For some inexplicable reason, criticism – actual criticism – has mostly vanished in the mainstream when it comes to the Oscars. It seems as though the only prominent critic of the Oscars who remains unafraid of Twitter is Bill Maher.
This has only gotten worse in the past four years as we’ve become more and more sucked into a climate of fear than we ever have been since probably the 1950s. Most people understand there is a problem with the Oscars. Depending on their politics and their agenda, their answers for fixing them will vary.
But Bill Maher did not get the memo is that criticizing the Oscars is not really done in the mainstream and he seems to be frequently doing so. He says what he thinks, Twitter gets mad and everyone goes back to their corner. It has gone on this way for a few months, though it doesn’t appear to me that anyone in the industry plans on changing anything. I imagine they want to be thought of as good people and that continues to supersede everything else.
Back in April, the Wall Street Journal noticed Bill Maher’s criticism and compiled this video, which, at least in my experience, seems to echo what almost everyone I talk to outside the bubble of Film Twitter, thinks about the Oscars now. And this is true across the board. The Oscars have never been as insular as they are right now.
Naming the problem is difficult but not impossible. Bill Maher’s main criticisms vary between saying they only nominate downer movies, or obscure movies, or movies about themselves. He thinks they’ve “gone woke,” like almost everything else, and that is a problem.
In the past, there would be stories everywhere about the problem the Oscars now have in terms of attracting audiences to their show and to the movies they honor. It’s been this way for a while now, where the Oscars are in danger of becoming like the Tonys – an awards show that confuses anyone not inside that particular industry bubble.
Three years ago, Neil Patrick Harris named the problem as both the Oscars being just one in a long series of awards that exhausts audiences by the end, and the problem of ten nominees. He suggests splitting up Best Picture into two categories – Blockbuster and independent.
Bill Maher seems to be particularly invested in “fixing” the Oscars. Or at least he can plainly see the problem with them. Or at least he has the courage to speak out against the status quo, which is not easy to do. That has made him a target of Film and Oscar twitter, where the reaction to his criticisms is outrage and disgust.
But problems can’t solve themselves. Without people willing to discuss problems that are plainly visible to any person with a thinking brain who isn’t part of Twitter, we can’t even name the problem, let alone solve it.
Here are all of Bill Maher’s Oscar videos:
And here are the Oscar Experts criticizing Bill Maher:
If the ultimate goal is to make the Oscars more populist and less insular the best way to get there is for the entire industry that covers the Oscars to broaden their perspective of what an “Oscar movie” actually is. What does that mean now, in 2021? What is the future of the awards?
If the ultimate goal is to boost the ratings I think they should avoid politics at all costs. AT ALL COSTS. But if the goal is to do nothing, to simply treat the Oscars as you would the passengers in First Class. They are treated differently and most ignored by those in Coach.
The truth is, I don’t know how to solve the problem of the Oscars. I just know that in my tiny corner of the universe it is still important to at least try to tell some kind of honest truth about what is happening.
So what do you think? Is there a problem? Can that problem be solved? Does anyone care what Bill Maher thinks?
There are great movie years, and not so great – 2020 was a so-so. For me, scrolling through the decades puts things in perspective, and NO: Oscars have never been politically correct or woke, nor will they with a diverse voting body of thousands of filmmakers who dont care about Twitter as much as Sasha does. It’s about elaborated entertainment, that’s why we’re all here, so let’s have some fun.
Stop rewarding political films that have sprouted in the crazy leftist woke era? Are you seriously an Oscar expert? Political films have always had their day in the spotlight at the Oscars for decades. Reds, All the President’s Men, An Inconvenient Truth, All the King’s Men, Bowling for Columbine, Milk, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Do the Right Thing, Gandhi, The China Syndrome, JFK, Nixon, Platoon, The Manchurian Candidate, The Candidate, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the list goes on and on.
And don’t get me started on this diatribe about WOKE films. I don’t know if films can get any more woke (and frankly, any more undeserving) than Crash or Dances with Wolves.
For gawd’s sake, Donald Trump’s party thinks PARASITE won because Hollywood was too woke and unpatriotic! And MOONLIGHT won because Hollywood was so woke and desperate to reward a “black” film in the #Oscarsowhite era. That in itself should be a red flag for you about the people who coined the word WOKE to attack their political enemies when they themselves are PROPAGANDIST claptrap determined to steamroll anyone who disagrees with their agenda.
