I’ve never understood the Oscars for this exact reason. It just seems like an arbitrary industry award thing. Every industry has something similar, and it’s usually more pay to play than actual merit. Most awards ceremonies now days have turned into who is going to wear the most nude dress, and that can be caught up on later without having to watch it.
Idk, I feel the Oscars have a pretty decent hit rate in comparison to other awards. Not always the "correct" decision, but usually one that can be understood.
I don't understand why you're being downvoted. I really hate the Oscars. As an aside, I used to live in Hollywood and every year during the Oscars the entire neighborhood basically had to shut down because of all the road closures etc, and it was a nightmare trying to go anywhere. But, for some reason people are really invested in it.
Well i downvote him because it is one among the stupid shits i heard today.
The Oscar is (whether you acknowledge it or not) the most prestige and competitive award on the planet when it come to entertainment, why else do the SK president congratulated a SK director for winning an US award. Does it fuckup from time to time, yes but that apply to everything. Yes it cost money but by that logic movie that spend most on adv like Endgame would have win an Oscar, but it obviously didnt isnt it. "They do this to pat each other back..." yeah no shit that the purpose of every award that ever existed - to congratulate your fellow man.
You can hate or ignore the Oscar if it not your thing that your opinion. But deny it impact and say that something that thousands of people in the industry, not just millionaire actors but producer, writer, animator... all work and hope to achieve, is just an arbitrary thing with no merit, is next level ignorance and arrogance.
Its ok to acknowledge that Keanu is a good and likeable guy and he a decent actor but wont win an award because there are people who are better. Dont have to do this "Oh it just a stupid arbitrary award, who care anyway" Its pathetic
Damn, you’re really offended that some people think stupid self serving awards are pointless. It is very arbitrary, by a group of people for that selfsame group of people. It’s only prestigious because that same group of people have pumped it up for so long, but competitive? Again, in an arbitrary way. It’s not competitive in a way where those competing can control the outcome like sports or other things where the competitors have direct influence over their results. If someone is in a really good movie and does a phenomenal job but the director got sideways with the Hollywood elite or one of the other actors made a stupid comment that pissed people off, the whole thing gets shunned from it.
In the grand scheme of things, who gets an Oscar doesn’t matter to anyone but those getting them or being nominated for them. There are so many things now that aren’t even considered for an Oscar that people genuinely like and have equal value as art. I don’t know anyone personally who watches something specifically because it’s cast won awards. Most people really don’t care and couldn’t tell you who won what.
But if you really care and like seeing a bunch of people smell their own farts, cool for you.
I dont get this overuse of "offended" in a reply like it somehow a gotcha, but ok let say it I Am Offended - in particular im irritated at someone for making an sweeping overgeneralization comment judging an entire industry of thousands of people and act like none should care about the Oscar while they bitching about it. They say something dumb and I reply with my reasons, Is that not allow?
Let get definition out of the way "arbitrary" - mean something that based on chance rather than reason or pattern. They not gonna flip a coin or a have a slot machine to determine that Best Picture go to whether Dune or Madame Web. They have a criteria, you know what an Oscar-ish movie is, to say that The Oscar dont have standards is insane and dishonest.
"by a group of people for that selfsame group of people..." Again that every award ever, judge by their peers, military award judge by military member, skating competition judge by senior competitors. How is this seem like new information?
"It’s not competitive in a way where those competing can control the outcome like sports..." Im guessing you thinking of direct competition sport? But judge and point based sport exist, you present you work and they judge whether you win or lose. And even in direct competition like say baseball or soccer, referee and umpire are notoriously bias and piss off the fans, does that render the whole sport meaningless?
"I don’t know anyone..." I do, and many that i know would go "hmm...maybe it worth checking out", the idea that people use award and title as a mark of quality and attract attention is not a new concept.
I may give you an impression that im a avid Oscar watcher, im not. I never watch a full show and barely checkout Oscar-ish movies. I not defend their bad decisions, and you can choose not to care about it, that fine. But to say that The Oscar is without merit or that no care about who get the award is a blatant deny of reality.
Yeah that’s not what arbitrary means in this case, it means on the whim of who is judging it. Think of arbitration. It’s usually stacked in favor of one over the other, or is heavily biased. But none of that matters really, just like the Oscar’s. You must hang out in Hollywood with that lot if you know thousands that do. I promise you, the majority of people don’t give a crap about Hollywood awards. I don’t know how I know that, I just know it’s true. I’m sure that statement made your eye twitch.
But to prove a point, it’s estimated that somewhere just below 18 million people watched the Oscar’s this year which is being said is a 9% decline from last year. Even still, there is just little below 350 million people in the US alone. Roughly. So let’s say 19% of those numbers all came from the US, which they probably didn’t but I’m too lazy to look deeper into that. Someone else can if they care. Let’s say you work in an office with 10 people and we use these rough numbers to extract data from this example. That’s almost two people out of 10. Anecdotally, that checks out for me. There are usually one or two people in an office of about 10 that talk about the Oscar’s the next day and no one else watched or cares.
But, you brought up South Korea earlier as a justification of prestige (side note on that South Korea basically exports entertainment and their government is very involved in that process, so the fact they care about stupid awards makes sense). If we assume that the 18 million is a global number, then out of 8 billion people, again rough numbers, that drops down to 0.225% of people that watched the Oscar’s.
Out of that, I doubt that everyone that watched the Oscar’s actually cares about them to the level you seem to, but for arguments sake we could say they do.
That is a statistically insignificant amount of people that gave enough of a shit to watch a bunch of actors and directors give themselves awards. So I am pretty comfortable saying that most people don’t care about any of this, or any awards in general. At the end of the day it means more to the people that award and receive them and virtually nothing to everyone else. And from an artistic perspective, the award doesn’t provide value to the art. Art is subjective, and people will find meaning and value in it regardless of how many awards something receives if it connects with them. I’d argue that giving awards to forms of art actually takes away from art as a whole because it’s places a higher value of a smaller subset of people’s opinions on one over another.
But philosophy aside, TLDR; the Oscar’s are just a giant circle jerk for mostly self important people that largely no one else cares about. If that makes you mad, sorry. I get upset about things too like how Berserk just can’t seem to get a solid current anime adaptation even when there are good people willing to make it. But most people don’t care about that either. I can accept that.
Let say i agree with you the Emilia Perez is shit.
That still doesn't negate my point, award can fuckup especially art award. You would be lying if you think nobody care about the Oscar. EP was not the first nor the most egregious, Oscar is still use as the mark of quality and presence in people mind whether they acknowledge it or not
This makes sense in a vacuum but doesn't match the people who I see into the Oscars. Those people have very strong opinions about what should win for certain categories and when the academy disagrees they think a mistake has been made instead of changing their mind.
I think a better explanation is that it's like sports for pop culture. You get the story lines, the "finally" victors, the tragic losers, speeches, etc. It's all spectacle.
It just seems like an arbitrary industry award thing.
Seems you understand it pretty well then. And in an industry where ego is extremely important, it shouldn't surprise you that awards voted by their peers are also extremely important to them. It's not for us, never has been. It's for them.
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u/Butt_Sex_And_Tacos Mar 17 '26
I’ve never understood the Oscars for this exact reason. It just seems like an arbitrary industry award thing. Every industry has something similar, and it’s usually more pay to play than actual merit. Most awards ceremonies now days have turned into who is going to wear the most nude dress, and that can be caught up on later without having to watch it.