Face it. Don't over think it. The Oscar show isn't entertaining thanks in great part to the banal social and political rhetoric. Quo vadis Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope?
2
Generally agree with the post, I do not look much into movies - race, gender, politics, etc. What I want is a compelling story told without any bombast and digital tricks but with pure fun and entertainment. If there is social/political/moral message, it is fine with me - I don't dwell on the influences. I will repeat movies like No Country for Old Men, Hell or High Water, Baby Driver, Usual Suspects etc., and will watch countless times movies like Napoleon Dynamite. I would not go to theaters to watch formulaic movies and digital creations unless it is of the Lord of the Rings variety with a compelling story. In general, the quality of movies have declined over time and hence my viewing frequency - I can say the same thing about contemporary music. Perhaps my taste in movies and music says much about me - critical or not, an Asian stuck in the glorious movies of the 70s and 80s, and to some extent the 90s. I am now much more selective in my movie choices and watch most from the comfort of my home, with a glass of wine in my hand to enhance the mood.
7
The Oscars don't really matter anymore because the Democrats have turned the Oscars into just another political convention instead of a ceremony honoring creative excellence. People are just sick and tired of being bombarded by bad fake news. Americans are good people and mostly get along unless they are riled up by the liberal press, liberal college professors and illegal immigrants who seem to be able to demand services even when they aren't citizens.
9
A fine, thoughtful analysis and longview, Mr Douhat. You are in your sweet spot.
1
Two words: (1) Netflix, (2) Hulu.
8
How Much TV do we watch per week?
How much internet? How much NYT reading? Tweeting? Video game playing?phone watching?
Yes, there is certainly a deficit.
Its not on Consumption. Think Douthat, Think.
2
I was going to write that I felt triumphant persuading him that he would enjoy "The Martian" but I got interrupted.
1
Your talking to deaf ears Mr. Douthat....Many conservatives, Republicans, and many simple normal people, have given up on Hollywood. The fact that politics has invaded everything is sad news...Hollywood is the big loser here...I for one, have not attended a movie for a good many years....I'm just turned off by Hollywood films, and I'm happy to watch some foreign films on Netflix.
6
Translation: Right-wing slanted movies are fine for Oscars (Braveheart and Forrest Gump); movies that annoy Mike Pence, not so much. And why ignore Netflix, which arguable produced the most popular "movie" of the year (the Crown). Once again, Douthat proves that any excuse will do to bash "liberals" -- Oscar night means less not because it has championed minorities and women's rights advocates who are vilified and excoriated 12 hours a day, five days a week and rerun on
Sundays on right-wing talk radio (without a word of notice or complaint from the noble Mr. Douthat) - it's because there are now so many other channels for film art that have captured our attention. To use a nostalgic word for it, the big O is passe'.
4
Maybe the reason for lower ratings is so simple it eludes Mr. Douthat: 3 hours and 48 minutes was just too darn long.
9
One very simple reason for the decline in ratings for the Oscars is the fact that the show, clocking in at 4 hours plus, is simply too long. If they reduced the number of categories presented and the production numbers to make it half as long, viewership would skyrocket. Also, leave in the speeches and some room for spontaneity, give the audience an actual even to watch, not some overly stage managed production. Regardless of political bent, more viewers would consider it worth their time.
5
Problem here is I really have no idea what ratings measure anymore, or how they measure. In short, what do "the ratings" mean? It is conceivable that viewers are watching events like the Oscars and the Superbowl, but aren't necessarily accessing them on platforms that are accounted for in standard ratings measurements.
3
The success of Black Panther is proof that a diverse social message can go hand in hand with a popcorn money maker. But this hasn't happened yet in the drama category, and that's what hampers the Oscars because they are geared towards drama. The challenge for Hollywood is whether it can make a popcorn drama that captures a universal audience like Titanic, but speaks to the rapid shifts in cultural sensibilities that have occurred over the past couple of decades. I think ultimately such a film will be made, but it will require some screenwriters and directors with the right combination of popcorn sensibility and social vision.
1
The opening by Kimmel was entertaining. The rest was a snooze fest interrupted by commercials. I quit after a half hour and watched a real movie on Nutflakes.
1
The purpose of the Oscar awards is to generate ticket sales. It works despite the awards show and its pompous virtue preening participants.
1
The same is basically true of the Music business.
Instead of writing on the Autumn of the Oscars and the failure of Hollywood to produce movies to his liking, why can't Mr. Douthat shift gears and write about the Autumn of the Republican Party and Conservatism in America as it exists today? Many of the current repressive, pontificating and far out narratives put forth by Conservatives and the Republicans rival anything Hollywood could cook up and have far greater consequences for the average American than any offering at their local theater or TV screen.
8
I am sick & tired of being preached to by Movie Stars & Sports figures. I watch movies & TV to escape from reality.If I want to be depressed I can watch the news.I’m sure this is the main reason the Oscars had the lowest rating it ever had, & attendance to the movies is down.Wake up , the public does not watch the Oscars to hear disgruntled multi millionaires.
5
Oh for the days when movies had plots, dialogue, acting; some had humor, some had glamour. There were elegant Stars, not vulgar celebrities with their boobs hanging out to get attention. Actors et al kept their political views to themselves. And I know: there was sexism, discrimination, a lot of buried ugliness no one knew about or ignored. Nonetheless, you could get rid of the latter and still have movies with plots, dialogue, acting, humor, glamour. Then, quite possibly, my husband and me and a lot of others might again go to the movies on a regular basis. We don't watch the Oscars because we don't know who any of these people are, don't care and, for the most part, haven't seen the nominated films. Like everything in this world, Hollywood aims for the cheap, the lowest common (and I do mean common) denominator.
3
I for one don't mourn the decline of the Oscars, which when you come right down to it, are nothing more than industry awards of the sort many industries award but few of us ever hear about. The only thing that makes the Oscars more interesting than say, the advertising industry's Clio awards, is that movie stars look better in fancy clothes than the typical ad exec. On the other hand, more of us will actually have seen the ad campaigns! Enough of the preening multimillionaires patting each other on the back. Oscars should be granting recognition to the quiet behind-the-scenes folks (which they do, such as makeup, costume, lighting and other technical awards), and doing it quietly in a ballroom somewhere like other industries do.
Aside from which, the other way the Oscars have shot themselves in the foot is with the nominations, and sometimes awards, for performers whose best work the Academy ignored for years, and finally said hey, it's his time, we should give him one already. Then they award it for the actor's last movie, a mediocre effort but nothing better is forthcoming at this point. (Grammys make this mistake as well). Often the work recognized really isn't that stellar, but it's his or her time, or we need a diversity candidate to get an award. It degrades the meaning of the awards.
Two things that Mr Douthat, in my opinion, overlooks.
First, he seems to think that movies all have a political bent of one sort or another. While there is no disputing that Hollywood is a liberal enclave I don't think the vast majority of movies made since the 1990s are any more or less political than the movies that came before. And I certainly don't see a movie like Forrest Gump as anything but apolitical. The thing that has changed since the 1970s is the lens thru which we view everything. Before Jerry Falwell and his cronies highjacked the Republican Party and turned everything into a conservative vs liberal argument I don't remember anyone paying much attention to which side movies, or any cultural item for that matter, landed on. And even when they did notice a political slant it rarely caused people to not want to see a great movie. I'm a liberal and I loved Patton for instance.
Secondly, in his comparison of the box office receipts of a movie like Terms of Endearment in the 80s vs a Lady Bird today he neglects the fact that there are umpteen more ways to spend your entertainment dollar now than in the 80s. Throw in the fact that movies make it to DVD and streaming quicker now than in the 80s so lots of people wait for it to come to Netflix rather than go to a theater and it makes his argument somewhat invalid.
5
I don’t know if there’s an answer to all this. I don’t watch the Oscars because they’re boring and overhyped. Movies are mostly entertainment, not religion, and deserve much less attention and adulation than studios want us to believe. I’m annoyed by the self-important speeches, and tired of listening to people I don’t know thank people I’ll never meet. I don’t care which designer created whose dress or which piece of expensive jewelry stars wear. The Oscars are mostly a two-hour plus advertisement I don’t want to see.
2
We have had a global cultural viewing event every year for the past seven years. It's called Game of Thrones.
(Does anyone really watch movies anymore? It's hard to feel that invested in characters or feel great stakes in any plot with an hour-and-a half format.)
3
During almost 16 years of being married, my husband is really not aware of a movie that isn't a tentpole movie that can buy a lot of TV ads for itself. After he became sick, these are the only movies we would see in the theater. I think that the NYT critics may not be happy with everything that is nominated but help to cultivate a different sort of middlebrow culture among, as another commenter said, cities that can afford an art house that the awards nominees come out of. They are certainly gatekeepers for what I would choose to see myself.
High grossing no longer means quality. The films that interest me are fringe. Perhaps many do not have the excess funds to go to a theatre. Only in New York City quality films are found in theaters. It's all become boring. There are great actors and a dearth of quality roles for them. I haven't seen a film in a theatre since "Hannah Arendt." I saw it because I was interested in her rather than entertainment. Comic books are OK for the rest of us. The lack of curiosity and quality is sad.