Finally, Bill Maher also thinks the CON-men on the right are a bunch of disgusting hypocrites who hate on cancel culture while being the biggest culprits of cancel culture themselves. I guess I agree with your bit about him at least having some good sense to speak his mind.
Seriously, the best solution instead of a “Best Popular Film” category is to establish an Academy Honorable Mention category. Its nominees would consist of the 5 (or 10 or 5—10 sliding scale?) runners-up to the Best Picture category. Moreover, to ensure that it isn’t used as a “consolation prize” for not getting nominated for Best Picture, nominees also cannot have any other Oscar nominations.
So far, I’ve seen two films that may end up in my Top 10 in a normal year. – excited for many more, of course.
Pig: For sure my favorite so far. Perfect? No. A bit heavy in some of the dialogue – but a film that’s made me think long after.
Stillwater: Agreed with critics that it sometimes is a bit forced when taking some plot requirements. But the character work in the first 2/3rds is so good. As well as the last scene. Damon is great. But please give an award to Camille Cottin. She’s stellar.
Looking forward to seeing The Green Knight, but especially Nine Days, this weekend.
I too quite liked Stillwater, but the fact that the marketing used Amanda Knox’s name and the existence of Knox’s resulting Twitter thread will keep me from showering praise for it. The film undeniably does reawaken people’s misconceptions about the real-life affair that inspired it, unlike how I, Tonya was able to comedically undermine people’s misconceptions about the assault on Nancy Kerrigan.
Great article! Hollywood and the mainstream media have to acknowledge at some point that Twitter is not real life. Ironic because just like grown adults in film playing pretend Twitter and Instagram is just a fake avatar of themselves.
I can’t stop laughing at anybody saying Bill Maher has got “courage” lol
Courage is people like us that are not scared to speak out our true feelings on a site that is famous for banning and blocking people like us…. the way Sasha blocked me on Twitter for asking a simple question, I was hoping to converse with her about, but all I got was an insult thrown in my face and got blocked.
I really dislike the idea of having a Best Picture for blockbuster and independent. I know that was a small part of the piece. Really I just wanted to say thank you to people who offered well wishes while my mom was very ill. After 56 days, 37 of those in a coma, she finally leaves the hospital today for a rehab facility to strengthen her legs, arms, etc. Looking forward to more normal times and talking Oscars with all of you this season. I am most excited about House of Gucci this year.
your comment is the only good/great news on the internet today, thank you for bringing it here to share, and I am real happy to hear your mom is okay, it must have been 56 days of nightmare that is now over. I tried to recognize your avatar but it would not click in my head though I feel like I should know, I googled and found it and now I like you even more. Julie I will watch for your comments, you obviously are smart and sensitive with good taste! thank you again for uplifting news about your mom. You and your mom can go see House of Gucci together!!! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb08e0e83292a40fda2a927a5704fedddfc43f8d8f651c4db9a594962ae24d5c.jpg
Hi there. I am a big fan of old Hollywood. In fact, I went to James Dean and Ava Gardner museums in Indiana and North Carolina respectively. My top 10 actresses are the big four in terms of talent-Kate Hepburn, Bette Davis, ingrid Bergman, and Barbara Stanywyck, followed by my two loves Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner, and the two myths of cinema, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. I said myths instead of legends because I heard that Liz Taylor was mad that Marilyn Monroe was called a myth and she was just a “lousy legend.” After that, it’d have to be the NYC girls Hayworth and Hayward. I love reading biographies of Hollywood stars.
Thanks for your awesome comment. I appreciate your kind words. I have 6 or 7 Grace Kelly biographies and have watched all 11 of her movies and the doc she collaborated with Dornhelm on, “Children of Theatre Street.” I’m blabbing, sorry, but it’s fun to be able to be home and hang out, having some normalcy.
I liked Call Me By Your Name a lot and enjoy listening to two of the Sufjan Stevens songs from the film, Mystery of Love and Visions of Gideon.
I’d be interested in a poll- does ANYONE come to this site to read endless right wing cancel culture rubbish? Sasha doing a brilliant job alienating the vast majority of her readers here I’d suggest
Well, we’re all here. They get the clicks either way.
