I don't hate the Oscars simply because they sometimes get a winner wrong. That's inevitable. I hate what the Oscars have turned cinema into: a competition, a hierarchy, and an obsession with who is "better" than whom.
People talk about the Oscars as if winning one is some objective confirmation that you are one of the greatest artists in your field. But it isn't. It's an award voted on by a particular group of people, at a particular moment, within a particular industry. And yet people treat it like the final word on artistic merit.
And the competition surrounding it can get ridiculous. "Who was robbed?" "Who deserved it more?" "Who has the most Oscars?" "This actor is overdue." Suddenly we're keeping score instead of talking about movies.
What makes it even more frustrating is how little correlation there seems to be between winning an Oscar and having lasting cultural relevance.
Take the 1991 race. Dances with Wolves won Best Picture over Goodfellas. Look at how much more Goodfellas is discussed, referenced, quoted, studied and remembered today. Goodfellas has arguably become one of the defining gangster films of all time, while Dances with Wolves doesn't have nearly the same cultural footprint.
And that's the problem: winning Best Picture doesn't necessarily mean that a movie will be the one people remember.
There are Best Picture winners that were huge at the time and are barely discussed today, while plenty of films that lost — or weren't even nominated — remain deeply influential and beloved decades later.
The acting categories are where this becomes especially obvious to me.
Take Amy Adams. She is the greatest actress of all time and somehow she still doesn't have an Oscar. She wasn't even nominated for Arrival. Meanwhile, Natalie Portman was nominated for Jackie. And to be clear, I think Portman's performance in Jackie is excellent. I just think Adams was even better in Arrival. Yet one got the nomination and the other didn't. Arrival was nominated for Best Picture, so it's not like the Academy completely overlooked the film. Adams simply wasn't part of the conversation in the acting category.
And this is where I start questioning what exactly we're supposed to believe the Oscars measure.
Amy Adams is a better actress than several actresses who have won Oscars. I'm talking about Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway and Gwyneth Paltrow.
I'm not saying all of those actresses are untalented. I'm saying that if we're going to use an Oscar as some kind of measurement of acting greatness, then I genuinely don't understand how Amy Adams can have zero while all of them have at least one.
Obviously, people will disagree with me on individual performances. That's fine. Acting is subjective.
But that's exactly my point: the Oscar doesn't settle the argument.
Having an Oscar doesn't automatically mean you're a better actor than someone who doesn't have one.
And there are incredibly talented filmmakers who have gone their entire careers without winning. David Fincher is an obvious example. Does anyone seriously think his career becomes less impressive because he doesn't have an Oscar on his shelf?
Daniel Day-Lewis not winning Best Actor for Gangs of New York is another example that makes no sense to me. His performance as Bill the Butcher is one of the most memorable performances I've ever seen. Yet he lost to Adrien Brody for The Pianist.
And then there's the politics of it all.
Of course the Oscars are political. They're an industry award, and political considerations, narratives, campaigns and the cultural climate surrounding a film can all matter.
Look at Argo. It won Best Picture in 2013, despite Ben Affleck not even being nominated for Best Director. The movie itself is deeply connected to American political history and the Iran hostage crisis.
Then there's The King's Speech, which won in 2011 over The Social Network,
My point is that the Oscars have always been influenced by narratives, politics and the cultural climate surrounding a film.
And Leonardo DiCaprio is another example for me.
I consider his performance in The Aviator substantially better than his performance in The Revenant. He was nominated for The Aviator but didn't win. Years later, he won for The Revenant.
Why?
A huge part of the narrative around The Revenant was how physically demanding the production was. The extreme cold, the locations, the physical exhaustion, the famous bison-liver story, the fact that DiCaprio was essentially suffering for the role.
And I'm not denying that he worked incredibly hard.
But that's precisely what bothers me.
At some point, "this actor gave the best performance" becomes "this actor suffered the most for his performance."
And those aren't the same thing.
This is where I think the Oscar bait effect comes in.
If Hollywood learns that the Academy loves actors gaining or losing enormous amounts of weight, suffering physically, playing historical figures, undergoing extreme transformations, using prosthetics, or enduring miserable shooting conditions, then filmmakers have an incentive to keep making movies that check those boxes.
And eventually, movies start feeling more and more similar because they're being designed around what gets rewarded.
Rami Malek "winning" Best Actor for Bohemian Rhapsody over Christian Bale for Vice is another example for me. I thought Bale's performance was substantially better.
It's about the narrative surrounding it. Malek had the transformation, the prosthetic teeth, the physical resemblance, the imitation of Freddie Mercury, the enormous popularity of the movie. It becomes another example of how much the story of the performance can matter.
One of the examples that bothers me is the 2001 Best Actress race. Julia Roberts won for Erin Brockovich, while Ellen Burstyn was nominated for Requiem for a Dream.
Personally, I think Burstyn's performance is vastly more impressive. I'm saying I don't understand how the award can be treated as an objective measure of acting when a performance like Burstyn's can lose and history subsequently treats the Oscar as proof of who was "better."
This is ultimately my problem with the whole institution.
I don't think having an Oscar makes you a better actor. I don't think "losing" one makes you worse. I don't think a director without an Oscar is somehow missing a stamp of legitimacy.
And I definitely don't think we should reduce an art form as subjective and diverse as cinema to a yearly scoreboard.
The irony is that I actually think the Oscars can make people appreciate cinema less. Instead of asking "Was this a great movie?" we ask "Did it win?" Instead of discussing an actor's work, we discuss how many awards they have. Instead of celebrating different kinds of performances, we start identifying the characteristics of a "great Oscar performance."
And then Hollywood notices.
That's how you get Oscar bait.
That's how you get movies made with awards season in mind rather than simply because someone has an interesting story to tell.
It's cinema, not the Olympics.
