One of my big pet peeves about the Oscars is how comedic roles get no respect, especially in the leading-role categories. I could accept the dramatic roles winning the big prize, but I’d love to see more nominations! Among the snubees (IMHO of course) from the last few years:
Steve Carell for “40-Year-Old Virgin”
George Clooney for “O Brother Where Art Thou?”
Vince Vaughan for “Wedding Crashers”
I’m sure there’s others - including many great performances by women - but that’s just off the top of my head.
Meanwhile, looking at who HAS been nominated, I only count about 10 comedic nominations (out of 100) in the last ten years for leading actor and actress.
The moral of the story is, if they were to add acting/comedy categories, they would hardly be poaching much from the current nominees. Has this ever been discussed? They recently added a “Best Animated Film” category, so obviously they’re not totally averse to the concept of more categories. Of course ABC would be terrified of a longer run-time, but other than that, what do you think?
It would water down an already bloated affair, thereby either making it inexcusably long and dull or causing the Academy to cut out the moments of glory for little known heroes in categories like Sound Editing and Art/Set Decoration, which I think would be an absolute crime.
Actors in comedies aren’t being that badly snubbed if at all. Comedies generate some great performances - and many have been rewarded - but it’s true that most good performances ARE in dramas because most good movies are dramas. Anyway, people still bitch and whine about Marisa Tomei winning an Oscar for a comedy, so you can’t please everyone, it seems.
Yeah, we don’t need Woody spending any more time at the children’s table, now do we?
I wouldn’t object to the notion of having separate awards for comedy and drama, any more than I object to having best picture and best animated picture. As for how to decide what films to consider for each category, do it however the Golden Globes and the Emmys do it. I think that the creators decide which GG or Emmy category to compete in.
I don’t think we need separate categories. I’d just like to see comedic roles get more respect.
I defy anyone to say that Jeff Bridges didn’t create one of the most lasting, well-thought out, unique, hilarious characters with “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski”. Or that John Goodman shouldn’t have gotten a best-supporting actor nomination as Walter.
And that’s not to mention other great Coen brother’s performances. . .Nick Cage as H.I. McDunnough, or Clooney in “O Brother”.
Personally, I think the acting job that Jim Carrey did in Dumb & Dumber blows away – I mean it: BLOWS AWAY – the performance he gave in “Eternal Sunshine”. But, that role doesn’t have a shot in hell at getting nominated.
Jeff Bridges didn’t create one of the most lasting, well-thought out, unique, hilarious characters with “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski”.
John Goodman shouldn’t have gotten a best-supporting actor nomination as Walter.
There, I said it. ::: puffs out chest :::
“The Big Lebowski” is one of the most over-rated pieces of crap movie it’s ever been my displeasure to force myself to sit through. I watched it about a month ago because it came up for free on demand and so many people rave about it here. How I managed to make it all the way through without injuring myself is a mystery.
Bridges is one our greatest living actors and The Dude is one of his greatest roles, but even he couldn’t score a Golden Globe nomination. Who did? Robin Williams in Patch Adams. Antonio Banderas in The Mask of Zorro. John Travolta in Primary Colors.
That’s why we don’t need more categories–it’ll just give the Academy more opportunities to show how stupid it can be.
If Steve Martin’s performance in “All Of Me” wasn’t deserving of an Oscar, then I’ve never seen anyone’s that was. I actually was wondering how they got Lily Tomlin into Steve’s body.
New proposal: Segregate drama and comedy, but eliminate actor vs. actress and mandate 3 nominees of each sex.
I’m sure I wouldn’t prefer that, but it would replace one arbitrary distinction with another and would minimize the number of fluff roles that get nominated.
No I got the point but he was making the wrong point. What the GGs do or don’t do well is irrelevant to what the Academy does or doesn’t do. That the GGs passed up nominations for some films and performances that ArchiveGuy thought deserved them doesn’t mean that had there been a comedy category in the Oscars the same year those same performances wouldn’t have been nominated by the Academy.
If thats the case then your answer came out snippy and condescending for no reason. Your point would have been better made if you wrote the above in the first place.
Given that the Oscar and Golden Globe nominees in the lead categories usually overlap in the 80-90% range, I did mean exactly that. Some might make “better” choices than the others, but splittling up the categories would eventually (even inevitably) give the AMPAS more opportunities to get things wrong.
If comedies made up 50% of the cinematic output annually, then it might seem equitable, but they don’t. Genre is such a hard thing to nail down sometimes (and the merging of “muscial” with “comedy” only heightens the absurdity) that giving a separate comedy Oscar would lengthen the ceremony and water down whatever significance the Oscar still holds. Plus, does one split the supporting performances too? What about the writing categories? They did it once recently for the Score category and reverted back almost immediately.
For the record, I don’t think there should be an Animated Feature Oscar either. This year, for example, did not yield a single film that genuinely deserves to be considered “Oscar worthy” (and the best, A Scanner Darkly, didn’t even get a nod). Out of 300 Oscar-eligible films this year, less than 15 were animated features. Giving an award to the best of a substandard field is even worse when the pickings are so sparse to begin with.