I’m mostly here for the mutiny. And holding out hopes that this has been some overly elaborate performance art piece for a book or something.
It’s more likely that it’s a cynical attempt to keep traffic going during the off season. The mutiny is profitable for the site.
Her staffers deserve to be paid especially given the last year or so
I am here for Oscar/Awards talk, Movie opinions and because I’ve enjoyed this site and the editors for many years. I either read or not read articles like this. I almost never post on them because I am interested in Oscar/Awards talk and Movie opinions.
I pretend like the comments are the real articles and somebody with monogram of SS keeps trying to hijack our love of movies by yelling at us about twitter every other day.
long time ago I signed up on twitter but nobody ever talked to me on there, it was therefore no fun, and the one time I tried to say something to her to Sasha on there she got mad at my reply and she insulted me and she blocked me, and that’s all I know about twitter and it’s all I ever want to know.
I only get on Twitter to read “Big Brother” updates. (a reality tv show that I love) Sometimes it’s good for breaking news.
I really don’t get what Maher is talking about. Is Nomadland more of a “downer” than Citizen Kane, On The Waterfront, Midnight Cowboy, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Deer Hunter, Ordinary People, Platoon, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, or Million Dollar Baby? Of course not. Should the Academy not have celebrated those films?
Most of the movies nominated for BP in 2019 did well at the box office. There were no successful box office movies to nominate in 2020 because of the pandemic. The WSJ and Bill Maher both know this, they’re just looking for an excuse to criticize people they don’t like. Yawn.
I have a couple of issues with you saying that they should “avoid politics at all costs”. For one thing, you praised Tyler Perry for talking politics at the most recent Oscar ceremony. It seems like when you say “avoid politics”, you actually mean “avoid politics that people I don’t like agree with”.
But more importantly, how can art and artists possibly avoid politics? How can you have a healthy film industry if it can’t make films like Casablanca, In The Heat Of The Night, Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, All The President’s Men, The Defiant Ones, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Selma, To Kill A Mockingbird, etc., or can’t celebrate making them?
You keep saying that art needs to be bold and tell the truth. How can you reconcile that with a command to never say anything conservatives don’t feel like hearing or discuss any topics they don’t like to talk about? It’s a contradiction.
Hearing artists/athletes/etc. express views I disagree with does not in any way prevent me from enjoying their work, because I’m an adult and I have made peace with the idea that there are people in the world who don’t think like I do, and sometimes they get a bigger platform than me. If a person would rather complain about how terrible it is that they have to hear opinions they don’t like instead of just enjoying movies and awards, that’s up to them. Trying to pander to them won’t accomplish anything; nothing reasonable will satisfy them.
There are twice as many stories on this site about Bill Maher and Ben Shapiro than there are about Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve. ……….”Bill Maher has courage” ? lmfao, Bill Maher gets paid a million $ per week to be a douche, that’s not courage.
Twitter is meaningless here. Oscars – as previously known – are basically dead, sorry. Oscar blogging is the new travel agent. Deal with it. If anyone thinks that giving The Suicide Squad a BP Oscar is the answer is completely delusional. But this is the site of total paranoia and delusion at this point.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d5d18944652355ab32b887c8d9666a578200bd425aa66f0cd3e77707f93ae439.jpg
The irony of this is that Sasha’s favorite movie of the year, Mank (which I adored btw), is the singularly least accessible, most insular movie (even counting Roma) to be nominated for Best Picture since, like, The Tree of Life, and even then probably more so. Go read your buddy’s opinions over at the National Review:
Ooh! I like baseball movies!
And you didn’t even mention the socialism. Right wing media would have had a field day if Mank had won.
indeed, it was beautifully leftist
So glad Wank went nowhere near any major awards. What a pretentious load of crap
Nope.
