Oscars 2024 – Best Picture Must Tell THE Story

Every Oscar year tells a story. It is a tragedy that the story is no longer an inclusive one. It’s inclusive in terms of gender, race, etc. but it is exclusive in terms of ideology. The Story of every Oscar year used to go something like this. The movie studios would produce films for the public. The films would open to the public. They would either be a hit or a flop. If they were a hit, they would be in consideration for the Oscars.  That wouldn’t be the only consideration, but it mattered for nearly all of the 96 years of Oscar history.

In fact, if you go back through the years, as I have already done, you’ll find that the Best Picture winners are usually in the number one or number two spot at the box office. If not, they’d usually be in the top ten – and occasionally in the top 20. It was unheard for a frontrunner to win Best Picture that wasn’t a hit with the public.

The Best Picture prize is meant for the producer, the mastermind behind the collaborative effort that brought together all of the best people working in film. They were all celebrated in different disciplines – the writers, the directors, the cinematographers, the editors — all had expertise in their individual areas. Bringing together a dream team for an epic motion picture in the old days usually mean that movie would be rewarded at the box office and then collect the gold statues for their success.

Right around the 1970s, however, this began to shift. Jaws became the first blockbuster in 1975, and though it was nominated for Best Picture, it wasn’t exactly the kind of movie that could WIN Best Picture, at least not back then. But it did change the game and put Hollywood on the path of no return.

If you are an optimist, you see things having changed for the better. You love the movies that dominate the Oscars. If you are cynic, you think it never got better than The Godfather 2. That was the peak for Hollywood and the Oscars. It’s been downhill ever since.

The movie that did win in 1975 was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That was an actor-driven film, not an effects-driven film. Actors dominated the Academy since its inception. Here was the box office for 1975:

Jaws
Cuckoo’s Nest
Shampoo
Dog Day Afternoon
The Return of the Pink Panther
Three Days of the Condor
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Funny Lady
The Other Side of the Mountain
Tommy

And Best Picture that year:

Cuckoo’s Nest
Barry Lyndon
Dog Day Afternoon
Jaws
Nashville

The impact of Jaws would not be felt until the1980s, when movies that topped the box office would only do so after they won Oscars. The profit model flipped. In 1976, Rocky topped the box office and won Best Picture. All of the other nominees, except Bound for Glory, were in the top twenty.

The following year, 1977, Annie Hall won Best Picture but it was number 12 on the box office chart, where Star Wars was at teh top, along with Close Encounters of the First Kind – what a time to be alive, huh?

As the blockbusters transformed Hollywood and the movie going experience, the Oscars tried to keep up. They’d nominate Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. The Best Picture winners wouldn’t be flops, by any means, they just wouldn’t and couldn’t defeat the blockbusters for the top spot.

Through the 1980s and into the early 1990s we saw hits like Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy and Dances with Wolves. The English Patient was probably among the least profitable films to win, but by then, there was a new breed of “Oscar movie” in the game, the INDEPENDENT film, thanks in large part to the Harvey Weinstein machine.

Heading into the 2000s, the Best Picture was usually hitting number 10 on the box office chart because the Oscar game was in transition once again. The rise of the internet meant people like me started talking about the films in play. It wasn’t just about box office success anymore or FYC ads. Now, there was the chattering class going on and on about what movies SHOULD win and why.

Million Dollar Baby, for instance, didn’t need box office to sell itself as the Best Picture of the Year. It was part of THE STORY of that year. What was the story? The story was Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and why this was the movie the Academy was supposed to award. There was just one problem. They didn’t like that movie. They were looking for an alternative, and Clint Eastwood provided it.

The same thing played out the following year, when voters were supposed to pick Brokeback Mountain but they went rogue and picked Crash, which was not that well reviewed and landed all the way down at #49.

But the thing was, by then, the Oscar blogging industry has exploded. The New York Times had an Oscar blogger (my good friend David Carr). The Academy was now part of a different kind of conversation, a chattering pundit class that openly debated which film should win.

