Bad Ideas Never Die: Eight Awards Bumped from the Oscar Telecast

[Mister Tee]

Okay, I understand, devil's advocacy and all, but...how do you even pretend to think this is reasonable?

Start with, TV ratings are down for everything (even the Olympics), so the trend of recent years isn't an Oscar thing, it's a TV-and-its-place-in-our-mediaverse thing.

All these awards, whose elimination they think will change things, have been given out since the show first hit the air. Why is it NOW a problem, when it wasn't through all those years that ratings were sky-high?

No one liked last year's show, and I haven't heard the remotest suggestion anyone thinks that's something to emulate. Some of last year's limitations were deep-COVID-influenced -- single presenters because they didn't want people in proximity to one another, meaning less humor. But some were just terrible ideas (let's talk about movie memories of tech nominees instead of showing samples of their work), and no one's going to repeat them. And almost anyone has more a sense of humor than, apparently, Steven Soderbergh, so comedy -- which seemed unofficially banned last year -- will be back.

If they'd bumped only the three shorts categories, there'd have been some grumping -- from the branch, and from the "all awards should be equal" caucus -- but the vast majority of Oscar watchers wouldn't have considered that a full-on assault. Bumping 5 additional categories is overkill (and to include score, in a year when Hans Zimmer and Jonny Greenwood are facing off...)

There's some talk that "edited" versions of the winners' announcements/speeches will be shown. This means either just a snippet -- which is patronizing -- or else one of those-time jump things the Tonys tried one year, which, as Nathan Lane quipped, made the winners look like they were hard of hearing.

And two things about this are just unacceptable:

1) The awards are a road-map -- each one, no matter how minor, is pointing (sometimes misleadingly) toward the bigger results near the end. You could see it in the way the nominations announcements went: everyone gleaning information from the smaller categories as evidence for what would happen in the larger ones.

2) AMPAS wants to sell it as "we'll edit the smaller awards into the show, so you'll still have that". This seems to imagine a world where Twitter doesn't exist. Everyone who seriously follows this will know those 8 winners before the hosts take the stage, and will have filled in a third of their home-ballot before the first on-screen envelope is opened.

How does this not ruin things?

[Okri]

1% of me thinks this could be fine. The other 99 is furiously looking up numbers and stats.

Frankly, I'd rather they just guaranteed the top box office hit of the year a best picture nomination and be done with it.

[Big Magilla]

It won't be like last year. It will be closer to the few years before that. You know, like the one where they brought tourists from Bumpkinville on stage from the TV show next door.

[Sabin]

I have a question: if the Academy does another ceremony just like last year, then who cares? Does it matter if we see who wins Best Production Design if we don't get to see any of the actual production design? Last year's Oscar ceremony felt like The Five Obstructions.

I understand that we shouldn't have to choose between those two shitty options but if those are the ones we've got... I mean, I'd rather have clips and footage that highlight what is meaningful and representative about these films.

Actually as I write this: they should do it. Let's see what the ceremony looks like when there are fewer categories to give out this year but showcase more of the nominated features for Best Picture. And I do think that showcasing the nominees for Best Picture more and getting people interested in seeing them does matter.

My only suggestion would be to pepper the winners throughout the ceremony. As well as Best Original Score be featured in the ceremony. That's insane.

(I'll show myself out)

[Big Magilla]

So, the Oscars will actually be four hours long with awards in these eight categories presented during the untelevised first hour much like the Tonys to be shown in truncated segments later.

What does this mean for the Red Carpet? Will actors whose films are nominated in those categories feel obligated to arrive early so they can see those presentations live? Will everyone of any importance feel obligated to do that so that there will no arrivals of note in that hour? What will ABC do with that hour?

[Mister Tee]

They've planned similar stunts to this in the past but never gotten anywhere due to pushback, so I'm hoping that happens again this year.

I don't know. From the statement, it seems like they got prior sign-off from the branches.

The weird thing is, they only recently EXPANDED the nominations announcement to include all categories; evidently they thought there was interest enough for that, but not for the winner announcement.

[dws1982]

They've planned similar stunts to this in the past but never gotten anywhere due to pushback, so I'm hoping that happens again this year.

[Mister Tee]

They've wanted to do this for ever so long. They have no idea why Oscar fans watch the Oscars.

https://deadline.com/2022/02/oscars-tap ... 234958336/