1
The problem is that people have changed. Young people are more easily distracted and don't have the patience to sit through dramas such as "Terms of Endearment" nor I could add "Driving Miss Daisy." In fact I don't think they many of them can sit through "The Godfather." Primed by instant gratification from text messaging and video games, they cannot sustain attention through a developed story without violence, action, CGI effects, comedy or sex. They also have less empathy and poorer social skills. They aren't as interested in fiction because that involves character development. They are stimulated by sensation and voyeurism. I'm glad I'll be dead in 30 years.
Keep in mind that, decade by decade, the movie industry has faced increasing competition.
At one point, if you wanted to see a moving picture, you had to go to the theater. Then along came television. The serial movies disappeared to the competition from television series.
Then came cable television. Instead of three networks and public TV, more and more cable networks sprang up. Despite the preponderance of bad shows, there were still a lot of good shows if you were willing to work.
Then came streaming video. Now, you can pick and choose the show you watch when you want to watch it. And with larger and larger TVs becoming cheaper and cheaper, the experience of the movie at the theater is less different from the experience at home.
In fact, the movies being put down here--action movies--with their surround sound scores and special effects tend to be the ones where the difference is most apparent.
In other words, there is still good cinema out there, it just isn't all being shown in traditional theaters.
3
Are my spouse and I the only people on the planet who absolutely loved the Oscars this year??? It was fun with that old-style glamorous set. We liked the presenters, the speeches, but especially the montages. What's not to like?
6
Seems like any movie that wants to get buzz has to be about a 'strong female character' or leading black character. Even the movies have become enamored with identity politics, and I really think people are just tired of it. I used to love watching Billy Crystal host the Oscars because he was lighthearted and mostly poked fun at the actors. But I haven't watched the last few years because it seems like the same angry, hypocritical crybabies and their bitter jokes and speeches(gripes about conservatives) have become the norm. I have no problem with political jokes, but where's the balance?
4
Maybe the reason the Oscars ratings have taken a dive is because the show is too long, laborious and just not good. There are also so many other things on TV worth viewing, and the day is still only 24 hours long. But to get to Mr. Douthat's main point, I have to say I don't get it. No conservative movies that the whole family can see? Then let someone make one. Whose stopping them? if first-timers like Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele (producer, writer, director!) can pull it ff so beautifully, then so can someone with a good idea and a conservative bent. "The Greatest Showman" tried, but it just wasn't a very good movie (although I know others loved it.) And I wanted to like it. I've watched (so far) seven of this year's nominees, and enjoyed every one except Dunkirk, which was so good it was horrible to watch. The movies are all right with me.
2
Thank goodness. I hope the Oscars are a thing of the past. They are male dominated. Lady Bird was snubbed. Florida Project not even nominated. Both films with a female perspective. Let's stop rewarding machines that no longer represent the paying audience.
Mr. Douthat stated: "The ideal Oscar nominee is a kind of high-middlebrow work, a mix of star power and strong writing and gripping storytelling that at its best achieves great artistry." One movie came close to that standard this year, "Dunkirk", and it was avoided by voters determined to show support for diversity, and for Guillermo Del Toro, a likeable guy.
"Shape of Water" was a fine film. It was not the best film of the year. That would be "Dunkirk", a master class in film-making.
3
The Oscars have been boring and fraudulent for a long time. Why would anyone want to listen to a bunch of people giving long-winded speeches? There were scandals from way back. I just read about a studio succeeding in derailing a win for Bette Davis, solely out of jealousy and vengeance. In 1983 the movie Gandhi won Best Picture, but the presenter said,"Gandhi, a man of peace" Did the picture win or was it given to make everyone feel good. The Oscars were the 4th or 5th awards show in the last few weeks. Boring.
3
It is ironic that television, probably due to the immense number of time slots it has to fill, has become more of a home to creativity and experimentation, while Hollywood has replaced it as the “vast wasteland.”
5
The movie theaters lost me several years ago when I couldn't seem to watch a movie without the rudeness of other moviegoers who constantly checked their cell phones, serving to light up the dark theaters with their selfish pursuit. And then there is the quality. Comedies? Sorry, they don't exist, unless you think sexual jokes and fart jokes make for good funny stuff past the age of 15. Intelligent dialogue where the viewer is allowed to concentrate on the actor, and not have actions sequences which are mostly CG and too dark for anyone to actually see what is going on, or so rapid they invite an epileptic fit. This is what pure profit has done for the Entertainment Industry in this country. I only saw the movie with Winston Churchill this year, no others. Thankfully there is Netflix and foreign films to take up the oh so vacant slack coming out of Hollywood.
3
Our local cinema statred charging tickets at half price and suddenly everyone wants to go the movies again. No-more does the cinema experience have to be a visual extravaganza, and movies are definitely better seen on the big screen, which shows it is the cost keeping people from the big screen. There have been some great unsung movies this year and some sung ones such as Logan Lucky and Dunkirk, but the Oscars themselves, believe, are just something that has had its day. The speeches are so predictable as are the actors and actresses. The whole Weinstein relevations have shown pretty clearly how and why women have been marginalised for so many decades. Has there actually been a decent female role since Alien? Also we now know the reason that there are the same few women in all the movies and getting all the awards in spite of a distinct lack of talent. By the way, the films listed from 1996 were all shockers, particularly Braveheart which was insanely romanticised and historically innacurate.
I LOVE film, but --
The theaters are dirty.
Concession pricing gouging.
Commercials play for 25 minutes.
The crowds skew to a young, disruptive group w cells.
Competition from tv, Hulu, Netflix, internet at greater convenience hurts it. And even bending liberal, I find the Awards off-putting about its glib politics. It's supposed to be entertainment, not a left wing hootenanny...
And let's face it, the Golden Era was always manufactured nonsense and Leonardo DiCaprio ain't no Gary Cooper. Gary Cooper wasn't even Gary Cooper!
2
Hmm..this years crop of films was particularly low grossing but there's been a number of films in recent years that meet the high middle brow standard. LA LA land and Hidden Figures were both commercial successes for example. The story seems like it should be at least as much about the Academy preferring movies like Moonlight and the Hurt Locker over films like Avatar as much as it is about Hollywood genre films not being made.
1
The Oscar awards TV viewership is directly tied in to a blockbuster popular movie; if there is no big movie, viewership declines in a given year. It's got nothing to do with politics: conservative, liberal, or independent. It has to do with good cinematic stories with engaging characters. Popular movies attract audiences which translates into high viewership for Oscar night.
2
So excellent, thoughtful movies, such as "In Bruges," are seldom made because such plots have twists and turns, and the international movie goer can't relate. Lots of explosions and combat movies are churned out for such an audience. Also the multiple sequels and prequels are often unwatchable. Nevertheless, I've seen some good ones such as "Darkest Hour"; "Wind River;" and "Three Billboards ...." "The Shape of Water" was fun, but not a great movie. Gary Oldman certainly deserved the Best Actor award. He was marvelous. I also loved seeing a clip during which, while made up as Churchill, he makes some challenging dance moves. That was great.
1
I don't think the gross revenues of films is especially correlated to their value or popularity: Most pop artists are making much less money these days than their colleagues of bygone eras did--and for the obvious reasons.
And I think it's futile to assign any objective ordinality on the greatness of art: It's just a popularity contest; the only question is who gets to vote. Comparing the merits of one film to another is just palaver, albeit sometimes enjoyable.
I think the sheer diversity of films being made has caused most of us to seek out alternatives in independent and foreign films, which makes the highly centralized, highly Americanized business model of Hollywood outmoded. It's the same in the music industry.
That's fine. I hope independent filmmakers keep doing their wonderful work. And I hope they recognize that the frequent lack of broad appeal does not mean their works do not touch people deeply. They do. It's just that we each have our own lives, and are touched by different things.
Call it diversity; something Hollywood aspires to mostly through casting.
1
Years ago, Oscar night was THE night all America gathered around their televisions to celebrate Hollywood and get the rare glimpse of movie stars in public. Now there's the televised Golden Globes, BAFTAs, SAG Awards, on and on and on, plus networks devoted to Hollywood along with endless social media outlets. People don't watch THE night because they're watching all year long. What happened with major awards on Sunday which wasn't predicted?
2
I think the author has some valid criticisms of the movie business as well as some inaccuracies also. He over intellectualizes and forgets to remember that the bottom line it is a business. Yes, it has a flavor of the month approach; i.e. action hero movies, but it is a protean one and tries to mirror what it believes the public wants. Much to my chagrin the small, personal movies by Rafelson, Scorsese, and others are not getting made as much. This is partially due to writers coming out of film schools versus real life experiences. Also, the average cost of making a movie has jumped to around $25 million. When I worked for Ned Tanen at Universal, he made a variety of relatively, good cheap movies. Now there is somewhat of a blockbuster mindset. But there is hope since there are more venues for films than just movie theaters, internet, Netflicks, etc. Hollywood has to bring down the costs (featherbedding), and hopefully smaller, personal films will also get made. But at the end of the day it suffers from its myopia, arrogance, and plastic bubble isolation. Preston Sturgess made a movie about it, "The Great McGinty."
1
It was "Sullivan's Travels" by Preston Sturges that was about a director leaving Hollywood for the real world. All his movies were great and hilarious and spot on.
1
In an era when everyone stars on their own snapchat, facebook, or twitter account, there is no need for any adulation of those who have managed to garner endless public attention. We can all have as much public attention as we want now. We can all be stars, we can all be famous, and for a lot longer than 15 minutes.
