by Foster Harlfinger, Contributing Writer
The Academy Awards ceremony is meant to be the largest celebration of film each year, yet even diehard cinephiles like myself who fall squarely within the broadcast’s target audience have to admit… The Oscars are a mess! Hyperbole aside, the Academy seems clueless as to how to make its show appeal to a wider audience, and their continued attempts to do so negatively impact the experience for their core audience of movie fanatics.
This article is prompted by four recent events:
- The livestream for the 94th Oscars Nomination Show.
- The announcement that the upcoming ceremony will be hosted by Wanda Sykes, Amy Schumer and Regina Hall.
- This year’s Oscars Fan Favorite initiative in which at-home viewers can vote on a “Fan Favorite” film and their top five “Cheer Moments” from the past year.
- The Academy’s decision to pre-tape eight of the technical Oscars before the ceremony in an effort to improve the show’s viewership.
To be clear, I am not saying that the Nomination Show went terribly, nor am I suggesting that these three hosts are all inherently terrible choices. However, given the declining viewership of the Oscars ceremony each year and the profound lack of interest most non-cinephiles have in the outcome of these awards, I do question the logic behind many of the Academy’s decisions.
It is common knowledge that the Academy higher-ups make their executive decisions based on the opinions of the contributing writers at SiftPop. For this reason, I have taken it upon myself to condense my thoughts on how the Academy can make both the ceremony and its lead-up a more engaging affair for casual viewers and hardcore fans alike.
THE LEAD-UP
The annual Oscar Nomination Show marks the first major event of Oscars season. This year, the nominees were announced by Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan, and though the reading went smoothly, I do have a few critiques.
To start, no matter how likable or charismatic they are, I strongly believe that the Academy should select presenters who are truly invested in the outcome of the show. Ross and Jordan may make for a likable pair, but you have a problem when one of your presenters is unable to pronounce the name of Denis Villeneuve, the most high-profile director of the last five years. In the past, the Academy would invite directors like J. J. Abrams or Guillermo del Toro to read through the list of nominees, which is an excellent idea. You want involved members of the film industry like Abrams or del Toro to take part in an announcement like this, because you trust that they are invested in the result and understand the impact of these nominations.
Having a humorous rapport between co-presenters can be nice, but it is not essential, especially when most of the so-called witty banter each year feels painfully rehearsed. Actor Jon Cho and comedian Issa Rae’s tight, but humorous 16-minute read-through at the 92nd Oscars Nomination Show is my personal favorite of the last few years. Rather than perform their already written opening monologue, Cho and Rae opted for a more straightforward presentation by saying, “We decided that all people really want to hear is who is nominated,” which is right on the money. As a bonus, seeing actor Jon Cho’s quiet smile when Parasite received its well deserved nomination for Best Picture added a much-appreciated degree of authenticity to the announcement.
Second, the Oscar Nomination Show should be right around the 15-to-20 minute mark. Any less and you lose that crucial element of suspense, but any more and the announcement begins to drag. The Academy has done a good job keeping the announcement short and sweet in years past, and though it was not a disaster by any stretch, this year’s broadcast pushed the limit. Discussing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, bringing in a TikTok-famous “Professional Film Enthusiast” midway through the broadcast, passing off the nomination readings to various other entities, and Ross and Jordan’s mostly unrelated banter were wholly unnecessary detours. If the Academy wants to host some sort of post-nomination wrap-up broadcast, so be it, but the Nomination Show will never have the same level of appeal as something like the NFL draft, so the Academy would be wise to keep its presentation straightforward and brief.
THE HOST
Much has been said about the Academy’s decision to go hostless for their last three ceremonies, and aside from last year’s end-of-show hiccup, these broadcasts have gone about as smoothly as one could have hoped. Yet, I find myself arriving at the inevitable conclusion that we need a host. The job of the host is not to hijack the ceremony with the influence of their own star power. Rather, a good host will provide an engaging introduction and conclusion for the broadcast while acting as the glue holding the disparate elements of the show together. Having the show run smoothly is all well and good, but a great host can take the ceremony to the next level by cultivating an environment of humor and joy.
