Are the Oscars Still Culturally Relevant in a Demystified Hollywood?

After the disastrous 93rd Academy Awards, it’s time for the Oscars to stop apologizing for what they are and fully embrace their true identity and help restore the myth of the motion picture industry.

The 93rd Academy Awards should have been canceled. If there was a year in which audiences would understand that decision, it would certainly be this year. More pressing concerns pushed movies to the wayside and diminished any and all appeal the Oscars would normally have. Even a cinephile such as myself was unaware of the impending ceremony. Maybe it’s because instead of holding it in early February or March, the Academy pushed the Oscars to April 25th, the latest the ceremony has been held since 1932.

Often dominating the zeitgeist in the lead-up to the show, the Oscars were culturally absent this year. Regardless, the show went on. Was this extreme dedication or great hubris? The results were laid bare Monday morning when the ratings came in. Second to only the Super Bowl, the Oscars are an annual surefire ratings winner. Not this year. Sunday’s telecast of the Oscars drew a paltry 10.4 million viewers, a 58 percent drop from a year ago, and became the lowest-rated show in Oscars history.

Many expected the ratings for this year’s Oscars to be low, but not this low. Was the decline in viewership due to the public being concerned about more immediate concerns like the pandemic? Was it an indifferent public deprived of the moviegoing experience for more than a year? Was it the dour nature of this year’s mostly independent nominees? Was it the increasing politicization of the ceremony in recent years? Or was it just a simple failure of the Academy’s marketing of the Oscars? Whatever the reasons, the post-mortem analysis of the Oscars has just begun.

The collapse of this year’s Oscars might be a blip. Or it could be a troubling sign of the show’s declining popularity. The trends seem to suggest the latter, with some fearing the Oscars are headed down the alarming path to cultural insolvency.

One thing is certain: The Oscars are in dire need of course correction, if not a complete overhaul. This is especially true if the show wants to preserve its identity and relevancy amid a world that is slowly becoming aloof from the cinematic experience and a culture that has fractured the fabled façade of what Hollywood used to be.

You didn’t know you were watching the Oscars this year unless if somebody told you. This year’s show was a subdued affair due to the ongoing pandemic. The show was somber and reserved and without the usual glitz, glamour, and grandeur. The Oscars were held at Los Angeles’ famed Union Station instead of its usual home, The Dolby Theatre in the heart of Hollywood.

Right off the bat, the most unsettling aspect of this year’s Oscars was the overall absence of any appreciation for cinema. Union Station is an iconic location featured in many films, a fact that was lost by viewers at home. A simple montage celebrating the many movies – from The Way We Were to The Dark Knight Rises – that were filmed at the location could have helped remind people of Union Station’s place in Hollywood history.

But like the rest of the show, any appreciation for cinema was nonexistent. This disregard was evident when the “In Memoriam” segment sped through the many icons and film industry professionals who passed away last year. Blink and you’d miss their tributes. Literally. Were icons like Sean Connery and Chadwick Boseman not popular enough to warrant more than four seconds of respect at the Oscars? Do movie stars still exist, and if they do, does anyone care about them anymore?

The world has redefined the traditional concepts of fame and celebrity. The many social media platforms that are now available allow everyone the opportunity to present themselves to the world in more ways than one. The more likes, shares, and followers a person gets, the bigger the intoxicating feeling of importance and fame.

What was once the unattainable goal of celebrity that only a handful of dreamers would achieve is now falsely observed by millions the world over. Now everyone is their own movie star in their own insulated version of Hollywood.

It’s no wonder younger audiences aren’t interested in the Oscars anymore. The show has seen a precipitous decline in viewership from the much hallowed 18-49 age group coveted by advertisers; this year saw a dramatic 60 percent drop in viewership compared to last year. With the path to fame and celebrity democratized through the ease of social media virality, the aura of celebrity and the myth of Hollywood have been demystified by a younger generation taken by their own online stardom. If everyone is a star, then no one is.

When the most memorable moment from this year’s show was Glenn Close’s attempt at twerking, then the Oscars have truly lost their identity and have replaced the power of cinema with the power of memes.

Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made the lone statement in the show about preserving the importance of the moviegoing experience. Not scripted and wholly authentic, McDormand’s statement at the show’s finale was a plea to audiences to one day return to movie theaters and relive that communal experience of watching movies together.

There was a shocking lack of acknowledgment by the Oscars about the state of the exhibition industry. There wasn’t even a mention of the closing of ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatre’s iconic Cinerama Dome. With the exhibition industry gradually reopening their theaters after a year of stasis and movie studios slowly buckling under the pressures of streaming, it would have been nice to see some effort from the Academy to echo McDormand’s imploration about keeping the moviegoing experience alive.