3
I feel like this was an amazingly competitive year for film, not a weak one. The mix of small and big movies on the nominee list was admirable; I wish they'd spread the sci-fi FX and set decoration nominees further than they did (there's where you bring in Wonder Woman, not just Star Wars and Blade Runner), but I don't feel like superhero movies per se deserve a dismissive downward sniff. There's a reason these movies are connecting with audiences now, and they feature many of the same actors who star in smaller and more serious fare, or on stage as well as screen, too. Actors don't feel limited to only one kind of movie, not to mention directors who aren't limited by genre. Why should the audience or Oscars be? It's just the old snobbery about genre films, which speak to their own audiences in their own languages as they always have. Superheroes are escapist fantasies, but fantasizing is fun. Logan, btw, was also a superhero movie; and Blade Runner 2049 was not a financial blockbuster as hoped.
1
Well, it did not get a Nebula nomination, so there is hope.
The Oscars have indicated that I may just skip the Hugos this year if I have to watch Blade Runner.
The Shape of Water earned $127 million worldwide. The writer should recognize that most US movies make more money internationally than domestically.
3
Which is exactly why they're generally insipid with no plot: action sells, subtitles do not. Star Wars #28!
1
I was wondering if it was just me. I'm not from Mr. Douthat's side of the political spectrum. But I think his analysis that the industry today is Independent Spirit Award material and comic book blockbusters is right on the money. I also agree with his descriptive of the previous Hollywood sweet spot, "high middle brow." I love film. But the increasingly obscure pathways rewarded by today's Oscars often lose me. I didn't want to see a silent film. I have no interest in watching a love story between a fish-like monster and a woman. "Best Picture" once meant "not to be missed." But too often I'm more than ready to take a pass.
7
Ross, your country is burning. You helped light the match. You fan the flames. Is this the important subject? Are you sure? The world very much needs those who built the modern GOP to disassemble it. Lend a hand.
5
Good grief Mike, chill. The world is not coming to an end.
7
No, just humanity.
1
Imagine America's top and most influential conservatives packed into a room handing out awards to each other for various distinctions and merits. Trump calls it, "draining the swamp."
1
With all that said, even if quality movies are made, it's going to be hard to pry us boomers out of a comfortable sofa, with a glass of good wine and a big screen in front of us out of the house to look for parking at a crowded movie theater with sticky floors, loud teenagers, $7 popcorn and dirty bathrooms to see a movie on a slightly larger screen.
We can wait for a couple months to see it on our 70" 4K surround sound systems at home. We're just not into being the first to see the latest movie anymore.
5
Speak for yourself. I saw 6 of the Best Picture nominees in the theater. Watching a movie on my couch isn't the same.
The Oscars are a marketing event for Hollywood movies. Movie people giving other movie people awards to generate interest (sales) for their product. For some reason you’ve confused this manufactured entertainment spectacle with something important.
2
The myth was we thought it was important, but it's always been selling a dream to the chumps at Hollywood & Vine. And film is my big hobby!
Franchises movies make money. It is like an insurance, so good movies are a gamble. These superheroes money makers of cinema are just a small step up from the Trumps of politics.
1
sad that hollywood is dying. netflix, amazon and hulu can't even come close.
1
Douthat, you could have written "Oscars were so much better back in the day before stupid liberals ruined movies," and saved your energy to write about something else. Your article would have been exactly as compelling.
2
Disney and the studios make sure of this. The 70s were great because upstarts could still get their movies to a broad audience. The studios made theaters take Star Wars as kind of a B side. Star Wars is just the type of movie that Star Wars today makes sure isn’t made. Disney has far too much power. So, to TV I go.
3
Over the past five years no movie with ONLY a great story can get us into a movie theater. The only thing that will get us out of our house and into a theater is a great story that includes great special effects and sound that we can't reproduce in our own house. There hasn't been more than a handful of these movies - Interstellar and Arrival come to mind - since the days we piled into the car every few months to go watch movies like Avatar, Titanic, Lord of the Rings. Neither the Hobbit nor Wonder Woman made the cut this year because, despite the great effects, both the stories and the dialogue were, well, junior high school level. For every other kind of movie, we are happy as clams to put it on our 2 movies a month Netflix mailing list and wait patiently for it to arrive via the postman, even if it means we don't get it until a year after its opening night.
2
I didn't watch the Oscars this year. First time ever. And guess what? I didn't feel I missed a thing.
I used to work in the film industry in the 80's and 90's. I have been to the Academy Awards. So my observations come with a bit of historical perspective, I think.
The industry has been in constant change and flux since the 80's. The dawn of independent filmmaking, film production budget cuts, (signaling that it was a "recession-proof" industry no longer), corporate takeovers of the studios, and the advent of video in the late 70's and early 80's began a sea change that is still happening.
What you are seeing is the rise of the new movie industry. It will be driven by companies such as Apple and Amazon and will play out on computers and television--not on a movie screen in a theater. (Frankly, though I like seeing a film on the big screen, I am ok with the sticky, smelly theaters going by the wayside...)
Once this new venue becomes established, and the old "Hollywood motion picture industry" is through its transition, we will see the Academy Awards return, because people will have SEEN the films and will be interested in the competition once again.
Frankly, the Hollywood of today--with most of what they are putting out and awarding--is so far out-of-whack with what people want that it smacks of, well, desperation. They are still in denial and so fearful of this change. They need to relax. It will all be better in the end.
Thanks Ross, but you're about 10 years behind marketing theory. It's called "Long Tail" marketing and it deliberately eschews mass-appeal centrism for "Niche" products. The net result is an increased bottom line. It's the Internet, baby, and you may have missed it, but, the Right wing owns the Internet.
I enjoyed your article. But what about the movie distribution business? "Spotlight", an exciting movie, did not show in our town or in the nearest big city, Raleigh. Many good films are not shown in small towns, which tend not to have"art" theatres. Instead, we have comic book hero adventures with special effects, and cartoons. Unless you are willing to drive an hour or two, you will not be familiar with most of the Oscar nominated movies. It's easier to stay home and watch streaming!
4
Unfortunately, anyone under 40 has no idea of what Mr. Douhat is talking about because their movie exposure does not extend further back than around the year they were born, so comparisons are impossible. The entire world of Black & White never existed and the very idea of silent films seems outlandish. B&W films have been whittled down to "It's a Wonderful Life", The Three Stooges, and footage of Hitler. When I watch a picture like "Twelve Angry Men", notable for its complete lack of explosions, thunderbolts and slime - just a dingy room filled with stunning performances and great writing, I see what is lost. Who would even pitch such a notion today?
9
I agree that deep red America has no interest in tuning in to the Oscars. But did they ever? Did Joe Six Pack stop watching the Oscars because The Artist won best picture? Or because of Patricia Arquette's acceptance speech?
I think the real issue is people in general don't care about the Oscars as much as they used to. My (liberal) self included.
For me, it's because there is no element of surprise anymore. Between all the campaigning and saturation of award shows, the Oscars are just plain boring. Why would I spend four hours waiting for Frances McDormand and Gary Oldman to accept their Oscars when I know they're going to win and I'll be able to watch their acceptance speeches online after the show is over?
I'll go watch something on Netflix that's actually entertaining and YouTube it in the morning.
4
I'm a screenwriter with numerous studio credits. The mainstream quality movie which was so prevalent in years past is all but dead.
Today movies come in two flavors, the tentpole comic book movies, which no matter how much money they make are still comic book movies and the precious, pretentious, critic-friendly indies that bank all the awards.
Once in a while a Lady Bird or Big Sick gets made, a movie with broad appeal that is actually quite good, but it's very, very rare.
27
Babe was a children's movie? All the adults in my household loved it! We thought it was a movie that helped generate more empathy for nonhuman animals.
1
Yes, lowest common denominator films predominate. In Martin Scorsese's documentary on Fran Lebowitz, she makes an interesting point. AIDS in it's first years killed off much of the talent and audience that supported more sophisticated theater. Wasn't much later that we had comic books on Broadway.
Our country has become infantilized. Small wonder the product fits the audience. Terms Of Endearment was adapted from Larry McMurtry's novel. As people obsess on screens and passing tests and general guidelines replace instruction in how to think for yourself, books themselves have declined in sales, except for fantasy and horror and LCD genre fiction. Not that everyone should like high brow literature and "art" films, but the audience in 1983 is not the audience of today.
Childish behavior is extending into old age now. Adults play video games and gossip online like teenagers used to talk on the phone. The whole concept of "teenager" is relatively new. You became an adult sooner before. Now pop music and films largely target this age group.
And, oh yes, Ross. for a guy who opines for a living, why do you think your opinion is worth publishing and the Hollywood stars opinions should be held back? They speak out for justice, knowing their celebrity can draw attention to deep problems in our society. You always in the end must attack liberals.
The right always preaches morality, look at it now, a cesspool. But hate a liberal for using logic and justice for all as a model to live.
4
Gosh, the studios are dying. They’ve died so many deaths they might as well be vampires. They died, or so we were told, when stars started organizing their own futures. (United Artists.) They died with the advent of television (until they took television over). They died with the advent of cable (until they started supplying shows to cable). They died with the advent of “streaming” (until streaming needed their movies and their production arms.)
