The Oscars are obviously an advertisement and that’s okay

The Academy Awards (and every other mainstream awards show) often draw the ire of those who like to go against what is seen as the norm or popular in our culture. They can’t believe that we have a zero some game of competition between subjective creative works. This is a very appealing view for the contrarian sorts.

But this point of view has often seemed as smug as the elites they think they are bashing. Working in the entertainment business, I really enjoy the Oscars and other award shows. I don’t watch all of them, or follow them every year, but I enjoy the history and mystique that accompanies these major, legacy awards shows.

The view of those who chastise a show like, The Oscars, saying that it’s a bunch of rich entitled liberal types patting each other on the back, to arbitrarily choose the best of in a subjective business. Along with that, the awards aren’t typically given to the ‘best’ but who ever campaigned the best. And all of this is true. To which I say who cares?

Now I don’t say this in the nihilist sense, that nothing in life matters, but in the sense that these ‘problems’ with the Oscars, are actually properly working functions of a greater purpose, and that is the Oscars are an advertisement. They’re an advertisement for the myth of Hollywood glamor and cultural influence, an advertisement for individual creative’s images, and most importantly an advertisement for the movies themselves.

The Oscars started in 1919 as a press conference in the Roosevelt Hotel to award top line categories of the consensus best. It has grown into forum of many masters, subject to their unattainable needs. They ever growing amount of groups, use it as a platform for the agenda they want- social causes, political passions, pagentry of elegance, etc.- which usually results in eveyone disatisfied. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

As the Oscars evolved over the years into the spectacle of the best of what Hollywood has to offer, the purpose of the award show began to change. Winning an Academy Award was the pinnacle of your career and can be used as a calling card for the rest of your life. Oscar winner. Both the individual creative and the movies themselves will always be able to say that.

I think this is great. No one remembers what you won an Oscar for, just that you won an Oscar. Of course through the early decades, there were certain types of films that were in the Oscar mold, that were more mainstream. But in modern times, as the decades wore on, tent pole films were what attracted a large portion of film audiences to the theaters, we now have an outlet to showcase more unconventional or less general audience stories.

Take for example Amadeus. This was a great film, but not a top grossing film of 1984. Without the best picture win, I might not have wanted to see it years later when I was open to watching older films before my time. A classical film about a classical composer, set in aristocratic times was not a movie that normally appeals to my tastes. But being the best picture in the year of my birth, I wanted to check it out. It turned out to be one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

But this doesn’t just have to do with the winners of the awards. Each year there are scores of independent and less heralded films that go under the radar. That is, they would if they weren’t nominated for an Oscar. Just being nominated give a film a slice of public consciousness that would otherwise be unafforded to them.

Would the general public be aware of Moonlight, Lady Bird, Birdman, The English Patient? Why do think there are campaigns to get nominated and to win? Because it increases exposure of your film, that noraml marketing could not deliver, whether it is an indy or a studio picture.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system, or that truly great movies don’t get over looked, but as a mean, it shines a light on films that deserve notice; be it for a dozen different reasons. Let’s not get bogged down in a needless battle to prove your bonafides as purveyor of the independent scene or that you won’t be taken advantage of by society and corporate culture, by bashing The Oscars.

Hollywood is all about show. There is drama in their creative works and in the business itself, which has many flaws. It’s the nature of the beast. And while the Academy Awards are not the final arbiter of what is actually the best in their creative medium, but they are a commemoration of the work as a whole AND of the individual projects that best represent that celebration in a given year.

So if you like movies, like pageantry, and like to get an idea of some of the best works in film overall or in a specific craft, just enjoy the Academy Awards for what they are. An entertaining moment in the year to celebrate all things film.