You have two options when choosing a host for the Academy Awards. You could choose an undeniably funny host who would make the ceremony a joy to watch regardless of their level of fame, or you could enlist a highly charismatic and popular member of the film industry who would attract a large number of potential viewers. Both options are viable solutions for the Academy, though my preference lies with the former.
With that, we come to the Academy’s recent announcement of a three-person hosting team with Sykes, Schumer, and Hall. Though these three women are obviously successful comedic talents, their pairing feels more arbitrary when compared with a commonly suggested trio like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph. Again, I would love nothing more than for the current trio to deliver the greatest Oscars ceremony we have ever seen, but it is hard to deny that the Academy’s decision feels random and uncoordinated. In previous years, the Academy’s hosting choices have been hit or miss. Jimmy Kimmel made for a perfectly good host at the 2017 and 2018 Oscars, though he was definitely a safe choice. If the Academy wants to foster genuine intrigue in their show, it is in their best interest to choose a host who makes the Oscars a must-see event, either for their comedic talents or undeniable charm.
I am hesitant to suggest potential hosting choices of my own, given how subjective this endeavor can be, but I will rattle off a few hosts that would make for a more engaging broadcast than in years prior. If the Academy decides to hire a host solely for their comedic talent, I would love to see a proven comedic duo like Ben Schwartz and Thomas Middleditch or John Mulaney and Nick Kroll, the latter pair having already made for a hilarious hosting team at the 2017 and 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards. Conversely, if the Academy wishes to attract more viewers with a more widely known personality, a charismatic host like Dwayne Johnson would make a lot of sense. In fact, the Academy planned to have Johnson host in 2019, though they were unable to make it work due to scheduling difficulties. Suggesting potential hosts is an entirely subjective exercise, and there are surely dozens of talented individuals who would do the job well. The main point I wish to reiterate is that the host is an important feature of the Academy Awards broadcast, and the Academy would be wise to choose future hosts who generate genuine excitement for the show.
THE AWARDS
The Academy’s changes to the ceremony each year reek of desperation. Pre-recording eight of the 23 Oscar wins is a nonsensical decision which will do nothing to increase viewership. On the contrary, such a decision will only anger the show’s core audience. Past attempts by the Academy to increase viewership by introducing (and subsequently removing) a Best Popular Film category, for example, come across as desperate and condescending.
Some have criticized the Academy’s less mainstream nominations for Best Picture in recent years, but I believe this to be a non-issue. In the last five years alone, the Academy has nominated wildly popular films like Get Out, Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born, Joker, and Dune for Best Picture. Every year, the Oscar nominations consist of both mainstream and non-mainstream films, yet the ceremony’s viewership continues to decline at a dramatic rate.
There are certainly more artful films this year like The Power of the Dog or Drive My Car, but this is due more to the current cinematic landscape than it is to the voting body of the Academy. If anything, nominating and therefore elevating excellent films like Parasite is one of the few things the Academy has done well in recent years. If the voting body were to nominate a fan-favorite film like Spider-Man: No Way Home for Best Picture, the impact in viewership would likely be minimal.
If the Academy’s attempts to appeal to a wider audience are so futile, then what is the solution? For one, the Academy must first accept that their show will never again have the same appeal it once did. Put simply, seeing a room full of celebrities is no longer a novelty. However, one simple way to increase viewership would be to make the ceremony itself easier to access by partnering with an online service like Hulu or Youtube rather than making the ceremony an ABC exclusive event. This is an obvious move which would drastically increase viewership.
The Academy also needs to quit messing with the current line-up of awards categories. People watch the Oscars to see who is going to win each award, plain and simple. Sound, score, editing, production design, and makeup and hairstyling are important components of the filmmaking process. Airing a pre-recorded taping of those categories along with the Animated, Live-Action, and Documentary Short categories is insulting to the filmmakers involved. Given the amount of backlash the Academy has received for this decision, I would not be surprised to see them backtrack in the coming weeks.
