The 2019-2020 Oscars season needed better headlines

Within an hour of the Oscar nominations the following Monday, The Hollywood Reporter had two stories commenting on the lack of diversity at the Oscars (here, here) and commented on it in a third while highlighting the general theme all day on their blog and Deadline took 75 minutes to indict the Oscars for the same thing. The Daily Show did a piece on it the issue that night and The LA Times released a house editorial that the Oscars are still white and male the next day. Since the counterfactual #Oscarsowhite campaign in the 2015-2016 Oscar cycle, the Oscars have become one of the most hyper-policed litmus tests of whether Hollywood is meeting arbitrary benchmarks set from by an entertainment media that’s rampantly consumed with identity politics. The movie industry and these Oscars deserve better headlines than this.

The predominant story line among this school of cultural writers whose take on film criticism can no longer be divorced from activism is that Hollywood has had a long history of failing three groups: racial minorities (defined arbitrarily as “people of color”), women, and people on the LGBQT+ spectrum. As such they owe it to three groups in the present to rectify decades of injustice.

This year there was one Hispanic actor (if you want to classify him as European because nominee Antonio Banderas is from Spain, try telling that to his agent and look at how pigeonholed he has been in his career) and one black actor among the twenty nominees. The other chief complaint was that Greta Gerwig was not nominated for “Little Women” in the directing category.

What many of these #oscarssowhite activists are guilty of doing is taking on a microscopic view when convenient to their data. In the last 20 years of Oscar, 16.5% of the acting nominees have been people of color and & 11.75% of the acting winners have been black. The black population in the US according to the Census is 12.1% which is within less than half a percentage. In other words, any claims that the Academy hasn’t done justice to the black acting community is largely moot unless you’re going out of your way to erroneously read data.

Today’s brand of armchair activist point to extreme spikes in an oscillating cycle rather than present an accurate picture of progress. These intersectional activists conveniently ignore that 6 of the past 7 Best Director winners are people of color which is surely a cause they champion as well as women directors. Additionally, the number of films with black themes has gone up each year with “Green Book”, “Black Panther”, “BlacKKKlansmen”, “Fences”, “Hidden Figures”, and “Moonlight” nominated for best picture the past three years and several more--"Birth of a Nation" "Mudbound" "Race" Loving" "Free State of Jones" "Sorry to Bother You" "Little" "Blindspotting", "United Kingdom" and "Last Black Man in San Francisco"—popping up as well. If these activists don’t acknowledge these gains, where’s there credibility?

Furthermore, what is the incentive of studios to pander to such a group of activists that is most likely to make negative noise? To blanketly call Hollywood unfairly liberal is an overstatement, but the Academy Awards in their current form are producing the kind of films that Black Lives Matter activists can’t possibly be dissatisfied with. Last year’s slate alone had 7 of 8 films with intersectionalist liberal themes: “Vice” was critical of the Bush administration, “Roma” was a female-centered film set in Latin America, “Bohemian Rhapsody” had a queer lead character, “Favorite” was female-centered, and “Green Book”, “Black Panther” and “BlacKKKlansman” had black themes.

This isn’t to suggest that there is nothing to advocate for in terms of visibility. As the low number of female directoral nominees and East Asian and Hispanic actors over the years dictates, there are valid arguments for the marginalization of these subgroups. However, these activists need to concede the grand intersectional argument—that its white men as a whole that are seeking to exclude everyone else in a cabal of sorts—before they can seriously advocate for specific issues in cinema.

At the end of the day, the activists have to ask themselves what they’re even fighting for.

Are they asking for a mandatory quota? Considering the long history of the Oscars and the price of upsetting longstanding traditions, few people in the Academy (even the people sympathetic to the cause) would want that. We can even look at how this happened in practice just one year ago when the Academy attempted to burnish images of elitism by instituting a popular film category a year ago. The producers and fans of films like “Black Panther” and “The Avengers” protested the new designation because they knew it would lead to those films being ghettoized. Any quotas for disenfranchised groups will be seen as a de facto statement against such labels.

Besides, the current rules are the current rules. They could be subject to change but members are explicitly asked to vote for the best. This seems like a simple enough directive, but the current level of noise by the new class of film critics and their advocates on twitter seem to show a lack of consensus.The week after the controversy erupted, Stephen King, a known liberal, tweeted on twitter that he was following the rules as stated and he got attacked so heavily on twitter that he briefly garnered bad press before he back-tracked and apologized. How can a proper discussion of what the rules should be take place when the conversation is so muddled that people can’t speak up?

If this is the case, why should this voting body have to shoulder the headlines of these (not necessarily accurate) imbalances? Why should the film makers, actors, and craftsmen have to endure complaints that their crowning moments of being selected as the best in their field are not signs of progress because they’re the wrong skin color, sexual orientation or gender? 

The bottom line is that if there are any issues with film visibility, micro-policing the Academy on a year-by-year basis is not a solution. Rather the industry needs to be specific and exact about what the representative problems are in the industry and place it in the context of bigger headlines in the movie industry. People looking for a true dissection of what's affecting film deserve better headlines than this.