The transformation the exhibition industry is undergoing will only worsen the waning mystique of Hollywood. With theatrical windows narrowing and movie studios shifting their focus to streaming, the exhibition industry that emerges from the ruins of the pandemic will be vastly different than before.

With most movie theaters closed since March of 2020 and studios shifting their release dates well into 2021 and beyond, this year’s Oscars had little to work with and tried to adapt by offering a one-time change to allow the show to continue. For the first time, the Academy allowed streaming-only films to be eligible for awards consideration in every category at the Oscars.

But in opening this Pandora’s box, the Academy did something that it will find hard to undo in the years to come. I can already hear the protests by many within the industry, especially streamers, who want to see the Academy adopt the streaming-only eligibility rule permanently. If the Academy does, it will serve an almost irrecuperable setback if not a deathblow to the exhibition industry, which has already seen its share of casualties.

In this time of need for the exhibition industry, the Academy needs to aid in its preservation rather than become a willing accomplice in its death. The Academy would effectively turn the Oscars into a faux Golden Globes by putting streaming-only films on the same pedestal as theatrical releases, entirely shifting the show’s identity.

But recent years have seen a shift in the Oscars identity. The show has become a glum venue for activism, serving as a proxy to help remediate certain societal ills through meaningful and equitable changes to the Academy and its nominating process. However noble these changes, the sloppiness by the Academy about the transformation of the Oscars from a showy awards gala and into a monotonous, work-mandated HR training exercise has been off-putting and alienating for many viewers.

For many, the reason why they watched the Oscars was the very reason they went to the movies – to spend a few hours escaping real-world problems rather than be bombarded by them. However, the audience does have a say in the Oscars’ identity change; their voices are heard loud and clear by the Academy via the show’s declining ratings.

Rather than continue as a platform to voice the concerns of a world off-kilter, many hope the Oscars can return to what they used to be. The Oscars have no other purpose or responsibility than to be an awards gala honoring the best achievements in the motion picture industry. Full stop. It’s time the Oscars stop apologizing for what they are and fully embrace their true identity. In doing so, maybe they can help restore the crumbling myth of Hollywood and the cultural importance of cinema.

If history serves as a guide, the Academy need only look at 1989’s disastrous 61st Academy Awards and their response to it. The show was produced by Broadway and film producer Allan Carr, who was known socially for throwing unconventional and extravagant parties. Carr’s Oscars show was the very definition of cringe and featured dancers dressed as Hollywood Walk of Fame stars, Snow White singing a high-pitched parody of “Proud Mary” with an uncomfortable Rob Lowe, and a geriatric assemblage of stars of yesteryear uncomfortably paraded around on stage by dancers who whisked them away before they had a senior moment.

The show was a garish musical with little to do with movies except for the surface elements. The show was universally panned and ruined Carr’s career. Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Julie Andrews, and 14 other Academy members wrote a scathing letter to the Academy about the horrendous show and its damage to the reputation of the Oscars. The letter read in part: “The 61st Academy Awards show was an embarrassment to both the Academy and the entire motion picture industry. It is neither fitting nor acceptable that the best work in motion pictures be acknowledged in such a demeaning fashion.”

In the wake of the show’s failure, the Academy created the Awards Presentation Review Committee to determine why such a travesty was even allowed to happen and to “figure out why and what [the Academy] should do in the future.” Hopefully, such a committee is created to understand the failure of this year’s show.  

At 2005’s Oscars ceremony, host Chris Rock joked that the Grammys have live singing performances, the Tonys have live theatrical performances, but the Oscars never have any live acting performances. An obvious yet astute observation, the key to salvaging the Oscars is celebrating its filmmaking foundations and the glamour that has always defined Hollywood. The closest the Oscars have come to producing a show like this was back in 2009.

Produced by Bill Condon and hosted by the charismatic Hugh Jackman, The 81st Academy Awards ditched the monotony of what was expected at the Oscars. The show interweaved the many awards into a filmic narrative that gave the ceremony a more engaging flow that celebrated the many wonders of movies. Film critic Roger Ebert enthusiastically praised the show, proclaiming, “It was the best Oscar show I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty.”

It was the best Oscar show I’ve ever seen as well.  Take notes, Academy.

The movie-going experience was lost in 2020 and will be for the early part of 2021. It’ll be interesting to see next year’s Oscars show and its ratings. But the true test for the Oscars will come in 2023 when the world hopefully returns to a semblance of normalcy following the pandemic and resumes its moviegoing ways. We’ll have to wait and see if the Oscars learn their lesson after this year’s disastrous ceremony and become culturally relevant again. This show is far from over.