by The 82nd Academy Awards are coming up on Sunday. Here’s a fantastic chart that shows how much money is re-earned for a movie after winning the Best Picture Oscar.
Let there be no doubt the Academy Awards are not about rewarding excellence in movie making at all — and never were — the Oscars are only all about making money and helping out the “most deserving” movie by giving it a bump at the box office.
Sometimes you cannot avoid giving Best Picture to the biggest money maker but, more often than not, the Best Picture award goes to a dark horse or an underdog because spreading the award wealth must trickle down to soak in a wider swath of tastes and interests. Surprise is good for business.
Remember — Hollywood is ShowBUSINESS — not ShowSHOW — so, the cunning want to make money by “winning” an award is all part of the process of promotion and manipulation that now marks our society as a shell for shilling and selling rather than one that honors creativity and genuine talent. Don’t be too obvious or honest or desperate about this, or the Academy might very well ban you for the indiscretion.
We have always prized the award over the artist and the honor over the
intention — and in that reversal of appropriate adoration, we can begin
to understand the why behind the dearth of real creativity and the
awful death of the aesthetic as a profession.
I have read that in 1978, it was widely assumed that Star Wars would win Best Picture and people were shocked — shocked! when Annie Hall won instead. Woody Allen made fun of award shows in the film, too — and that made it even more amusing.
Woody Allen never even attended an Academy Award ceremony (he played clarinet on Monday nights, traditionally when the award ceremony was held) until 2002 and that was just in honor of New York after the World Trade Center attacks.
Awards are fascinating. They’re usually invented by people who want to give themselves an award and then, if they’re lucky, it expands from there.
I think it’s funny how the first time award ceremonies say, “First Annual…” when there was never one before. You can only have a “Second Annual…” a first is always the first and you can’t predict forward that there will be a second.