Movies matter. They are culturally relevant. They have been and will continue to be. Over the past century or so, the role of movies in America has changed, but there is no denying their power as art and entertainment. As a means of both escaping and grappling with reality, they have few equals.
How have the movies come to occupy such a significant space in our lives? Let’s start at the beginning.
One hundred years ago, moving pictures came about as a popular gimmick, cheap entertainment, especially popular with immigrants and illiterates. The studio system that made the film industry a million-dollar business in the 1920s and 1930s was founded by sons of immigrants from the east coast. These businessmen moved out west to avoid legal action from Thomas Edison, the patent-holder on the movie camera, and began making movies more or less like Henry Ford made cars: in factory assembly lines with hundreds of hired workers to assist in different parts of the process.
Needless to say, these early studio heads were sharp businessmen. They changed the reputation of the movies. They brought movies to a much wider audience. When their employees started to unionize, several studio owners founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as an elite organization for workers in the film industry. They even proposed giving awards for the best films.
Consider what Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, said about the newly formed Academy Awards: “I found that the best way to handle (filmmakers) was to hang medals all over them. … If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created.”
The original purpose of the Oscars was to foster good will between the studio owners and the employees, not to recognize artistic merit.
The film industry has changed significantly in the past 88 years. Oddly enough, the Academy Awards seem to have changed little. The Oscars are now a tradition, an annual ceremony with a storied history. This is the appeal for many of us who view the ceremony on TV every February, but how much of the ceremony is determined by industry politics? (Is there any way for us to know for sure?) If the Oscars still exist merely for studios to anoint their workers with praises, what makes the ceremony worth watching for us?
Of course, we want to make sure the best movies win. We want to be entertained. We want to see celebrities. Yet TV ratings show that the ceremony’s viewership is fading: last year’s Oscars were the third least watched Oscars ever. While America seems to be losing interest slightly, the 4+ hour telecast also seems to be losing relevancy.
The proposal that the Oscars give Best Picture and Best Director honors to the best movie or best filmmaker on any regular basis is questionable. Instead, they merely award certain kinds of films and filmmakers. They award serious genre films. One UCLA study showed that the most common elements in Oscar-nominated films are war crimes, political intrigue, disabilities and show business. Sift through a list of Best Picture winners and nominees, and these common characteristics are undeniable.
Yet some of the year’s best movies miss the chance to win awards when the Academy clings to these preferences. Genuinely well-made blockbuster films are excluded (see last year’s snub of the critically acclaimed hit, “Creed”), but plenty of great filmmakers and films with smaller budgets go unrecognized as well.
Looking back at the history of the movies, there are key films and filmmakers who have a widespread reputation as the greatest and most influential. However, many would go unnoticed if you rely on a list of Oscar winners to learn that history. A few examples: “Citizen Kane,” “Taxi Driver,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Psycho,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles.
Then there is the question of the Oscar panel’s diversity. Many were appalled in 2012 by a Los Angeles Times story that stated, of 5,765 Oscar voters, 94 percent were white, 77 percent were male, 86 percent were older than 50, and less than 4 percent were black or Latino. The median age of Oscar voters was 62. The Academy has since aimed to induct more members to level the playing field, but the fact remains that Oscar history has largely been written by older white men. Their idea of a good movie is specific, predictable and old-fashioned.
For decades, the Academy Awards have been held in esteem as the highest honor movies can achieve. Yet the more you learn about the history of the movies, the Oscars and Hollywood, the more apparent it becomes that such self-congratulatory awards shows serve as a way for the industry to justify making certain kinds of movies. We don’t need Hollywood to tell us what its best films are. We don’t need the red carpet to be swept away by fantasy. We have the movies.
– Garrett Moore, staff writer