If the Academy truly wants to increase interest in the current lineup of categories, they could start by listening to what is perhaps the most common suggestion they receive: add new categories! The Academy clearly worries that the majority of technical awards are of no interest to casual viewers, and perhaps this is true. What better way to increase interest than by adding undeniably interesting categories like Best Stunt Work, Best Ensemble Cast, and Best Voice or Motion Capture Performance?
THE SUSPENSE
All this talk of potential presenters and hosts, category reshuffling, or the ceremony’s runtime makes it easy to forget that the primary reason people watch the Oscars is to see which films win. Awards season junkies know that there are few moments more suspenseful, harrowing, or exciting than those unbearably tense seconds before the pronouncement of a new Academy Award winner. We live for those moments of glorious tension, the look of shock and awe on the face of a newly crowned winner, and the celebration of our favorite films of the past year. If the Academy wants to increase engagement with the show, they need to stop padding out the show’s runtime with unnecessary fluff and lean into the inherent suspense of the show.
To aid this goal, the Academy must first start by getting rid of the excruciatingly unfunny, pre-rehearsed banter between the co-presenters of each award. If the presenters have natural chemistry and can find a way to inject a brief moment of humor into their presentation, that is fantastic, but it should never feel forced. Similarly, the category introductions for each award feel painfully uninformative and repetitive. The audience does not need to be told what an important role makeup and hairstyling have historically played over the course of the last 100 years. Rather than increasing viewer engagement, these unnecessarily long category introductions drain much of the suspense from the moment and result in millions of viewers screaming at their television, “Get on with it, already!”
This is not to say that the Academy should simply rush through its presentation of each award. Instead, there are other, more effective ways of introducing each category which would dramatically increase audience engagement. First and foremost, the Academy needs to bring back its use of brief clip montages before the major categories. Watching the clips from our favorite movies of the past year gives more casual viewers the opportunity to have a say in who they predict will win and who they would like to win in real time. Something as simple as a brief selection of clips before the acting awards are announced allows for all sorts of conversations to arise: “Oh, she’s gonna win it,” or, “Was that movie good? I meant to see it,” or, “I forgot about that movie, that was so good!” The clips need not be long, but without them, the Academy alienates the large portion of its audience who have not already seen every nominated film. Even for self-described movie nerds like myself, clips are a fantastic way of refreshing our memories of the nominated films and performances.
To take it one step further, the Academy should strongly consider creating similar clip shows for the technical categories as well. Longtime Oscars viewers know that the Academy loves their montages, and while they occasionally evoke that magical feeling that only cinema can provide, the majority of the Academy’s montages feel misused and overlong. I suggest the Academy takes their love of montages and uses them to their advantage. If the Academy worries that general audiences are unsure what film editing or sound design is, show them!
Rather than push the technical categories to the side, the Academy should instead embrace them by sharing with audience members what makes fields like sound, editing, and production design so darn cool! Imagine a brief 90-second montage featuring behind-the-scenes footage of set construction from the films nominated for Best Production Design or a well-selected batch of clips which perfectly captures the varied acoustic landscapes in the films nominated for Best Sound. A well-edited montage should capture the essence of the category by allowing audience members to form their own hopes and predictions about every category, even beyond the “Big Five.” Rather than alienating such categories as “lesser than,” such a structure has the potential to invite casual viewers into the wonderful world of cinema, technical categories and all.
The goal is not to shorten the runtime of the ceremony. The vast majority of audience members could not care less if the broadcast runs for three hours or three hours and 20 minutes. Rushing through each category would make it so that the wins would feel unremarkable. However, unmemorable hosts, unfunny banter, and a lack of relevant clips completely drains the ceremony of any suspense.
CONCLUSION
The recent attempts by the Academy to pander to non-cinephiles will only further the show’s ever-decreasing viewership. Some have suggested removing the Best Original Song performances, changing the start time of the ceremony, or altering the number of films allowed to be nominated in each category. While these and other suggestions could certainly change the dynamic of the show, the steps outlined above are not meant to shake the Academy Awards to its core; they are merely common-sense suggestions to improve the quality of the broadcast. With time, the Academy will hopefully come to realize that the best way to increase audience engagement is to provide audiences with a genuinely engaging show.
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