see or what I tell you’… Obviously you have no sense of humor other than seeing the 3 stooges thwap each other and poje eyes out…there are MANY forms of humor that are fairly subtle, and you simply cant seem to see them. Poor Tracy. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/34 "2005-02-27T22:35:38Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I don’t really see how _It Happened One Night_ could be a _screwball_ comedy . . . but the category I file it under - Capracorn - isn’t an officially recognized category . . . yet :D. LOL, and mrAru thought I was the only one to refer to Capra’s flicks as Capra-korn… But it fits the 30s definition of screwball comedy - patently absurd situations [the clothesline wall dividing the motel room] her hitching a lift for them by showing lots of leg, the overall situation [heiress trying to excape her parents to elope with an unsuitable man, and ending up falling in love with somebody else] are all classic ‘screwball’ comedy. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/35 "2005-02-27T22:41:36Z")
As I said, those are the types of comedies that should have received more respect. Yes, they did get a little bit of respect. Of the fourteen I mentioned, four of them received Best Picture nominations (and one was before the Oscars started, so it’s hard to tell how it would have been received). Those were the more-or-less slapstick comedies I pulled from a list I’ve compiled of the 250 best films of all time (using a compromise between popular and critical acclaim). All fourteen should have been nominated for Best Picture, and a few should have won Best Picture. The Academy should also have given more respect to foreign films, film noir, Westerns, horror/science fiction/fantasy films, and action/adventure films, and have given less respect to drama, costume epics, musicals, and boring, earnest films about whatever social problems it was currently acceptable in Hollywood to be concerned about. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2005, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/36 "2005-02-27T22:47:15Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > _Chicago_, based on the stage comedy _Roxie Hart_, treats subjects like murder in a comic way. You can call it a dark comedy, but comedy it is. Yeah, y’all are right. My selective film memory was focusing on Amos and the Hunyak and I totally blanked on the whole social satire that’s sort of the, uh, point of the musical. :smack: My bad, sorry! ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/37 "2005-02-28T05:16:15Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > The most recent Best Picture winner with even remotely non-Disney-friendly themes was _American Beauty_, and the last truly great film to win it was (IMHO of course) _Amadeus_. Well, until tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/38 "2005-02-28T06:38:50Z")
I never liked that they only pick one best each year seems like a bad way to do these things. In bumper years good films or actors lose out while in lean years unworthy films and acting are rewarding. I’d like to see something along the line of the Baseball hall of fame. They become eligible 5 years after their release date and are eligible for a few years. Any nominees that got the thumbs up from some set number of voters gets in. Maybe they could even do the voting live. Think how exciting that could be. All the eligible actors sitting there as their names are read. The members whip out there cell phones or perhaps something provided by the academy and vote in their seats. We watch their percentages rise and fall. Will anyone even make it in this year? Although I still wouldn’t watch it unless they put it on here (Hawaii) live. I hate the tendancy to tape delay everything here. Heck we’re closer to LA time the New York and they get it live. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/39 "2005-02-28T06:46:19Z")
The only thing you seem to get live in Hawaii is NFL football and only the Sunday games. I found that on a vacation and I woke up one morning to find the first games just ending. And I live on the West Coast! All the other award shows are tape delayed for the West Coast except the Oscars. There’s just no way it could be tape delayed in L.A. People care way too much about it here. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137/40 "2005-02-28T23:04:36Z")
> [@archmichael](#): > > So you believe that all the different aspects of film making should be given equal weight? Not EQUAL weight, necessarily. A movie with a good script but no special effects is MUCH better than a movie with good special effects but no script. But special effects, costumes, makeup, sound editing, etc., are all part of the movie as a whole. > [@](#): > > The current system of picking Best Pictures is not great, but I can’t see how your system is any better, if not worse. In your system, a great coming of age movie that takes place at a modern day summer camp, and requires no special effect would automatically lose to an equally well acted and written love story that takes place in a post apocalyptic future. Does the post apocalyptic future love story also have cinematography, sound, makeup, etc, all just as good as the coming of age movie? If it has all of those and ALSO has amazing special effects and action sequences, and equally good acting and writing, well, then it IS a better movie, I’d say, and deserves to win best picture. And the summer camp movie could easily still win screenplay and acting awards. Not to mention how rare it is for there to be a movie with lots of good SFX that actually has decent writing and directing. Lord of the Rings did, imho, and thus, I think ROTK deserved every inch of its Best Picture. So did Titanic, again imho, although of course many would disagree. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-whats-wrong-with-the-oscars/292137.md?page=3)