“The Academy is on crack!”: An Awards Race breakdown

So, it's official. In a Nicole-Kidman's-wig-in-Lion-like twist, The Academy has delayed the 93rd Oscars to April 25th. What was the line of thinking behind this act of terror against my mental health and well-being? One can only guess, but knowing The Academy, we can be sure it was something like this:

What this grants us is a chance to talk a bit about the simultaneously best and worst season of the year: Awards Season. Beginning with the fall fests (no disrespect to Sundance or Cannes, but they're too far away, and the last one is not even being held this year), and further gaining hype with the critics' awards, the Awards race is actually over between the Golden Globes and the Oscar noms' announcement, but, technically, it lasts until the moment Julia Roberts says "Green Book!" with a face that screams "someone's getting yelled at tonight". And it is HELL.

Of course, there are also times in which Jane Fonda pauses dramatically before announcing that Parasite will be the Best Picture winner that holds the title for the longest time. And then, it's simply a rush. 

In between, we have the infamous televised precursors, each of which used to do their own thing, but now just copy each other trying to predict the Oscars. Point in case: it took the Baftas less than an hour to postpone their ceremony once the Oscars did. How much time until the rest do the same? Place your bets, but of course they're not gonna take the chance to reward different films than The Academy and try to quiet the voices that say that no popular films win anymore. Why do that when you can invent bullshit categories?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. As personality-less as they've become, the precursors are still, together with the fall fests (more on that later) the ones that tell the Academy members what to watch and vote for, and ideally, each of them can be differenciated based on their preferences and quirks, which makes the race more dynamic. In chronological order, they are:

THE GOOD STUFF (Honestly? The best one; The Oscars wish)

+ Everybody's drunk.

+ No one pretends to care about the awards. Except Lady Gaga. She cares, a lot.

+ They nominate stars, which is what most of us want to see.

+ They (sometimes) award who they truly want, being the voting block with most personality left.

THE CLOWN STUFF

− If you're rooting for an unknown from an acclaimed indie, you're out of luck.

− That one time they nominated Johnny Depp for The Tourist.

− They keep hiring Ricky Gervais. AMY POEHLER AND TINA FEY 2021, BABY!

 

THE GOOD STUFF (Good one!)

THE SHIT CLOWN STUFF (The whole thing)

− Who even watches these?

− That one time Amy Adams won for Sharp Objects but they added Patricia Arquette after she won the Globe, forcing AclAmy to share the stage with a thief!

− They have eight nominees per category (thus helping nothing in terms of predicting) and yet they manage to snub everyone you're rooting for, which is even worse considering...

− ...they call themselves the "critics' choice" and yet don't represent them at all, go crazy for Oscar bait and then leave critics' darlings out to dry.

THE GOOD STUFF

+ I always like it when we get film and TV together (even if I care more for the former).

+ They're short (very important if you live in Spain, where awards begin at 2AM).

+ Winona Ryder's faces when the Stranger Things cast won Best Ensemble.

+ They focus on actors and are very good predictors for the acting categories.

THE CLOWN STUFF

− They're VERY high on Oscar bait.

− Nicole Kidman has only won once, and for TV. Fix that shit!

− In TV, they stick with stuff no one watches anymore, like the Emmys.

  

THE GOOD STUFF

+ They used to have a very British personality, and you could (and, sometimes, still can) count on them to support European, artsy stuff.

+ They help keep the race interesting (Nicole won here her Oscar, and so did Marion Cotillard and Olivia Colman) and used to have some interesting choices (Jake Gyllenhaal won for Brokeback Mountain; they said "gay roits!").

+ Hugh Grant, for Paddington 2.

This shit will NEVER not be hilarious

THE RACIST CLOWN STUFF

− Honestly, not even one actor of color? Denzel Washington hasn't been inside the Royal Albert Hall in YEARS.

− Their loss of personality is one of the ones I've mourned to most. What on Earth made them vote for Green Book, I still wonder.