Right around 2003 and 2004, two things happened. The Academy pushed its date back by one month, and franchise blockbusters began making more money for Hollywood studios than they could ever dream of. The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter franchises represented yet another adaptation of theatrical films that eventually would transform the entire industry into an IP-driven fantasy/superhero movie factory.

Both of these events, which happened at the same time, did to the Oscars what building the interstate did to Bates Motel. They essentially became mostly irrelevant to the public at large, especially since they couldn’t possibly participate in what Hollywood had now become. They had to carve out their own niche.

As the Oscar industry and film overall began to merge with the rising social justice movement online, it was only a matter of time before the Oscars became less about what used to matter — pleasing the public at large — and more about tinkering with a utopian diorama that sought to make the world a better place.

So when we talk about the Oscar Story now, we aren’t talking about “I loved Gladiator, I hope it wins Best Picture.” We’re talking about something different. We’re talking about what kind of movie has resonance inside the utopian diorama the industry has become.

Think about it like this. What movie do you think would resonate in an Amish community? Or in Scientology? You have to imagine a bubble that has essentially decoupled from from the broader experience. What has resonance inside of it and why?

Several major factors compounded the problem – the hysteria over Trump’s presidency, the rise of “cancel culture,” the COVID pandemic and now, a potential third world war. The bubble is a specific kind of reality that doesn’t necessarily match the reality of the world outside of it, or especially the United States outside of it.

The films that have won Best Picture recently are mostly head-scratchers. Most people know as much about them as they do about, say, why a certain belt is different from another belt and that choosing it makes a statement. This is, more or less, what the Oscars have become if you color it with social justice ideology:

Films that win Best Picture are likely to show up on Barack Obama’s list at year’s end, but are movies that probably have almost zero resonance to anyone outside of the insulated, isolated utopia of today’s American Left.

The Devil Wears Prada, for instance, isn’t a movie that could be made today because Hollywood doesn’t so much tell universal stories as it tells aspirational ones — what kind of world would we have if we could have everything we wanted? If we could leave no marginalized person behind? If we didn’t offend a single person (except Trump supporters — it’s open season on them)?

I was watching Mean Girls the other day and recognized in it the seeds of what Hollywood has become today. The film scolds the mean girls and deconstructs the power hierarchy (pretty blondes at the top), and then at the end, makes the case that everyone should have a piece of the crown and we should all get to feel pretty.

The difference between then and now is that in Mean Girls, there was a “fat girl” and a woman in a wheelchair. No one attempted to deny the reality of where they sat in the power hierarchy. Lindsay Lohan praises both of them at the end, telling them they look pretty. It is a heartwarming, beautiful moment that only exists if we accept the reality of the hierarchy.

Compare that to say, Barbie, which insists that there can be no and is no power hierarchy. Barbie herself must be “stereotypical Barbie” and every kind of person is represented as equally appealing. If you don’t go along with that, there is something wrong with you. In other words, Hollywood now has found a way to subvert reality and cosplay a fantasy of what an idealized utopian America would look like.

All of this to say that this year, like last year, like next year will be about that story, THE story, the story the film industry must tell itself about who they are, what they represent and what kind of reality they want to reflect.

So how do the films up for Best Picture this year fit into that? When you pick one, ask yourself what story does that movie tell about Hollywood? About the Oscars? What would its win say about the state of the industry? It won’t land in Best Picture unless enough people believe it is the best film of the year.

Which film most reflects the industry right now? Which film will rally the actors to leap to their feet and applaud wildly? Every big win will add another chapter to that story. Does the DGA Best Director win feel important enough? Does the Producers Guild win feel like the right movie for right now?

Have they moved past the idea that only films rooted in identity can win? Do they still think box office matters? Are they still looking to make history? Do they still sweat the streamers? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Right now, the win seems to be down to: Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, and American Fiction, with Poor Things and Maestro nipping at their heels. I imagine the one that pulls ahead will be the one that tells the best story about how the industry sees itself and what message it wants to send in 2023.