You have to be fairly oblivious of history to think the studios are dying. To think the studios are losing power. To think the studios will be out of business tomorrow afternoon. The studios are financing and distribution entities as much as creative entities and they aren’t going anywhere except up. The only way you could think they were dying was to have not paid attention for the last 60 or 70 years. Of course this wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Douthat didn’t know what he was talking about, or was ignorant of history, when he wanted to score a point. That happens fairly often.
“The key issue for the academy is that the Hollywood system no longer produces enough of the kind of movies that a mass-audience awards spectacle requires.” Is it time to stop laughing? This is just plain embarrassing. The American entertainment industry is one of our largest export industries and has worldwide gross revenues of nearly $1 trillion. Golly, Ross, they really do need to learn how to make popular entertainment.
2
The Oscars Ceremony has become (and has been for years) what it apparently despises: over-commercialized, self-promoting, sequel-producing fluff. When it can fix that...
1
Maybe highfalutin awards shows will do better when Professional Critics (TM) stop telling me that Wonder Woman contributes nothing but Gal Gadot's star power while I should appreciate good-for-me movies like Lady Bird (which is mediocre in every way but the performances -- wake me up when Hollywood is over its manic-pixie-girl love for Greta Gerwig, whose directing is as uncreative as her writing is bland -- are we really so desperate to reward stories about women that we must keep rewarding the same middle class white girl coming of age pablum once a generation?). Sure, Thor: Ragnarok is a Marvel property, but it made a fortune AND has both Taika Waititi's creative style and Jeff Goldblum's improvisational genius all over it -- would it be so lethal to admit that there are genre films, even huge franchise films, that are both hugely enjoyable and objectively well made?
1
millennials disdain commercials...there were so many
and so much wasted time.
1
The movie crop in 2017 was awful and dumbed down. The Oscar nominees were underserving - The shape of Water was The art of kitsch, done with a big budget - and the awards were a PC wash. Ross is right!
3
Art does not equal reality....
1
I had a similar conversation with my mother before the Oscars show. Two of the nominated films, "Darkest Hour" and "Dunkirk," do fall into that classic genre that generates Oscar noms: the war movie/historical biopic. I didn't think "Lady Bird" was worthy of so many Oscar nominations. It felt like I was watching "Pretty in Pink" again, only with an annoying lead character. Predictable and overdone. I don't think it was a great year. There will always be big action flicks that are designed to make big money, not win Oscars. The Oscars show can and should celebrate those films too -- just not with statuettes for acting or writing. The endless performances of the Best Song nominees put me to sleep. Excruciating.
1
Best movie I saw- The Florida Project. Slowly unfolded into a loving, endlessly sad story of our America.
Reading Mr. Douthat's column is like turning on Fox. You can be sure it will have nothing to do with the most important stories of the day and the right wing spin will stretch credibility to the breaking point.
1
The Oscars are not representative of society and they never were. What's changing in the Oscars that the columnist is uncomfortable with is that there is an attempt being made to make the Oscars representative of society's demographics. Equating low ratings for a televised award show to the struggle between conservatism and liberalism or progressivism is ridiculous. NASCARs ratings for the Daytona 500 were in the tank and track attendance has been declining for years. Extrapolate a relationship for me? Only in the perpetually anguished and offended, biased mind of a 'conservative' does low ratings of the Oscars mean something more than people were doing something else. This column is the ranting of someone past his prime, showing his age and bias, and his longing for the good ol' days of his youth when the cast of a movie shared his complexion. It is a weak attempt and a failure. The fact that it got published may only be a signal that this is the Autumn of the NY Times. I hope it's not.
29
Brilliant column. Douthat nails it. Very impressed.
2
You'd think liberals were being attacked or something.
Most of 2017 movies were video-games with actors and the few other movies were genre, small, generic, or kitsch. The movie execs are playing the numbers game -- we need some decent Weinsteins to make good and great real movies. Not only are the tickets expensive, if they were free there's hardly anything I want to watch.
1
I am one of those who dislike the mixing of art with politics, social and moral messaging, and brainwashing of the audiences by the politically correct, clandestine worshippers of the Golden Calf. I seek only temporary entertainment in films, and I do not care according to what rite the film industry praises its workers or acolytes.
As to the sexual harassment of women in the film industry, there many classical films that teach women how do defend themselves, including, but not limited to, irreversible neutralization of the harrassers.
I know you're a decent person, Ross, but I cannot hear the phrase, cultural common ground, without suspecting a dog whistler at work.
If you're younger than 20 you're more likely into ESports that watching scientifically and chemically enhanced athletes be our flies to wanton boys, ruining their brains for our sport.
If you're younger than 30 you might prefer online games - a narrative told by the audience, and an entire realm of culture and entertainment this publication pretends does not exist.
Cultural common ground may indeed exist. But looking to religion and movies and television to find it? As Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones and John Rhys-Daves' Sallah exclaimed in unison during a moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark, "They're looking in the wrong place!"
Careful, that in finding it, you don't melt your face.
2
The Oscars have been a celebration of mediocrity since the late 70s, when "Star Wars" changed the landscape from the art of film making to box office draw. Films follow tired old formulas, "actors" like Matthew McConaughey, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lawrence, sleepwalk performances in derivative, stale movies, and the critics fall all over themselves trying to outdo each other with gushing praise and stupid labels like "a revelation!" or "the most important movie of the year!" What gets passed off as talent is often less interesting than watching mayonnaise dry on white bread; the "story" unfolding on screen is usually so predictable and canned you can set your watch to the action with 99% accuracy.
2
Netflix for $8.00/month or Mom, Dad and four kids out to the "movies" - $150.00 a pop. Are "box office returns" affected more by family economics or screen content? If the latter, your "assessment" fails for that reason alone.
32
"of the cultural common ground that our last mass-market art form once supplied."
The same "cultural common ground" that was predominantly white/male/Protestant-centric? Gimme a break...
2
Most of the movies were not that good.
17
Another declaration that movies "aren't what they used to be." You can find similar variations of this article every single year. No doubt, including the year Ross is feeling nostalgic for.
Same goes for the complaining about liberal hollywood preaching. Or, are you forgetting what the Oscars were like during the Bush years?
On the other hand, we just has a Douglas Sirk-inspired monster movie romance win best picture. That is the kind of genre-bending that the academy would have never considered 20 years ago. I find it refreshing.
3
Honestly, don't discount the political aspects here. Last year Oscar viewership was around 32 million, this year it was about 26.5 million. You don't lose 20% of your viewership in one year because of cultural changes, poor quality films or increasing entertainment channels. There is a sizeable chunk of the population (slightly less than half, per the 2016 election) that is just plain disgusted with the liberal ranting in these awards shows.
If these shows focused on the actual movies and ignored the Trump-bashing, identity politics and similar liberal causes, the ratings would be higher. I think this is reflective of the growing divide in this country. People do not want to hear actors telling them that they are not sufficiently enlightened or that they are ignorant for <<>> actually supporting our President.
Hollywood is out of touch with the more conservative elements of our society. Don't expect them back anytime soon.
7
What do you mean "our" President? That part's laughable in itself.
1
I don't agree at all - the changes with regards to how people view things is proceeding exponentially. A 20% drop is what you'd expect - look at the growth of the Internet and the effective cable cutting by everyone, even older people who still pay for cable but only use the Internet (since some of the bundled packages aren't too different in price) and it easily explains the 20% drop.
Donald Trump's insipid behaviour does not deserve anyone's support.
3
The conservatives are a minority to begin with. And our 'president' is a con artist who hired the worse criminals to make money for himself and the rich. Nothing he has done so far has helped the vast majority of americans at all. 1st thing he did when elected was to raise the prices on all his properties. The tax cut, a big giveaway to the rich and trumpster. he tried to take health care away from people. And now he wants a trade war, which will hurt many people. The steel industry is a small part of american commerce, compared with the industries like farming and others that will be hurt.
The republicans claim free trade, but they pick winners and losers with subsidies and tax breaks to certain businesses. Trump's giveaway to coal for example sin't going to help a dying industry, one that was dying because the market wouldn't pay for the cost of coal when cheaper alternatives are available.
And that at the expense of better alternates which would benefit from the government taking it's foot off their neck and letting them compete against coal.
as lewis lapham put it:
the larger and more expensive the medium, the smaller and cheaper the meaning.
5
"But it is still a decline to be regretted, a loss not only of entertainment and spectacle but also of the cultural common ground that our last mass-market art form once supplied" – Ross Douthat.
Ross, baby, it was riddled with racism and sexism and bourgeoisie elitism and corruption. So, let it die on the vine and see what replaces it.
1
The Oscars was a marketing of the prosperity of the US but now that prosperity rings hollow as income inequality, legal inequality, and social inequality are on the rise as elitism, which used to serve as an inspiration, now serves as a reminder of the inequality instead. The Oscars suffer the same fate as being not only out of touch with the common person, but the price of tickets to see a movie at the theatre have also gone out of reach of the common person from being a regular theatre goer.
It does not help that the movies that get nominated and then voted by an exclusive group are not what most Americans view as interesting movies nor would have put up for nomination. The argument has always been they should be movies that make a difference, that make an impact, but with a barrage of movie releases and rehashes of the same themes (nothing to be said of remakes and sequels), it is no surprise that the Oscars is seen as nothing more than Hollywood publicity and grandstanding.
We can do without the speeches, these are actors, not great orators, lets seem them act, that might get viewership back up. The format of the Oscars is old, stale, and predictable. Every industry needs to adapt to the needs of its market or face the same problem that the Oscars has been facing for years. The actors and artists have had to reinvent themselves countless times, why not the Oscars and all the awards shows?