These are the big four. And, honestly, it doesn't matter how many critics awards you get, or if they're the most prestigious ones, if you wanna win the big one, you need to score here (re: Allison Janney vs. Laurie Metcalf). Critics can only get you so far (usually, a nomination if they rally for you, like they did with Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night), and sometimes not even them can guarantee that the Oscars will listen (we won't forget Ethan Hawke's snub, EVER). Still, there's one more televised awards show that has little say in the outcome fo the race but is, I'm sorry Globes, the absolute best ceremony there is:

THEIR SERVES

+ The actual "critics' choice". They support indie film-makers and, why lie, they usually award better films and performances than the Oscars.

+ Adam Sandler's "independent personality".

+ Aubrey Plaza hosting.

+ This absolute masterpiece right here:

Laura Dern, Laura Dern... they just don't do bops like this anymore

THE CLOWN STUFF

− Motherfuckers...

The Indie Spirit Awards, typically held the day before the Oscars, have now moved accordingly. It was just announced that the next ceremony will take place on April 24, 2021, and just the Oscars, the Indie Spirits will now consider films released until the end of Feb 2021.

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) June 16, 2020

Not you, Spirit Awards, not you... Why on earth would they do this if they're not even going to award the same movies? See, the real problem here is not that I'm going to have to wait two months and a half more than usual for the ceremonies; the real issue is that they're gonna end up pushing the rest of the season forward.

What will happen with the fall fests? Which film is going to be able to keep the hype from august to march? And the same happens with the movies: up until two days ago, an october release had to maintain its buzz for a little over two months (which is an uphill battle for some); now it needs to do that for twice the amount of time.

Which begs the question: has the decision made by the Academy initiated a domino effect that will push films that were already ready to be released in the fall to the first months of 2021? Because if that's the case... I'm going to MURDER someone. I'm quenched! I'm losing my mind over here! The other day, the characters of Friends were trending in my country because people where fighting over which one was the best, and you're telling me I'm going to have to wait MORE?

Of course, it could also mean some movies will get pushed and others won't; who knows, maybe that would prove that every Oscar contender doesn't need to open at the same time two days before the year ends, and a new Awards Season would be born, giving us good movies all year round. But are my hopes up? No. We'll likely just get three extra months of discourse, leaving us at the finish line exhausted and absolutely deranged.

Which leads us to the cherry on top, the point of all this suffering and fighting, the reason I haven't just made a flip from the highest floor of my house and also why I have trust issues:

The way I saw this moment at a theatre packed with La La Land stans... ah, yes! That was history right there. Best awards show moment EVER.

If you're looking at a best/worst stuff list for the ceremony, there isn't one; the Oscars are basically an amalgamation of every other frustrating aspect of the season: they're overlong, filled with bias against poc, women, gays and every genre that's not drama, and hell-bent on pretending Amy Adams doesn't exist (I'll explore that in another post). And yet, every year, we hope they're better. Because, when they hit, they can be magic.

My first full-on awards race was the 2010 one, and I had to watch Fincher and Aronofsky eat shit lose so bland Oscar bait could sweep, so I should be desensitized, but after some very good years (2016 and 2017 had exceptional Best Picture line-ups, so did 2013) the last two have been pretty abysmal. We can forgive 2019 because Parasite winning BP was the last good thing that happened this year but, even with that, the whitewashing on nomination morning, considering all the chances they had, was really bad. And then there was 2018... we don't talk about 2018.

What was the reason? I said what was the reason?!

And we get to this year. Looking at the films that were supposed to be released, 2020 and 2021 should've been really strong ones, so ¡boom! Worldwide pandemic. Maybe The Academy saw a weak year meant they would have to finally give an Oscar to Amy Adams or Glenn Close for Hillbilly Elegy, or to David Fincher for Mank, or remember Nicole Kidman exists instead of snubbing all of them so they can reward Meh-ryl Streep for playing *throws dart at a list of Oscar bait ideas* Selena Quintanilla? And that could not happen on their watch; they said we gotta come up with something really quick!

And so they did! And now we can add that brilliant idea to the Popular Oscar, that one time they tried to give out awards in comercial breaks, Green Book winning Best Screenplay over The Favourite, the entire 2018 awards race...

Anyways, all this bitching and moaning, but will I still tune in to this years' mess? Oh, absolutely. Why? Well, I have nothing better to do and I like suffering, that's why. Until then, what are your awards season highlights? What outcome made you absolutely furious and which awards show is, in your opinion, the best less terrible? Don't be shy and go off in the comments; I'll be awaiting your best takes. See you in the next one!