The Academy Awards: Whose Vote Really Counts?
by Dr. Marc T. Newman
March 3, 2006
(AgapePress) - - In Doc Hollywood, Michael J. Fox plays Ben Stone, a doctor planning to run from his inner-city trauma care unit to a cushy job liposucting fashion models/actresses in Hollywood. Stone justifies the move to his exhausted colleagues by saying that the plastic surgery for the rich and famous is what makes all the free third-world cleft palate surgery possible. The scene is practically a parable for this year's Oscar nominations.
At the end of a slumping year at the box office, the Hollywood elite appear determined to salve their wounded wallets by congratulating themselves for making movies that few actual patrons wanted to see. The artistic community would have you believe the Doc Hollywood scenario -- they only make those blockbusters to enable them to create films that really "matter" -- like Brokeback Mountain and Munich. Four of the films nominated for Best Picture have a clear, overt agenda.
Top-ten lists and gratuitous award shows are ways that critics and insiders pat themselves on the back for their superior insight. Let's have a look at what the Academy awards, what Hollywood rewards, and whose vote really counts. Clear-eyed analysis overcomes Hollywood hoopla every time.
What the Academy Awards
Brokeback Mountain has been riding the crest of a media-induced wave of Best Picture inevitability for weeks now. Some Academy members are practically salivating to stick their fingers in the eyes of Red State America by crowning "the gay cowboy" movie. I am generally disposed to like Ang Lee, the director of some great films -- Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon among them. But Lee's Brokeback Mountain is so ham-fisted in its pursuit of homosexual tragedy that only the social-reformer instincts of the Academy must have been in play on nomination day.
Click here for a more detailed look at Dr. Newman's analysis of Brokeback Mountain
Crash is the only film of the bunch that has significantly impacted the culture. Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton encouraged the deputy for professional standards to pass copies of the film through the LAPD. Community activists representing various facets of Los Angeles disagree about the way the film represents the city. But unlike the discussion about Brokeback Mountain that centered on the "daring" act of graphically depicting on film a tragic male homosexual relationship (juxtaposing it with tepid, ugly, or angry heterosexual marriages), Crash's impact extends beyond the film to open up a general conversation about the state of race relations.
Munich's cry from the past landed on deaf ears. The film alienated the very people it sought to bring together. Not so amazingly, the pro-Israel crowd found the movie to be pandering to Palestinians. The "they just don't understand us" Muslim sympathizers thought the film too pro-Israel. No Oscar prognosticators give the film any chance of winning.
Good Night, and Good Luck is George Clooney's stab at what he believes to be a pro-liberal/anti-government message. But sometimes art transcends its maker. I have argued that conservatives, too, can take away some great messages from Good Night, and Good Luck, such as its unflinching look at the media, its championing of conviction, and the willingness to risk in the service of belief. I am hoping this film comes away with some awards.
Click here for a more detailed look at Dr. Newman's analysis of Good Night, and Good Luck
Of the films nominated for Best Picture, I am pulling for Capote. This is historically the kind of film for which the Academy goes ga-ga. It is a tour de force performance for Phillip Seymour Hoffman who plays an unwittingly self-destructive Truman Capote. He is so self-absorbed that he alienates everyone who really knows him, eventually drinking himself to death. The Academy loves tortured artists. People will go a long way before they find a better case study of the imploding power of selfishness. This is a film that actually did deserve to be seen by more adults (the R rating is for language and some brief, graphic violence). If it wins, perhaps it will.
Of course, I can think of a couple of films that should have been nominated ahead of Brokeback Mountain and Munich -- namely Walk the Line and Cinderella Man. I guess including the redemptive, uplifting message of these two films would have spoiled the mostly dark palette of this year's Oscars. And it would have upset another trend, as many people actually saw Walk the Line.
Hollywood Rewards
Hollywood is not an island. They are in the business of entertainment, and if people are not being entertained, studios will go out of business. It is simple economics. We make too much of the Academy Awards. This year's telecast is already predicted to be a bomb because few of the nominated films have much of a following.
The collective domestic box office of all five Best Picture nominees currently stands at about $230 million. That is nearly the domestic gross of The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe -- if you are willing to knock off $50 million from Narnia's take to date. Hollywood has a name for these huge hits: "tent poles." They are the films that prop up a studio's slate of so-so releases. But for some strange reason, the Academy often appears ashamed at its own successes. There is not a single major nomination going to any of the top 15 grossing films this year.
While an Academy Award nomination, and particularly a win, can boost the fortunes of films released late in the year, it certainly does not represent a guaranteed ticket to Blockbusterville. And while the Academy may be taking this year off for some collective navel gazing, Hollywood is eyeing the bottom line. Awards are nice, but rewards are nicer.
The Real Voters
Ultimately the product that gets produced the most is the product that sells. That doesn't mean that edgy films won't continue to be made. But after all the awards hype, if the box office isn't there, these films eventually will be forgotten by all but the most die-hard film geeks.
Instead of fretting over the agenda of Academy Award-nominated films -- votes for which we cannot cast -- we should pay closer attention to the vote that really counts. The election that gets the attention of studios is the one that occurs at the ticket booth, where you vote with your wallet. Eighty percent of this year's Best Picture nominees are rated R. In 2005, 90 percent of the top-20 grossing films were rated G, PG, or PG-13. Many of those films opened opportunities to talk about virtues, the darkness of sin, and the importance of family and sacrifice.
So when the envelopes are opened on Sunday, March 5, and a new film is crowned Best Picture -- if you find the film objectionable, avoid it. Cast your own vote. There are plenty of decent films still showing. See The Chronicles of Narnia again; catch Eight Below, Hoodwinked, or Nanny McPhee. (But avoid Doogal and Aquamarine.) Risk a history lesson (or teach one) and see Good Night, and Good Luck. Or take a trip to the video store and pick up the 50th Anniversary release of Lady and the Tramp. (Go to MovieMinistry.com for a free discussion card.)
Movies are consumable artifacts. They come, they go, and they are replaced. The cultural barometer is set more by attendance than awards, but Christians can use both as indicators of conversations we should be having. Any truly moving topic presents an opening for the truth. So whether you're delighted or disgusted this weekend, remember to keep talking.
Marc T. Newman, PhD (marc@movieministry.com) is the president of MovieMinistry.com -- an organization that provides sermon and teaching illustrations from popular film, and helps the Church use movies to reach out to others and connect with people.