2
I try to follow three rules:
1) don't waste time reading a book that is on the NYT bestsellers list. They are mostly superficial and a waste of time,
2) Don't listen to music by someone who has won a grammy.
3) don't watch movies for which someone connected to it has won an Oscar.
The Oscars and the awards are just a chance for Hollywood and the mediia to make a lot of noise and pat themselves on the back.
Actually, I don't think that musical and artistic endeavors should be made into a contest. What is "good" is so subjective that it should be left to each viewer, reader, or listener to determine that for him/her self.
2
Get off that high horse before you get thrown, dear.
1
So you are a fair and subjective consumer of art, but you reject out of hand any book, song or movie which wins a place on a bestseller list, a Grammy or an Oscar? Coherent arguments are an endangered species.
1
What's what about Dunkirk and Darkest Hour? As a baby boomer, the Second World War was the recent past, everyone in my parents ' generation had been affected. I was gratified to see 2 films in 1 year reach a younger mass audience.
1
A lot of words just to say "they don't make 'em like they used to."
1
"Philistines" is not a word that should be thrown around by a ole boy conservative and crony of Trump, et al. Look no further than 1600 Penn Ave, Wash, D.C.
2
Douthat has a superficial take on the floundering Oscars and media in general. The Oscars is still highly rated, but what I have noticed is that no one watches these movies until a few days before the show, if they watch them at all. People can binge most of them then watch the Oscars as an after-dinner mint. However, there is definently a bad, rotten taste that Americans have finally tasted. Murder, violence, hypocrisy, rape become tiresome. And that is all movies are now. And then you give an award to a person that paid millions to a girl that accused him of raping her simply so she would would not talk? Come on. These people are toxic.
1
Gee, not much to say about El Presidente, huh Ross?
1
Hey Ross, whatdgya think of Spotlight?
1
edit: "the former", not the "latter".
Douthat can't figure out (no surprise there) the real reason that movies don't have the prestige they once did.
It's because everyone is becoming a studio.
Netflix, Amazon, Comcast.
ANY story can be made into a movie now.
You don't have to court the usual, traditional movie studios.
There are articles about this everywhere.
"Netflix and Amazon are pushing out the last major studios still seeking smart movies for adults"
"New Studios Could Ruin the Future of Specialty Distribution"
"How Netflix and Amazon Are Changing the Indie Movie Business"
A little research might help you there, Ross.
1
In part, the decline of the Oscars mirrors the decline of moviegoing. People don't watch movies the same way as they used to so the Oscar program shouldn't be produced like it used to. The pageantry, musical numbers & variety show aspect of trotting in & out all those stars is antiquated. Today's media consumers prefer reality TV so those behind the Oscars should find a way to slim down the awards section of the night (do you need more than 1 hour for that, given they don't let the winners speak much) & beef up the red carpet + after-parties. Instead of viewers hanging on after 11pm Eastern to see who won best picture, award that by 9pm Eastern & then follow the winners through the after-parties. I'm sure viewership of that would be strong into the night.
2
It takes so long because awards have to be given to the people behind the scenes (technical staff and crew) too, otherwise their unions would scream blue murder. As for following the winners at after-parties, it may not be practical or fit to be screened for general audiences!
Way too over-analyzed. People like different kinds of movies, and even find their tastes changing sometimes. Awards shows don't really have as much cultural significance as Ross suggests. And for everybody lamenting the long-lost era of "quality" movies, I suggest a month's viewing of TCM. Sure, there were many great movies in days of yore, but they were far outnumbered (as today) by really dumb things that are embarrassing to watch. Good movies are out there now, in numbers greater than ever, but they aren't necessarily easy to find, ironically, precisely because there are so many.
3
Want to see the problem in traffic light simplicity? Look at the main page display for Rotten Tomatoes. The left side of the screen is a combination of red (good) and green (rotten) tomatoes representing critics' reviews of movies. Nearly all of the screen on the right side is red, with most in the 90-100% category. All of the decent screen writers, many of the producers/directors, and an increasing share of the industry's talented professionals are migrating to "peak TV". This is likely to fade, which may bring back better movies, but I'm afraid that ship has sunk. Too much focus on international distribution means message movies don't really get much play in Hollywood.
1
Trump tweets and Douthat joins the ranks of the far right in attacking the entertainment media that recognizes the bankruptcy of the GOP. What's new or unexpected in this?
2
The tension between art and commerce (or, more kindly, entertainment) has been going on for a long time. As long as there's a market for special effects extravaganzas, Hollywood will continue to make them. The risk is that they become addicted to the relatively dependable returns at the expense of investing in more artful ventures.
Art, at its best, helps us to understand others and to understand ourselves. Great movies to me are those like "Winter's Bone" or "Mudbound" that offer a realistic glimpse into the lives of people we often don't even think about. Acting, at its base, is about empathy.
But movies are so expensive to make and to distribute that finding investors for such films is almost impossible. Successful actors and directors sometimes invest their own funds, for which we should be grateful.
Part of the burden in on us. We need to support the art we enjoy.
4
The Golden Globes actually represent a broader cross section of entertainment options today as they include TV and Mini-series. The quality of some mini-series today surpasses many (most) movies as the writer has more time to develop the plot, characters, etc. Perhaps the Oscars should learn from the Globes and modernize. They might also give some thought to making their broadcast much, much shorter - perhaps with 30 second thank you's!
The Oscars have always been socially liberal. Movie viewership is not down because of politics. It's down because of television, streaming, cable, HBO and other VOD. It's down because we can now buy a very large High Def and 4K monitor with 5.1 surround sound and enjoy the movie experience in our own homes. It's down because it's expensive to go to the movies.
I loved the Oscars this year. I watched the entire program and was inspired to see so much diversity, women taking their power, and Jimmy's Kimmel's heart and funny jokes. America is a multi-cultural, diverse society and the films this year reflected as much. A beautiful gay film with a wonderful message, a disabled woman and a monster, an interracial couple ... art should reflect who we are as a society.
3
You are mentioning the move to digital and TV as one factor. I think it's an overwhelming factor, including the cost of a trip to the movies. But as new pricing schemes such as Moviepass become more widely available, attendance may rise. Where my liberal positions and your more conservative views converge is the longing for movies to offer a shared experience regardless of political affiliation. That's critical to our national wellbeing.
1
Now I know why I have not gone to a movie theater in almost 20 years to see any first run movies; as I've suspected, they're not that good.
But, the same way Trump and Trumpism destroys everything it comes in contact with, so too does the business side of the movie industry.
And it's been that way since 1975 when "Jaws" forever changed the way movie studios do business. The studio bosses learned they could make a full year's profit with one film if it followed a certain formula, and that formula did not allow for highbrow, art house, nuanced subject matter.
Why did Braveheart and Apollo 13 do well? Because like so many movies of the Jaws genre, they were simple to understand (if I wanted to be snarky I would add "and easy for conservative Reaganites to therefore follow.")
All I can say is thank heavens for Turner Classic Movies.
4
I think it is good for a person to be disconnected somewhat from pop culture. I do like movies, and music but I find no need to remain constantly informed on current movies and I am not a big fan of the music that is popular to most. In both movies and music it appears the mass audience is rather childish and self absorbed. That said, I watch great movies all the time and listen to great music all the time. Some films and music that I enjoy are from the past and some are just not mainstream.
Award shows are largely contrived popularity contests that do not actually reflect an accurate judgement of quality, in my opinion. I think it is childish to espouse some significance to the outcomes of these events.
4
I totally agree. Almost everything that comes out of Hollywood is soap-operatic dreck, even the highest-rated movies. (Not coincidentally, the Olympic Games are covered as another soap opera by the same media forces.)
There is the occasional exception, like "Cloud Atlas" or "Gravity," which were entertaining, watchable, and not insulting to the viewer's intelligence. But, sadly, one is more likely to encounter something like "Interstellar," which, despite some rave reviews, would make Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick either wince, cry, or have a heart attack, or maybe all three. There's a brilliant take-down of "Interstellar" on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB); reading it almost made up for sitting through the movie itself.
Because of this, I've been sticking to literature and avoiding the movie theater except for James Bond movies, the rare offering like "Cloud Atlas," and some foreign movies (Miguel Gomes's "Tabu").
But we will be rescued by latter-day television, like recent Netflix offerings ("The Frozen Dead," "3%," "Occupied," "Happy Valley," "Witnesses") and Amazon's "The Man in the High Castle." Hollywood look out! Thank you, Netflix and Amazon.
2
Miss America once got 25 million viewers in a country with half the population. Now it gets 5 million viewers. How do you explain that?
1
They got rid of the swimsuit competition...
2
People simply have more options now.
Frankly I think the era of great movies ended decades ago. I love the witty dialogue, the intrigue of mysteries, and good story telling in older non flashy movies. I will take Spencer and Hepburn, Dick and Nora over the over rated stunt masters of today.
3
I think creatively Hollywood is in a better place than it's ever been. It's not all message films like we had in the 70s, and it's not all mindless blockbusters like we had in the 90s. We're at a place where there are movies for everyone if you do enough looking, and as someone else put it, if you look good enough you'll eventually find yourself represented on screen. Folks can turn out and see the latest Marvel movie for escapism, but there's also niche stuff like Call Me By Your Name. The highest grossing movie of 2016 was a superhero movie, Captain America: Civil War. The movie that won best picture at the Academy Awards was a low budget an gay coming of age drama with an all-black cast. I think it's great that there's room in Hollywood for both of those movies to get made and find their own audiences.