Lol don’t get me wrong, I love Mank, think it’s genuinely beautiful and brilliant. But I do think it’s funny that there were insinuations/predictions that Mank would get shut out by the “woke Oscars” because it was about a white man, directed by a white man (I could be entirely wrong – if so, apologies – but I do kind of remember this idea being brought up by Sasha); “film twitter” didn’t hate Mank because it was about a white man directed by a white man, but because it’s god-damn near incomprehensible. My roommates had a small viewing party, entirely populated by movie-liking grad students (so, basically, the type of people who would agree to have a movie-night-in watching MANK, of all movies, with their friends), and no one understood a single damn thing that was going on. It’s completely esoteric if you haven’t seen Kane, and even if then, unless you’re watching them back-to-back or unless you’re one of the 80 people on the planet who watches Kane every other month, five percent of the population of which is just Sasha and Ryan, it’s going to be difficult to appreciate, and even if you do understand the movie, it’s going to be difficult to care about the story, and even then, it will probably need several viewings (like I had to give it) to enjoy it. And in the end, not everyone will like it even then (and that’s totally fine).
Artistic merits of Mank aside (and I could write many paragraphs discussing its brilliance, even as someone who only watched Citizen Kane in time for Mank), I think it’s funny that the one movie last year Sasha lauded for bravely “telling the truth” (even though that’s actually VERY debatable lol) through art, is the exact type of movie that Maher (or at least people like him) laugh at and ridicule the Oscars for caring about. So then, which is it? Are the Oscars being “brave” for nominating bold, artistic triumphs of truth like Mank despite its total inaccessibility, or are they hopelessly out-of-touch with the average movie-goer for even suggesting Mank might be the best of the year? Are the Oscars succumb to Woke Twitter because they awarded Nomadland BP (which, btw, isn’t exactly a twitter darling, for several “woke” reasons)? Are the Oscars in tune with “Real America” because they gave Green Book BP, or are they voting for brilliant masterpieces like Parasite just to stick the middle finger to Trump and alienate the steak-and-potatoes viewers they apparently loathe so much?
I seriously simply cannot take Maher’s critiques in good faith – what are the chances he even watched a single one of the nominated movies? Probably close to zero; he’s just spouting nonsense that riles up his viewers, like everyone with a big platform does, and he knows that the Oscars are an easy target (LITERALLY the EASIEST target, I can’t even blame him, the whole concept of The Oscars is pretty stupid and even gross when you spend more than four seconds thinking about it), and so he’ll get tons of support. Probably the safest, simplest, easiest thing anyone can do to “criticize” Hollywood and get literally everyone to support you is to critique the Oscars – Maher is far, far, far, far, far, far, FAR from special or “brave” in that respect.
quote – “probably the safest, simplest, easiest thing anyone can do is to “criticize” Hollywood”
this is the truth, look at Trump. he told 100 million of his fans that Hollywood and Oscars sucked and they all followed his orders…. then everybody in moview0rld acts confused as to why cool movies bomb and Oscars ratings tanked.
…..America’s #1 pea-brain leader tells 100 million of his pea-brain army that Hollywood and the Oscars are their enemy, so lets stop being confused about the reason half of Oscar viewers quit watching.
all this story about Bill Maher shows is that he loves to hate the Oscars, it’s fun for him to hate the Oscars, he gets off on it, so who in their right mind thinks he wants the Oscars to change,? what will he bitch about it if the Oscars try to cater to his spoiled desires?
this story is showing us the multiple video evidence that Bill Maher is addicted to hating on the Oscar Night that the rest of us love, so he is the last person in the galaxy that I need advice from.
did everybody forgot what a concern troll is? bill Maher is HBO’s showcase for millionaire concern trolls.
