On Sunday, ABC aired a reality special. It was three hours and twenty minutes long, and they announced the winner in the first ten minutes. Then they announced the winner a few minutes later. Then they announced the winner again, and again, and again. Oddly enough, nobody I know found the show particularly enjoyable.
The show, of course, was called “the Oscars.”

Sunday night’s broadcast has received widespread acclaim as one of the dullest in years. Since this particular snooze-a-rama was accompanied by a 32% uptick in viewers, the Academy might not be at its most receptive for suggestions for changes. But that 32% represents an increase over last year’s all-time low, and it comes from two factors: ABC’s clever and constant hyping of the event, and the fact that people care more about Lord Of The Rings than they did about last year’s bunch of nominations. After last night’s surprise-free run, I don’t think a lot of those new viewers are going to be back next year.
Fortunately, I’ve come up with two simple steps to fix the Oscars.
First, I’d like to see the Academy announce that it will donate $10,000 to charity for each award category–but for each person thanked in a given speech, the donation will drop by $1000. The amount remaining for charity would be displayed in a little onscreen box, steadily ticking down as the winner blathered on, so that the whole world could know how much money any given star was willing to snatch from the mouths of hungry children just so he could thank his accountant’s first cousin.
I’m guessing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences is going to consider that beneath its dignity. Still, there is one thing they can do to advance not only the award show’s ratings, but the art of motion pictures–which is, after all, the point.
Simply put, AMPAS must change its voting rules. Currently, nominations are determined strictly by the relevant branches. That is, the nominees for Best Actor are selected by actors, for Best Makeup by makeup artists, and so forth. Only the Best Picture nominations are selected by an Academy-wide vote.
Strangely, though, when the time comes to select the winner, it suddenly becomes a free-for-all. Actors can vote for Best Art Direction, art directors can vote for Best Screenplay, screenwriters can vote for Best Sound, and so on ad infinitum.
It’ hard to understand the logic of this, but it’s not hard to predict the results. Subtlety might be rewarded with a nomination, but when the awards are handed out, they go to the nominees who are most noticeable to the untrained eye. The convincingly dirty and bruised sailors of Master & Commander: Far Side Of the World might nab a makeup nomination, for example, because a makeup artist can appreciate how hard it was to get them right–but because they were so convincing, nobody else is likely to notice that they were even made up. Instead, it’s the behorned and snaggletoothed monsters of Return Of The King who are going to take home the award. Similarly, sound mixers appreciated the subtle sonic world of Seabiscuit enough to nominate it–but the vastly louder Return of the King actually won.
That’s the artistic argument for changing the Oscar rules. The economic argument is when everybody votes for every category, the same films tend to win again and again. Blowouts make for bad TV, and bad TV makes for bad ratings. By the time Return of the King had taken home trophies in the first five categories it was nominated for, it was obvious that it was going to win Best Picture. Varying the voting pool for each category would make likely vary the winners as well–and that would keep the audience guessing.
Now, I’m not a sound editor or a visual effects technician, so I really can;t tell you if Return of the King deserved to take home those statues. As a writer, though, I can assure you that City of God, Mystic River,and American Splendor were vastly more deserving of Best Adapted Screenplay. No doubt Return Of The King deserved some of its 11 awards; perhaps it even deserved most of them. But when a single film is unbeaten in every category in which it’s nominated, it starts to look as though many Academy members are just voting for Best Picture in 11 different categories.
That’s why the Academy ought to run the final voting the same way it does the nominations. Let the actors determine the best performances, and the sound editors the best sound editing. The result will be an Oscars show that is more entertaining and more edifying.