On February 28, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) will announce the winners of its annual movie awards. Many Americans watch this Academy Awards show as a rite, treating the “The Oscars” as if it were a big deal.
It certainly isn’t immune to controversy.
This year, a cry went up under the banner “#OscarsSoWhite.” Unlike in the recent past, no black actors or directors were nominated in the big categories. Charges of racism flew fast and wild.
AMPAS is a large but private membership organization, and its membership is overwhelmingly white. So one could “explain” the nomination list entirely on racial grounds.
But it’s not as if the organization doesn’t try to be fair: the voting process, for the final awards, is nothing as crude as America’s bizarre system, which combines first-past-the-post vote counting and selection by the Electoral College. AMPAS uses a form of ranked choice voting, instead.
“Since 2009, the Academy has used instant runoff voting to determine the winner of the coveted Best Picture award,” explains Molly Rockett at Oscar Votes 1 – 2‑3.
The Academy has an interest in ensuring that winners at least enjoy majority support, so the selection process measures overall support, not picking the winner merely by a small plurality of first place votes in a crowded field.
Ms. Rockett tells us that the Academy is trying to racially diversify its membership. Maybe that will change something. Or maybe nothing needs to be changed — it’s not as if the Oscar nominees should be selected by racial quota.
But it is worth remembering that the Oscars sport a more rational democracy than the United States.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “And So Goes the Academy”
Biasing an attempt at meritocracy with quotas as to either the nominees or winners negates the initial premise.
The Oscar’s are to reward the best in motion pictures. The “BEST” has nothing to do with race, but does have to do with “The Best,” or “The Finest.”
To nominate “The Best,” in Motion Pictures, Baseball, Football, Basketball, Soccer, or any other activity, one has to be the best, and whether White, Latino, Asian, Black, or other, has to do with being superior.
To succumb to racist commentary in nominations, is to degrade honoring “The Best.” Regardless of ethnicity, be the “Best,” and then recognition will be in place.
The Oscars need quotas about as much as professional sports does.
I’ve been boycotting them for years. Way before it was popular.
Given the general makeup of the current crowd doing the boycotting, I may start watching them.
Uh, Paul.… You DO know that the United States of America is a Republic, not a Democracy, don’t you? Or did you miss that in school? There is an actual reason behind the Electoral College, and the fact that the power to choose said electors is vested by the Constitution in the state legislatures. The President is supposed to be elected by the states, as in by representative government, not by the mob-rule, direct democratic process.
The Oscars vote is part popularity and part actual performance, and we know how political that gets. Look at how American Sniper got skunked, and also how Joni Eareckson Tada got her nomination revoked.
Couldn’t care less how white (or black) the Oscars are. Don’t watch them anyway. I doubt that I would recognize most of these ‘celebrities’ if I fell over them.