3
I haven't stepped foot inside a movie theater since people started kicking the back of my seat, eating and drinking like pigs at troughs, carrying on loud conversations throughout the movie, and worse (you don't want to know). Sort of like airline travel these days, only you can at least LEAVE.
5
These shows are all the same. Skinny, rich, self-absorbed Angelenos giving awards to each other. I have not watched in years
3
Somebody commented that people don't want to sit through four hours of TV to see who won the six or seven awards they may really be interested in (4 acting awards, best picture, best director, best screenplay - if, indeed, anyone is really interested in more than just the first five. To sit through interminable and absolutely God-awful song nominations year after year is a trial in itself. Sitting through all kinds of political statements and causes is another turn-off, although this year (outside #MeToo) the ceremony was extremely light on political comment - but we have been exposed to so much of it in prior telecasts that we may not have tuned in to this one because we were expecting more of the same. Also, nonsense like taking Oscar attendees over to a neighboring theater to be seen by movie lovers was time consuming and really had nothing to do with the awards. I've watched these every year since they started telecasting them in 1953, and I always will watch them because of my interest in the main categories. Yes, they had their lowest rating (ever, I think), but it is still one of the three or four most-watched TV events of the season, so I don't think it's time to write them off.
3
Mr. Douthat apparently thinks that we should look the other way as Trump and the GOP try to destroy America. The horror of racism, sexism, and xenophobia cannot be avoided. It infiltrates every aspect of our life. Movies, sports, and music do not occur in a vacuum. Should we really be happy with a range of what equal gladiator games as Rome burns? I think not.
1
The public’s disinterest in a show that often promotes a Liberal ideology may presage a poor performance for Democrats in midterm elections.
3
A movie by Woody Allen, "Manhattan," wherein a character pursues a 17 year old female is now rightfully looked on with dread, but a movie wherein a 17 year old boy is pursued for a homosexual relationship is celebrated by the Hollywood elite. Virtue signalling by the finest. Losing the audience.
9
Call Me By Your Name is about 2 YOUNG men falling in love.
1
I think Russ makes some good points, but to be honest the 'good old days' of the Oscars produced a lot of movies as winners 6 people saw, too, and it was a running joke that popular movies, like Star Wars, would only win in technical and the John Williams perpetual award (ie film score), Naked Gun had a joke about that where the "bomb" wins, the movie that made no money. Likewise, while as liberal as I am I found Hollywood's attempts at diversity after being chided for no black nominees, and the whole hollywood male establishment caught with their pants down we gotta make it right, to be heavy handed and pretty stupid. However, keep in mind that in the old days he looks at Hollywood would have done what it did until recently, and buried it, they created a pretend image at the Oscars, not a real one. Fact is, he mentions Denzel Washington, but when he won his oscar it was the first win of a black actor in decades, among a very tiny few who had, and he won it for 'training day', a piece of schlock, not Malcolm X. If diversity today is turning off conservatives , hence lower ratings, then what does that say about conservatives if the past was better?
2
"The key issue for the academy is that the Hollywood system no longer produces enough of the kind of movies that a mass-audience awards spectacle requires."
If this piece were a Wikipedia page such unsubstantiated conventional wisdom would be flagged with: "This article needs additional citations for verification."
In my (unverified) estimation, people are just sick of Hollywood and its hot air.
For instance, "Tonsil Town" does more to glorify guns than the NRA could ever dream of. And we're supposed to believe in the "culture common ground" and "moral clarity" of Hollywood's Military Industrial Light & Magic Complex?
The sooner the Oscars fizzle and fade the better.
3
But nowadays, Hollywood is fearless in speaking truth to power.
There was a time when movies transported us to the inner world of ourselves via great characters and stellar writing. In doing so, we met people who solved problems in quiet ways by making subtle and sometimes noble decisions. They didn't merely mirror our anger, frustrations, our loss of control, our explosions, our meltdowns. They offered us people like ourselves and the opportunity to see from afar how truly beautiful we can be as we evolve inevitably to nothing.
1
I can't understand why Ridley Scott is not appreciated. Exodus was an instant classic though I suppose God has gone out of fashion. But All the Money in the World was a terrific movie and a very gripping thriller which should have had great mass appeal, and it had a strong political and moral subtext. Why on earth was it so under appreciated? Maybe he didn't want to dumb it down enough. More likely its anticapitalism caused it to be squashed. That point of view is not permitted.
2
And why on this green earth did someone feel compelled to make a sequel to the magnificent Blade Runner.
I'm getting old. Really. I had to ask myself, as I watched the other night, who are these people? I'm now qffically to old to watch the Oscars.
5
You are wrong, Mr. Douthat.
I used to watch the Oscars for fun, even if I hadn't seen most of the movies.
I haven't watched for the last several years, since I knew that the nominees, presenters, winners and host were going to subject me to their political opinions. I'm not interested in that.
I get plenty of news from NPR, this newspaper, my local news outlets, etc. And plenty of political commentary too. I don't need or want it from Hollywood stars.
Most likely, I'll never watch the Oscars again.
4
Money is not culture. Unfortunately, everything in America today has become hyper-commoditized. Everything is about money in America. Sadly, money makes for very poor art, literature and music. Without a culture, a society is lost, and eventually, doomed. America needs to lose it's "money culture" and return to try artisanship.
3
Everything is overdone in consumerist America. Nothing exceeds like excess. Now, even pre-season training in the MLB is presented as exciting sport. As for award shows--there are far too many of them covering music, live theatre, and the cinema. I've lost count.
1
Wow, I finally agree with something Ross wrote. As an insider I agree with his reasoning, but the true source of the dysfunction are our vertically integrated corporations. They own and control every aspect of the product's journey from its inception straight to you the viewing public. Premarket priorities dominates their thinking and that's the death of creativity and risk. It's killed the creative community's access to the means of production and any kind of meaningful distribution. Oscar is literally being starved and strangled. Risk averse monoliths can only produce a never-ending line of sequels and comic book characters instead of a new vibrant product. Studios should not own movie theaters or cable channels if they want to produce and distribute films. Network should not produce product broadcast or stream. When Spielberg, Lucas and Cameron were newbies that's exactly how Hollywood rolled and film and TV were America's most profitable exports. Ratings will continue to fall and theaters will continue to lose customers until we address our unsightly addiction to cartels.
You make some good points, but I think you are underestimating a key factor. Classic "Hollywood" has traditionally been largely, if not entirely, about escape from uglier reality. There has been no shortage of ugliness and violence in Hollywood movies of late, but generally it has been unrealistic. PC lectures and rants from celebrities just drag people back to that from which they wish to escape, so it should be no surprise that the Oscars and other award platforms are declining in popularity.
2
After reading your column I want to draw a line from Vertigo and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance to Logan Lucky. Things are not as we have been led to believe; the price of civilization (and who pays it) and its blessings, spoils, and spoilage. Who gets away with it and who doesn’t? What is justice?
All three of those films were more or less ignored by the Oscars.
The pure embodiment of male entitlement without conscience, openly pining for an earlier time and place when he and his kind were relatively unchecked, is a character in the 1958 movie. He gets away with it. In the 1962 movie the cruel killer dies and the ruthless cattlemen who hired him are checked by the forces aiming towards a world of families, schools, churches, shopkeepers, and the rule of law. In the 2017 heist movie we have antiheroes dealing with their various oppressors and we’re not sure who if anyone will get away with what when all is said and done.
Maybe the western was a great way for us to see ourselves as heroic builders of civilization; heist movies are an entertaining way to fantasize about dealing with civilization’s discontents as an antihero; and fantasy universes give us a way to imagine ourselves heroically fending off havoc and destruction in a crowded world that fought two recent world wars, with nuclear destruction and climate change among the possible perils.
Wish I had something wise to say about obsession and illusion and Vertigo.
1
Goodness, Ross... Being a conservative with Trump at the helm of America's conservative party sure is working you out...
The simpler truth may be that the Oscars, along with Hollywood, and what it produces (movies) are having to compete more and more with other forms of entertainment media; in times when produced-for-cable TV shows continue to lure away folks from the movie theaters, it's hardly surprising that the crown event of movie-making America is facing the same challenges...
That the Academy Awards prize non-commercial quality over crowd-pleasers is nothing new; it was happening even in the Reagan years, which you seem to long so much for! See how 'Chariots of Fire' beat 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in 1981...
I suspect that the Oscars will keep on going, at least for a while - so long as there's still a few of us who enjoy jokes about Mike Pence!!!
So I woke up this morning and read a Hollywood Oscar essay that informed me over my oatmeal bowl that I really was not awake? Why are we now using the ungrammatical expression ‘woke’ as a noun referring to some ambiguous state of political awareness? As for Hollywood - like all other American endeavors - just follow the money - political seasons come and go, but the dollar’s stench is always easy to discern.
2
I miss the big movies and big movie stars! I guess I sound like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, but...the pictures have gotten small.