I agree with your general point but about Mank: I never got why it’s supposedly so complicated, the political stuff (which In my opinion is the main thing about the movie, and when the movie really shines) is fairly straightforward, the narrative related to the writing of Citizen Kane deals in pretty basic elements of that movie (it’s been almost five years since I’ve previously seen that movie and I had no problem keeping up) and other than that the references to other movies feel more like exactly that, references. Whatever issues I personally had it when I watched it for the first (and so far only) time had nothing to do with the script, which is actually really solid in my opinion but that Fincher is the wrong match for it
Well, that’s the thing- it’s really not that complicated at all, just difficult to follow, and even more difficult to care about, if you don’t have a significant amount of insider knowledge. You, Ferdinand, are not the best sample – because you’re a brilliant, extremely perceptive, and knowledgeable movie-watcher; plus, even if you’ve only seen Kane once in your life five years ago, correct me if I’m wrong, but you probably already know much more about the major players than the average movie goer – Mayer, Thalberg, and the other Hollywood folks, Marion Davies, etc. To the uninitiated, watching Davies call Hearst “pops” was probably enough to throw the whole movie on its head. It’s less an issue of “complication” than one of esotericism – one does probably need a good dose of inside knowledge to care about the movie, even if the average movie-goer might still be able to appreciate things like the acting, cinematography, and surface-level story of a washed-up man trying to write a screenplay. Even the political stuff isn’t as straightforward as you suggest – to take one example Mank’s ironic, off-the-cuff insinuation to Thalberg that he could simply make propaganda is so subtle, despite being SUCH a pivotal, key moment in the movie, that I’m sure many missed its significance or connection to the events that come after (and it does take a while to get to those events, and the connection isn’t even really spelled out for us). I’m sure many easily mistook Thalberg’s funeral for Mank’s friend’s, who just killed himself the scene before. Plus it isn’t easy to tell when the movie is jumping time (and it doesn’t help that Oldman looks 70 the entire length of the movie). The movie isn’t really complicated, but it does little to zero road-mapping.
I agree that the main appeal of Mank was that I knew a lot about the people like Thalberg and Mayer and appreciated that a movie took the time to delve into people and a movie era that I care a lot about. I am not sure if I would like it as much if I didn’t have that knowledge. My husband doesn’t know the inside baseball stuff, and I don’t think he liked it half as well as I did.
With all the films that pulled out of the 2020 schedule, what did you expect would be left in the competing field? And should the films that took the chance of releasing during the pandemic, why should they be punished for entering the competition? Every year’s field has its own characteristics and/or narratives. It happens, can we stop apologizing for it?
Considering how intensely POINTLESS culture wars are as well as the people who wage them, why is there the assumption that any “populist” fix to the ceremony will make any difference, short of requiring that at least one film is a variation of the title “John Wayne and Jesus kill all the (racial slurs)”. The statue says “Best Achievement” not “Best Blockbuster”. More people buy Big Macs than Chicken Tikka Masala, does that mean that the Big Mac is a superior quality of food? White House Down made TWICE as much money as 12 Years a Slave, so should that mean its more Oscar worthy? Why not, especially if we’re going to engage in utterly superficial binary discussions on this topic?
Trying to manipulate the Oscars into a desired “heartland” result denigrates the prestige of the award and slaps down the notion of artistic excellence in favor of a quixotic effort to please people who never asked you to do so anyway.
Are the Oscars more insular than ever? Absolutely. However, there is no magic trick to return to the past of the Oscars, nominating more popular movies will not necessarily bring people to the Oscars like it would use to since there is no longer a monoculture. If a random Marvel movie wins best picture, that’s probably nice for the people who love those movies but I doubt that it’s that important for them anymore because the internet can validate whatever opinion they have much more strongly than the Oscars ever could and do it much faster. Thus I don’t think it’s wild to actually look for a niche who will genuinely care about these awards and focus on the movies that this niche knows and cares about. Their approach is not really that dissimilar from the approach of this site, Sasha is not chasing mainstream filmgoers or talking about the movies they want to see, she emphasizes the movies she thinks will do well in the Oscar race, the movies that fit her political opinions and the movies that she has a passionate reaction to.
They should’ve nominated The Dark Knight for Best Picture and none of this would be an issue.
No. Its third act was a hot mess and to be perfectly blunt if Ledger hadn’t died, the film wouldn’t have pulled in the coin that it did. Lucky for movie fans, Zack Snyder fans have firmly supplanted Nolan fans as the most insufferable fanboys in the business we call show.
No. Its third act was a hot mess and to be perfectly blunt if Ledger hadn’t died, the film wouldn’t have pulled in the coin that it did. Lucky for movie fans, Zack Snyder fans have firmly supplanted Nolan fans as the most insufferable fanboys in the business we call show.
Nah. Snyder haters and Star Wars fans are the worst.
#RestoreTheSnyderverse
#ReleaseTheAyerCut
#ReleaseTheSchumacherCut
Toxic Fanboyism is a topic that would be cool to read about here maybe after the next 5,000 “Real America hates you” pieces.
As f0f Bill Maher why d0 I have the feeling he’s turning int0 Dennis Miller .
Have him write and direct a movie, then he can slag the industry week after week.