So we recently had the 73rd Golden Globe Award, and the nominees for the 88th Academy Awards were also announced. As usual the general public had the typical broad reactions to both events that you hear about every year. The first is about the supposed relevance to how the Golden Globe determines who will win at the Oscars, and the second is how the Academy Awards still don't seem to cater to a wide audience.
First off, you shouldn't take the Golden Globe seriously. This is an awards show that is determined by 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is an organization of journalists and photographers that reports about the US entertainment industry to international markets. These are voters who don't even make movies, and have been known to give awards to studios who essentially bribes them by treating them out to luxurious meetings.
The HFPA may try to make respectable choices, but their decisions are always suspect. As far as whether the winners for the Golden Globe influences the Oscars, well apparently Academy Awards voters had to turn in their votes before the day of the Golden Globe Awards anyway. So there's no significant influence there. But if the studios are trying to sway Golden Globe voters to go one direction, you know they will try to convince the MPAA voters of the same things.
Now it's true that it seems like the Academy Awards always seem to nominate what many people call "Oscar bait films," but I think it undercuts the cinematic value of the films nominated. The voting body of the Motion Picture Association Of America may have an average age of about 60+ something year olds, and are predominantly Caucasian, which does question why they would choose certain movies over others. However it's important to know that these voters are at least film makers in one way or the other, in at least one point in time of their career. So all the nominees were voted by their peers, which is how respectable awards should go.
I myself have seen all 8 films that are nominated for Best Picture of the Year, and I don't necessarily disagree with them on why the MPAA chose those movies. Remember that they nominate films that are suppose to be well made and elevate the art of story telling via a moving picture format. It can be easily argued that each of those movies actually fits that description, more so than other films. Look at the highest grossing films of 2015, and honestly think about whether some of those deserves to truly replace the nominees (maybe 3-5 of them could). If all the people criticizing the Academy just wanted "popular" movies, then they are looking at the wrong awards show. There's the People's Choice Awards for that, and just take a look at who won there.
Albert Patrick
- movie reviewer and podcaster -
http://whowhatwhereswhy.com
P.S. As I said on the final episode of the "Movies, Movies, and Movies" podcast, I will start doing my opinion pieces in either a written format (like this exact entry), or in an audio format over at the Stuff & Junk show (keep an eye for that).