I remember watching the Oscars show in my adolescence (and may I say that's it's jarring to think that Ross Douthat's adolescence was in the 1990s, boy do I feel old) and there would be glamorous movie stars and everybody knew who they were. Now....I've never heard of most of the nominees. And when I do venture out to see a movie, I have to go to my dreary multiplex with its icky smells and sticky floors. And the sound is so LOUD.
Thank goodness for TCM!
Now get off my lawn, I want to go watch Casablanca, Shane, The Quiet Man, The African Queen, and The Adventures of Robin Hood!
2
Maybe Mr. Douthout should explain why "Braveheart" and "Forrest Gump" are conservative movies. Oh, I know, because so-called old fashioned values like patriotism, duty, honor, freedom, integrity, etc, are conservative values.
Because we all know liberals don't believe in any of these things. Isn't that right, Mr. Douthat?
1
I would dearly love to read what J. Hoberman thinks about these issues.
(And he has a great piece about Phantom Thread in a recent New York Review of Books.)
What is this column about exactly?
Are you put off by the Oscars specifically or the film industry generally? Are you defining success in terms of financial returns or quality? Are you advocating passionless, competently executed middle-class genre exercises or art? Are you lamenting the decline of cinema-going in the age of flatscreens and stream-able, binge-able TV series, or do you really believe more Bravehearts will draw people back to the theater?
And what about your assumptions? The way you contrast the "mass appeal" of films from decades past with the "minority interest" films of today sounds like syrupy nostalgia and a vague preference for white actors, rather than a rigorous critique of a whole art form. Michael B. Jordan can't be a movie star? Says who?
If you'd spent this column complaining about comic book movies and the corporate mentality of film studios, you'd have an unoriginal column but at least you'd be onto something. Instead you have a hodgepodge of undefined terms, unclear measures of quality and a lot of lazy nostalgia.
Maybe you should have started with a clarifying question, like: "What are the Oscars for?" This is more like a bar-stool rant about how things were better in the old days, when everyone knew their place.
1
We are becoming a nation of low-attention span idiots. We are starting to see the result of children who grow up playing video games as their major form of entertainment. That is why only inane super hero movies make money. Your example of mother-daughter movies — $300 million earned for Terms of Endearment vs. $50 million for Lady Bird — is a wise one. But Terms of Endearment was a major studio production with big stars as opposed to Lady Bird, a modest but quality production with lesser known stars. I recommended that many mothers take their teenagers to see Lady Bird, but doubt that many did because of the lack of accessibility and a lack of cultured interest. And Lady Bird was not to be found at many multiplexes, except in large cities.
But there is no escaping that our culture has become denigrated easily within the past 20 years. The “dumbing down” of America ironically is a term that originated with Hollywood screenwriters trying to make their work more accessible. Now they are being victimized by their own literacy and competence.
This is not a form of snobbery, it is reality. Spend some time with average, uninformed human beings, and you will be shocked by their lack of literacy and awareness of higher art forms.
With the exception of super hero movies and animated children’s films, which are often unintentionally quite advance in comparison, most every other type of movie, particularly dramas, fly over their heads.
1
You had me at "Cultural Common Ground", Mr. Douthat. I feel that comforting sense of solidarity fading away...
1
The academy needs to get back to focusing on honoring the Art and the artists. The attempt to go low brow and appeal to the masses was mildly condescending from my perspective. Jimmy Kimmel leaning in to ask the member of the winning team "did you want to say something, go ahead" made me cringe. I watch the Oscars to revel in the art of film. I want to listen to the narratives of the people behind the scenes. I love the glamour of couture and the cultural celebration of the message, each year reflecting the current state -of -the -arts. The movies are entertaining, the Oscars need not be.
The ratings for most events on television are down. Not just the academy awards. Seems like an important point to make. Additionally the movies and actors/actresses were not vey well known.
The real problem is trying to compare the past to the present. 40 years ago, broadcast tv was still dominant, so watching an Oscar telecast generally would be up against reruns on other network channels, or the usual reruns on the syndication channels like channel 5 here in NYC. There was no internet, there wasn't on demand cable, maybe some people had HBO or the like, but it was very different. On Sunday night people have streaming, they have cable channels galore and on demand, they have a dvr that may be full of shows they recorded during the week, you name it. It is ironic that a free market conservative doesn't see that the Oscars are what happens when an oligopoly becomes competitive. Not to mention that in 1978, people didn't have the crazy lives they have today, so free time like 8 on a Sunday night is a lot more precious; 40 years ago it would be the end of a week with a lot more leisure time than today; today that time is more precious. The other thing is a lot of people don't go to the movies and catch up with movies later, so they aren't watching to see if 'their' favorite movie is gonna win.
1
I couldn't disagree more. Is it possible to accurately determine viewership when audiences are watching on streaming devices? Doesn't everyone have their eyes focused downward onto a device? Yes, TV Oscar viewership may be down, but how many other choices are there to be a part of the Oscar watching experience? The need to bash legitimate choices for movie preferences also needs to be calmed. Hollywood is pretty good at making something for everyone.
1
This pretty well reflects my thoughts- a combination of weakly written superhero movies and "message" movies that show the earnestness of Hollywood's "heart", filtered through a PC lens, has ruined the entertainment value of "cinema".
And, as implied here, some of the problem is just the question "who goes to movies now?". I don't know-"date night"? I do know I don't- I stream the few I can tolerate but I'm not going to sit in a theater full of coughing people when I have a big TV in the comfort of my bedroom. That means that very good entertainment like six seasons of "Justified" are in direct competition with a Marvel comic movie. Guess which one wins?
"Hollywood" needs a consultant to advise them on how to manage the changing landscape of video entertainment. It can't be about bad "blockbusters" and countervailing efforts to look like they are leading the way in the culture wars- it has to be about those "high-middlebrow" (or maybe they were just a notch below that) productions that left one satisfied that the money was well spent.
2
If the masses turn out only to watch sequels, remakes and comic-strip movies how is that the fault of the Academy? It's members can choose only among the films that Hollywood produces (you don't really expect them to sit through subtitled work from abroad, do you?) and if there isn't a sufficient number of good, original and personal movies being released, let alone movies of that sort that actually bring in the crowds, there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that when it comes to handing out those annual trophies.
BTW: How is "Braveheart" a conservative movie? Its hero was a rebel who led his fellow Scots against the oppressive British royalty. It was a mainstream film with respect to its adherence to moviemaking conventions but I doubt that its protagonist would have been viewed as any more conservative than George Washington or Malcolm X.
Audiences were definitely more invested in the Oscars, even a decade ago. It's length used to be part of its charm, a point of pride to sit through til the bitter end, but nowadays, there are so many claims on people's attention, no one is looking for another reason to stare at a screen. I'd also add that the Oscars used to be less heavily promoted and scrutinized, nor was there a popular awareness of 'awards season' for which the Oscars was the main event. Nowadays, this seems to go on and on, all year long and the run-up has become an exhausting barrage of publicity, interviews, speculation, celebrity gossip, whatever, that by the time the show airs, you don't want to hear anymore. Maybe they need to figure out how to make it special again.
2
I used to love the Oscars, and still watch, but the politics is tiresome, and the films are not so much about art or storytelling as they are about the art of audience, which is dwindling. In the past, I would see everything nominated, but today I skip most waiting for them to show up on cable, if I see them at all. And before I commit those precious hours to the ceremony, I have to make sure I've programmed my DVR to collect everything I will miss during the broadcast. Not to mention I want to make sure I have my laptop set up on the coffee table to look up facts, see what friends are saying on Facebook, and monitor Twitter for the latest. Many of the good ideas for movies and shows are increasingly being delivered on Premium cable channels. It isn't theaters where the common experience is being had. It's in the living room. Maybe on the desktop, but communally speaking it's where your biggest screen lives. Someone is going to - should - come up with the "Binge Worthy" awards. Now that would really be the commonality among us.
2
I have many co-workers from the most recent immigrant classes to the U.S.; hailing from Haiti, Central America, central Africa, southeast Europe, central Asia and the Middle East. As a group, we would make a diversity coordinator explode with pride. None of these new Americans evinced any interest at all in the Academy Awards even though it was on the screens throughout our workplace, or in any of the product that was awarded. Although the new age Academy proudly wears certain types of diversity on its sleeve, the truth is that the real change in our country has already zoomed by Hollywood. It needs to start making films for these new participants in our culture too, many of whom are personally socially conservative. Maybe then, the Oscars can experience a new spring.
1
The decline in movie theater attendance could also be related to: changing patterns of dating/courting, not utilizing "dinner and a movie" anymore, adolescents have alternative locations to test out intimacy; locations of theaters being unattractive places for a night out, related to the decline of malls, theaters often being nearly empty; the shooting which occurred in a movie theater (much safer to be at home).
2
TIVO'd the show, so that I could fast forward most of it. Watched the beginning. Being preached at by Jimmy Kimmel, of all people, is not entertainment. Felt good hitting the delete button.
By the way, "Never Again" as a hashtag for gun control makes a mockery out of the post Holocaust meme.
3
entertainment and spectacle..."
STOPPED a long time ago. that's why we have given up on it. THIS is the Winter of our DISCONNECT. While I admire those who have a public face to be involved in public issues LDC, CLOONEY, etc., the AA's as a public pulpit just becomes a turn-off. The Academy must have forgotten that the 60 million who support him also support racism, government theft, nepotism, and crimes worse than that. Why would they want to hear 4 hours more of gripes.
