The 94th Academy Awards took place a few days ago, and while viewership was up by 58 percent, it was still the second-worst Oscars of all time in terms of viewership. The question is, though, does that matter? What are the Oscars for, exactly, and who?
This year, the Oscars underwent some new changes. In order to shorten the ceremony and ensure it wasn’t overlong, eight categories were removed from the main telecast and presented before the show. Many thought this was disrespectful to those categories and undermines their work on what is ultimately a collaborative art form. In the end, the Oscars this year were longer than the 2019, 2020, and 2021 ceremonies were, meaning those eight categories were essentially disrespected for nothing. It didn’t shorten the overall length, and several winners were unable to accept their awards live during the ceremony proper.
There were also some new additions this year: the viewer-voted categories of fan favourite and cheery-worthy moment. They were promoted on social media with the hashtags #OscarsCheerMoment and #OscarsFanFavorite, and fans were allowed to send up to 20 submissions per day. Before the ceremony even took place, these additions were criticised for being too populist and a desperate attempt to recoup some viewership, and with the benefit of hindsight… those criticisms ring painfully true. The eventual winners of the competition were Army of the Dead for Fan Favourite, and the Cheer Moment winner was The Flash Enters the Speed Force from Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021). Both of those films were made by Zack Snyder, because in the end, allowing the general public to vote on films meant that the person with the most devoted online fan base would win. (And of course that is Zack Snyder, whose fans campaigned for his cut of Justice League so much that it was eventually released with its behemoth 4-hour runtime intact.)
All of these changes and additions are an attempt by the Academy to be more populist, appeal to a wider audience, and ultimately, increase viewership. The main question is why? If they want to be the most prestigious awards ceremony in the world, they are never going to appeal to a mass audience. They would have to recognise international and arthouse films far more than they currently do, and most people would not be interested in seeing that. If they want to be populist and attract large amounts of viewers, they have to accept that they will lose some of the prestige surrounding the Academy Awards. Shoehorning new categories in purely for the sake of recognising the biggest superhero films of the past year and pleasing their fans is a surefire way to lose prestige and the industry’s respect. The Academy, as it stands, are trying to be both populist and prestigious, and in trying to do so, they are neither. They are a middle-of-the-road, inoffensive, banal awards ceremony that, most of the time, fail to recognise the best films of the year (which is practically their only job), and fail to provide entertainment while attempting it.
The Academy needs to figure out who their target audience is. They cannot appeal to the entire planet, and in trying to do so, they appeal to nobody. In their current state, they feel populist and tacky without any of the viewership that a populist show should have. The decisions the Academy have been making to solve their identity crisis have all been steps in the wrong direction, and if they continue down this path, the Academy Awards will, sooner or later, be more akin to the MTV Movie Awards than the prestigious awards ceremony they want to be.
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