Me and Adam Spector Discuss TV vs Movies Part II

My friend Adam Spector keeps a column on film here and leads a film discussion group in DC every month. I've attended the group but I recently confessed to Adam that I like television a lot more these days which sparked the idea that we should settle the argument once and for all on my blog. This is part two of our no-holds-barred (True fact: I've never typed those words before on a screen, they look much funnier in this format) battle of wits between two intellectual giants with a lot of free time on their hands.

Part I was here and before presenting Part II, I will post the last few lines of Adam's post:

"But there’s still nothing like sitting in a movie theater, having the light go down, and being totally immersed in a film.  No cell phones and no distractions.  Just you and the movie. 

Orrin, you and I have both noted the talent that has worked in TV.  But many of them, including Scorsese, Fincher, McConaughey and Spacey also work in film.  They haven’t focused on one at the expense of the other, and neither should we. "

Round II

Orrin-- That's true that TV in the 1950's was a significant threat to the movies as box office receipts dropped. It's also a fitting parallel that just like JJ Abrams and Joss Wheedon ascending to the elite as movie directors rather quickly, so did John Frankenheimer, Delbert Mann and Sidney Lumet after cutting their teeth in television.

But I think there's a key difference. TV didn't threaten the movies by being a superior art form. They threatened movies simply by existing and being novel. TV was actually behind the times in terms of quality. While films were getting risque with "The Seven Year Itch" and "Pillow Talk" (and well over a decade after "Gilda" "The Big Sleep" and "Double Indemnity"), TV's most progressive show at the time, "I Love Lucy" shied away from even suggesting that a husband and wife could sleep in the same bed. In the interim "Leave it to Beaver" and "Andy Griffith Show" (which debuted in 1960) reinforced conservative American family values while Douglas Sirk was tearing the image of the American family apart in films like "Imitation of Life" and "Written on the Wind." And that's not to mention other 50's films like "Splendor in the Grass," "Searchers," "Three Faces of Eve," "Salt of the Earth," "Defiant Ones," and "Night of the Hunter" that deal with murder, racism, mental illness, the red scare and economic depression. As the code was being broken in the movies, it was being reinforced on TV.

Movies evolved by innovating. They tried some nutty ideas like smell-a-scope and 3-D but more to the point, cinema also evolved through delivering what TV couldn't: Epics. "Ben-Hur", "Ten Commandments" and "Lawrence of Arabia" were all highly successful films that came about in the decade after TV started to hit homes and couldn't be replicated on the small screen particularly easily. It also seems that talent always had something to do with the equation. I mentioned last time we met that I thought Blake Edwards defined the '60s as a director and was responsible for my favorite films of that decade. If we had one less Blake Edwards, film would have been changed.

While you mention that many talents navigate both film and television, I can't help but feel TV talent might be exerting a toll on film. If you check Kathy Bates' filmography, she's pretty exclusively in TV and Jane Fonda, who hasn't been very prolific as an actress since the '80s, has devoted her time to "The Newsroom" and her upcoming Netflix project. Similarly, another talented actress Maggie Gyllenhaal has nothing on her slate after acting in "The Honourable Woman." Actors have the freedom to navigate both mediums nowadays but they might choose TV over film when making a decision and become known as a TV actor like Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer or Julia Louis-Dreyfus and that makes TV more glamorous.

You're right that moviedom isn't dead and I'm not suggesting good movies aren't out there. I think a smaller percentage of movies that are released are worth watching as opposed to a decade ago, but I'm not suggesting that movies as a medium are dead. I'm wondering though what's left in filmdom's bag of tricks. What's their 3-D/cinemascope grand plan? (I'm just remembering as I typed that last sentence that 3-D movies are back in style these days). In that sense, television might be a greater threat to movies today because TV is innovating faster than movies in everything from economics (With ITunes and TV on Demand, the pay models are evolving whereas movies are forced to ride demand out with increasing ticket prices and ridiculously priced concessions) to the actual content itself.

Adam – You have caught me at a bad time Orrin.  It’s growing more difficult to defend cinema in the face of articles such as “How the Death of Mid-Budget Cinema Left a Generation of Iconic Filmmakers MIA” (http://flavorwire.com/492985/how-the-death-of-mid-budget-cinema-left-a-generation-of-iconic-filmmakers-mia) and “The Birdcage: How Hollywood’s Toxic (and Worsening) Addiction to Franchises Changed Movies Forever in 2014” (http://grantland.com/features/2014-hollywood-blockbusters-franchises-box-office).  In the latter article, Mark Harris writes that “In 2014, franchises are not a big part of the movie business. They are not the biggest part of the movie business. They are the movie business. Period.”  It’s probably not a coincidence that the late Mike Nichols did not direct a movie for the last seven years of his life.  It’s growing more and more difficult for filmmakers to make non-franchise character driven films unless they are able to do so with a very small budget.  Younger filmmakers just starting out can do this, but for older, more established, filmmakers sometimes it’s just not worth it.  That’s why, as you have noted and the Flavorwire article describes, more of the established filmmakers are turning to TV.    

