For nearly a century, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has handed out the Oscars to a selection of films, filmmakers, actors and crew who have, in their view, done exceptional work. The Oscars are the biggest annual event in film. The anticipation around the Oscars is always high; every aspect, from host to presenter to entertainment reported and nominations, is debated with all the zeal of a Presidential campaign. In fact, studios, production houses, filmmakers and actors actively campaign for their triumph: there's a lot of meetings, screenings, and showing up to pitch reasons why they deserve to win.
Every year, every second of the Oscars telecast is picked apart. When the occasional Chris Rock-Will Smith incident crops up, or a star turns up in something truly outre, like Barbra Streisand in her sheer pants suit at the 41st Oscars, the award show decimates the news cycle. At the same time, every year, one layer of the Internet begins to question the relevance of the Oscars. Why does an American institution deserve to be taken seriously in 2023, they ask, at a time when the West is no longer the singular axis around which the entertainment world rotates?
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The Oscars does, in fact, have a long, contentious history; and the Academy’s influence has waned and waxed over decades. Yet, the obvious answer for its endurance as a cornerstone of popular culture is simply that they are the oldest of their kind. The first Oscars were awarded in May 1929, two years after the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences was set up in 1927. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association began giving away Golden Globes in 1944; the first BAFTA were handed out at Odeon Cinema in London’s Leicester Square in 1949.
The Academy was the initiative of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer head Louis B. Mayer. He wanted to create an organisation that would mediate labour disputes without unions and improve the film industry's image. It began at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, with 36 founders and 230 members. The Academy was always an elite institution; guided by the most powerful men in Hollywood. The idea of an awards ceremony began to be taken seriously in the summer of 1928; and it took another year for the appointed committee to cement presentation, voting systems and give away 12 awards.
Prestige is built into that voting system, which is by peer review, not vox-pop. The honour attached with being considered the best by fellow filmmakers and performers is, understandably, unparalleled. Standing at 9,921 professionals from film industries around the world as of 2020, the Academy’s carefully curated member base is its voter base. Which means it is both its main source of power and biggest bone of contention. The Academy’s membership is what they are talking about when they talk about the Oscars’ relevance—and more broadly, of Hollywood’s and cinema’s in general.
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Who gets to decide what the best film or performances of the year are?
First came the generational rift. In a chapter in his book Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat and Tears, journalist and writer Michael Schulman tracks the first winds of change at the Academy to the late 1960s. The great actor Gregory Peck was presiding over the Academy as its president since 1967, and was keenly aware of a new wave in Hollywood: a younger, more radical crop of actors and makers who were as affected by the counterculture and disillusioned by the stifling moral mores being pushed by Hollywood execs in the name of wholesome family entertainment. In 1969, when the smash hit 2001: A Space Odyssey did not receive a best picture nomination from the Academy's 3,000 voting members, the Academy was considered to be on the brink of obsolescence.
Peck shook things up when he, along with the board of governors, decided to lead a purge of that bloated membership: “Anyone who had not been active in the movie industry for seven years would be made an 'associate' member, without an Oscar vote—in other words, put 'out on the icebergs to die'. Secret lists were drawn up; lawyers were consulted,” writes Schulman.
With the help of well-regarded actress Candice Bergen, Peck also sent out invitations to a new league of prospective members: young guns like Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and John Wayne were invited to the inner circle. The change was instantly visible. At the 1969 Oscars, the best picture award went unexpectedly to the X-rated film Midnight Cowboy, winning over heavyweights like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Hello, Dolly!
Nearly half a century later, the Academy came under considerable attack once again, this time on the race and gender stakes. In 2016, #OscarsSoWhite began to trend. Activist and writer April Reign pointed out that, of the 20 actors nominated that year, none were people of colour. It caused widespread criticism, and triggered a second wave of change in the Academy’s voter base, its ranks diversified on gender and ethnicity lines for a more global face. India’s biggest names have enlisted: A.R. Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Guneet Monga, Anurag Kashyap, Manish Malhotra are among that almost 10,000-strong cadre.
Call it appeasement or listening; but more change has been afoot. The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a think tank run out of the University of Southern California (USC), has recently released findings that, in the eight years since the #OscarsSoWhite protests, 17 percent of Oscar nominees are people of colour—that number was 8 percent in the 2008-16 period. In 2020, a little-known film called Parasite won best picture. The Guneet Monga-produced documentary short Period. End of Sentence won big that year as well; and expectations are high for The Elephant Whisperers in the same category this year.
Indian documentaries continue to be recognised at the Oscars, with Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes competing in the same category as Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s Writing With Fire last year. As any film industry insider will tell you, even being on the shortlist of an Oscars award category can do wonders on the ROI front; bringing lesser-known films to theatres or streaming platforms, even if for limited runs.
This is true as much of the Pakistani film Joyland as it is for Sen’s documentary, which will get a wide release on HBO’s streaming platforms. SS Rajamouli’s RRR, meanwhile, doesn’t need a win for “Naatu Naatu”; its wild popularity may have in fact brought it this far ahead in the race. And the outcome of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once, with 11 nominations will be telling.
If winning an Oscar is prestige unparalleled for the film industry, the significance of these awards has certainly shifted for the audience. Where the Oscars may have once defined our cultural diet—pointed to the essential films that we, sitting on the other side of the world, should perhaps look out for—today, they’re assessed on the charts of representation. The question is no longer: Tell us what to watch? It is: Are the Oscars acknowledging that the world has changed; that creative brilliance is not the preserve of white males?
In the end, Michelle Yeoh may or may not take the trophy home; and in either case, pundits will have much to say. And the Oscars will, yet again, be where all conversation begins and ends next week. Not too shabby for a century-old institution.
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