The awards season is back and gone again.
Industry watchers and critics got ready to reward the best of the best in cinema. The two most prestigious, and popular award shows are the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. I love to watch the ceremonies, for me it’s really interesting to observe the different nominations and the winners.
I’ve watched maybe the last ten ceremonies and have noticed that sometimes the winners seem to get the award because they make a political or social statement and not precisely on account of the craftsmanship of the film.
Is it fair that a movie should get the award just because it makes a statement? Of course this is not always the case, but if the Academy and the Foreign Press like making statements so much, why don’t they offer an award for the movie with the most relevant social message?
My favorite example is the case of Avatar and The Hurt Locker. Avatar won the Golden Globe for Best Picture, but Hurt Locker won the Academy Award for the same category. Locker was a fine movie but it was (disputably) not the best one nominated that year. Avatar was not only a great movie, is a movie that changed modern moviemaking.
So why did Hurt Locker win? I’m sure it wasn’t just so James Cameron’s ex-wife could rub the Oscar in his face. Is it possible then that the movie won to make a point? The award went to a film whose only relevant aspect is that it offers a popular, progressive and liberal position on the way war is viewed by society.
Another example is Slumdog Millionaire which tried it’s best to making the statement of saying that middle-eastern people “are people too”, this years Academy Award winner to best animated picture, Rango, or last year’s Golden Globe winner The Kids Are All Right, which makes a point in favor of families with gay parents (at a time where bullying against homosexuals was raging).
Don’t think for a second that I believe any of those causes to be wrong, but I just don’t think is fair for a movie to win solely because it fits a political agenda.
So when you make your Oscar predictions, read a little bit between the lines, If we’re lucky we will get a great show and a worthy winner, a winner that offers an example of the true art that is making a film.