We differ in that I often enjoy franchise films.  As I noted before, the last Captain America film was a smart thriller and Guardians of the Galaxy was a fun ride.  I can’t wait for the next Bond movie and eagerly gobbled up the trailer for the new Star Wars film.  But it’s frightening to realize that Hollywood’s reliance on these films can crowd out everything else. 

I have recently been studying some of the greatest film years in the '70s.  The first Star Wars film debuted in 1977 as did the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, but so did Annie Hall and Looking for Mr. Goodbar.  Two years later brought the start of the Alien and Mad Max franchises, but also Being There, Norma Rae, and The China Syndrome.   Let’s look at the best of the '90s.  In 1997 Titanic, the biggest blockbuster of all, came out along with Men in Black.  But so did L.A. Confidential, Boogie Nights and Eve’s Bayou.  The Matrix franchise launched in 1999, but it was joined by American Beauty, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Insider.  At Hollywood’s best, there was room for all.  Are those days gone?

You described the studios’ response to the TV threat in the 1950s.  It’s eerie how similar the response is today.  Back then, films eagerly embraced 3-D technology.   Today, most blockbusters are done in 3-D.  In the 50s it was Cinemascope, today it’s IMAX.   Plenty of biblical films then, and this year we had Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings.  The other major response comes from the theaters, which are increasingly offering plush accommodations, a wider variety of concessions, and the ability to pick your seat.  

Innovation flourishes more easily on TV, with its greater array of platforms, than it does on TV.  But, even there, we need to specify matters a bit.  There’s no doubting that cable networks, Netflix and Amazon offer much greater freedom then Hollywood studios.  However, on network TV, sports events dominate the ratings leaders.  Mindless reality shows still abound.  Networks have also tried to go back to their past, with live specials such as “The Sound of Music” and “Peter Pan.”

Of course most TV networks and Hollywood studios are owned by the same huge multinational corporations.  They can spread franchises, such as the Avengers and Star Wars over both TV and movies.   You and I both talk about movies vs. TV, but every day there is less difference between the two mediums. 

With all of that, I try to remain hopeful.  Maybe it’s my lifelong love of cinema, or maybe it’s just naiveté, but I can still find reasons to go to the movies.  While TV takes more chances than most movies do, I already cited the exciting, groundbreaking work of Richard Linklater and the Alejandro González Iñárritu this year.  Another example is Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, which used 3-D not as a gimmick, but a method for a new kind of immersive storytelling.   Unfortunately, actresses “of a certain age” have always had problems getting good film roles.  But I’m encouraged that Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Julianne Moore, and Susan Sarandon still appear on the silver screen regularly.

In the end though, it’s up to us: The viewers.  Hollywood always follows the money.  If we only go to the big franchise films, studios will have every reason to continue down their current path.  If we want filmmakers to take chances, if we want thought-provoking films made for adults, then we need to support those films with our ticket-buying dollars.  So see Boyhood, Birdman, Selma, Wild and Foxcatcher and do not just wait for those films to come out on DVD or appear on TV.  If we do not support the films we say we want to see, then we can only blame ourselves if those films disappear from our theaters.      

Blindness (2008) review

Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, and Gabriel Garcia Bernall star in a
Dystopian sci-fi thriller of sorts that takes place in an unnamed (and
unfamiliar looking) that doesn't seem so far removed from us in what
appears to be the not-too-distant future. When an epidemic causes
people to suddenly go blind, the police place the first wave of victims
in a quarantine with limited resources and as the prison guards become
less visible for some unknown reason (the film brilliantly provides us
only with the point-of-view of the people inside the prison), anarchy
develops from which separate wards engage in a struggle over food.

"Blindness" is Brazillian wunderkind Fernando Meirelles' second
English-language film after breaking out to North American audiences
with his Oscar-nominated gang epic "City of God," and while it lacks
the frantic pace of "God" or "Constant Gardener," the rawness and
visual intensity of Meirelles' previous works is still on screen. The
film's epilogue runs a little long and the pacing is a little slow, but
it's thought-provoking and has a unique voice.

One might compare it to Children of Men or No Country for Old Men in its lack of interest in character development in any conventional sense. If there is any prologue before the action sinks in, it's of very little use. The characters are defined mostly by action when confronted against a seemingly unstoppable force (in Children of Men, it's a mob, in No Country for Old Men, it's a seemingly invincible man, and in Blindness, it's a natural epidemic). However, I sensed a richness to Blindness that I didn't sense in Children of Men or No Country for Old Men (even though those were Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films and this got bashed review wise) in that the situations the characters were placed in made for a compelling morality play as well.

I saw a sort of first-world/third-world metaphor with Ward 3 and Ward 1. Ward 3 had superior firepower (the gun) so they were able to control the resources and subjugate the other wards, much like Europe was able to do with South America, Africa, and the rest of the world. There were many other takes on the film that my friends had as we had a sort of discussion afterwards. I never saw Children of Men or No Country for Old Men having that kind of potential (although NCfOM came closer). Blindness had a clear aim to be about something more than the immediate action at hand.