Make the AA's as entertainment again and CELEBRATE FILM MAKING and short short short than you's ---NO GROVELING--and maybe the audience will come back. O/W adios.
Shorter Douthat:
Make more movies that I like and fewer that you like.
What is overdetermined is how you see a liberal/conservative dichotomy everywhere, in everything. You stitch it onto your every observation and it reduces your thinking to a pedantic whine devoid of nuance or deeper meaning.
4
a sewer of degeneracy and exploitation of
women's bodies under the guise of liberation.
the men who run Hollyweird are hypocrites
and the women often willing accomplices.
I have not been to a movie in eons and
have no intention of wasting a dime on these
superficial,supercillious frauds.if you want
art and insight in your life ,read a good book.
2
Society has moved on, Mr. Douthat. You might as well rail against the weather. It just makes you sound like an old curmudgeon.
3
Pheeew, Ross! Thankfully, not a Trump conspiracy. Happen to agree, although I watched all nominees on small screen(ROKU).
I wonder if there's not some element of that common pattern in which when a field becomes more accepting of women it becomes less valued by society (see teaching, nursing, and more recently general medicine).
3
Solid point.
Gleeful that certain individuals, in Hollywood, have been getting away with sexual assault, just like our teflon Grabber-in-Chief? There should be no statute of limitations of sexual assault.
1
Two things about "Forrest Gump". First, it was NOT undeserving. Second, it emphatically was NOT "Reaganite conservatisim."
Ross - Wake-up and smell the buttered popcorn! Did you nod off watching that supposed-Best Picture, "Moonlight"? I know I did.
You say "Arrival" was the best movie of 2016? But it only grossed $100M Domestically and double that WW.
"La La Land", on the other hand - which truly was the best movie of 2016 (and fits your definition of quality movie-making from yesteryear) - grossed $150M Domestically and triple that WW.
Movies audiences are now global - can you name another non-franchise picture with the WW success of "La La Land"? Unless I'm missing something, nothing else comes close in the last 20 years.
Let's have more movies like "La La Land". It's good for what ails all of us, including Hollywood and the Oscars.
That’s actually an excellent column. Maybe Mr. Douthat should move away from politics into the cinema critic field?
2
Ross-
You might want to re-think the comparison between 'Terms of Endearment' and 'Ladybird'. Yes, they both are about mothers and daughters, but they couldn't be more different in style and tone and daring. 'Terms' was a smoothly engineered, insistently crowd-pleasing, tear-jerking movie which delivered comedy and tragedy in exactly the ways and amounts expected. Ladybird, whatever it's faults and virtues was really out to surpise you... Would you compare 'Fences' with 'Nothing in Common' because both films are about fathers and sons? Why this lazy, easy conflation when it comes to mothers and daughters?...
Hollywood’s problems are systemic: deeply rooted greed and ego topped with obvious hypocrisy and a veneer of do-goodism. Take for example the lynching of big stars who seduced underaged and/or less powerful cohorts and others. Then “call me by your name” brings unbounded praise for portrayal of same under the guise of acceptance. The only excuse could be profound moral confusion abetted by our confounded movie-going populace. If I believed in god I’d ask for help for the film industry and its benefactors who are also its subjects—nay, for this country.
3
I think the argument here is not that "they don't make them like they used to", and it's certainly not that Billy Crystal is what the show is missing (the idea that it's all about the host is something only someone who has not been watching the shows for 50 years could say). The argument is that the viewing public, which now included international audiences, as well as audiences that have been affected by all the different delivery systems now available, is demanding a different sort of thing, and Hollywood is delivering that . . . along with a smattering of prestige, vanity pieces that are actually focused more on storytelling, quality writing and acting. And that those prestige vanity pictures are more personal visions that are not attempting to appeal more broadly (because the viewing public isn't buying that sort of movie in large numbers). And that those more personal visions tend to be more affected by the political leanings of the community.
This moderate Democrat sees little to disagree with here. I think today's best movies are every bit as good as the best movies from 30 years ago (Douthat points out that Lady Bird is not dissimilar to Terms of Endearment - I'd argue the more recent movie is a better movie - but the point is that the older movie made far more money). They just aren't what large audiences go for these days - the audience has changed more than the movies.
2
Not a bad column but to hold up Braveheart, the worst best picture winner in over 60 years. as some kind of icon of quality, is simply ridiculous.s. All 9 films nominated were better films than Braveheart.
1
RD,
Wouldn't it be interesting to go, say, for a month without using the term "liberal", "conservative" or"progressive"? They have becomes stones around your neck. Let's see you put that liberal (oops) arts education to use.
3
We live in bizarre times where nothing is separate from politics. We've been convinced by the extremists on both the left and the right that everything is political and this has made discussing the film industry kind of unbearable. Didn't love Wonder Woman? Well you must be a misogynist. Didn't like American Sniper? You must hate America. Did you find the latest Star Wars overly contrived and too long? You must be a pathetic fan boy living in the past and yes, you are also a misogynist and/or racist. I feel like I can't have an honest exchange about films anymore with anyone, especially online, and for me discussing movies was much of the fun. Lets be honest, for many people if a "woke" film is average then it is great simply because it exists and they don't want to hear any opinion that says otherwise. For others, "conservative" films like American Sniper are what Hollywood should strive to make at all times because "traditional values" are allegedly so under served at the movies. I am a film viewer who wants to see movies that are fresh and skillfully crafted or at the very least fun. Get Out was all those things to me. I thought the Last Jedi was laughably stupid at parts and spirit crushingly boring in others. I thought Wonder Woman was unmemorable as was American Sniper. So according to internet I'm a misogynist member of the black panthers who hates America and it's soldiers. Why would I remain interested in movies if this is the kind of discourse that surrounds them?
2
You know what? I've been watching the Oscars for the last fifty years and this may be my last. No, I have to plans to die. But I am tired of the grandstanding, however legitimate the causes may be. I just want to go to the movies.
5
Ross was right on. Reese Witherspoon stated in an interview about producing Big Little Lies - that she has been in the biz for some umpteen years and it's the same 200 people controlling it. That's a big part of the problem.
The Oscars lost me years ago when it chose Out of Africa over The Color Purple- I have no plans to return anytime soon.
If the Oscars went away, Trump would have one less place to park his self-loathing.
1
Well, we’ve come a long way since “Birth of a Nation”, but if our President ever becomes aware that it exists, he will no doubt screen it (for a second time) in the White House and extol the virtues of those fine people in the Ku Klux Klan. Unfortunately Trump is no Woodrow Wilson, though the racist streak runs deep in both.
4
Nice op-ed Ross. It would be nice to see a good old-fashioned cowboy movie (minus the political correctness), a soft character-driven ensemble piece, a stylistically unusual film, a morally complicated political thriller or some naturalistic slice-of-life period Americana. Or just plain well-done solo vehicles for smart actors. Unfortunately all of that tends to lie outside of the Academy's current tastes and preferences and the industry as a whole is more geared towards aggressive sci-fi action thrillers marketed to teenager boys. There aren't very many animated films nominated for Oscars - in fact I don't think any have been nominated for a category other than design or Best Short - in quite some time, and La La Land was the first movie musical to win many nominations in decades. They need to find movies that sell the story well and work well artistically, which is fine, but it does tend to limit the pool to films that are well within a certain range of style, directorial approach, storytelling technique and aesthetic taste. BTW I love reading your movie reviews.
The Oscars deserve to fall. It's been coming and, hopefully, the downfall will continue. It's an overly-long, self-indulgent show filled with self-important self-important, hypocritical "stars" anxious to display their"support" for any cause that they believe will elevate them. Who cares about their speeches? The end is coming and it won't be a moment too soon.
5
Why do you think you have the authority, credibility or whatever to claim that Black Panther leads are unlikely to deliver excellent work beyond the film? Seriously off the mark and condescending. Maybe rethink your own skill set on the subject?
I'm not a conservative and certainly not an apologist for one, but you need to re-read that section of the article. He is manifestly not saying what you claim/believe.
His point is that big budget movies based on existing properties (like comic book movies) are about the property and the brand.
The actors, no matter how good, are overshadowed by that, and will get less credit and attention for their parts in these types of successful movies than they would have in the less brand and product-focused blockbusters of years past.
1
The Oscar ceremony may or may be worth a bucket of warm spit. But anyone who dismisses 'Babe' as an "ingenious children's movie" either hasn't seen it (in which case he really ought not be commenting on it) or is too ignorant or stupid to comprehend it. I suppose Ross thinks the talking pigs in 'Animal Farm' mean it's just a children's fantasy book.
Stick to writing on subjects you know something about, Ross. If such exist.
1
I asked my class at California State University, East Bay. None of them paid any attention to the Academy. Summary of their comments: movies for old white people with PC values. The week before we talked about Black Panther, most of the room had seen it and were interested in the Oakland connection. There are always students who's families were Oakland BP. So academy has a choice, appreciate the movies people actually watch, or accept cultural elitist obscurity. The irrelevance of the Oscars is a part of the decline in American culture, a sort of victory for Donald Trump.
i would like to think that a college instructor would know the difference between 'who's' and 'whose'.
1
Good column. I too am disappointed by the cultural shift that has rendered cinema as just another of our atomized cultural niches - one sadly driven by a media conglomerate's desire to synergize an intellectual property across many platforms (how cold and clinical is that?)
That horse is out of the barn, though. I don't know where cinema is going, but even through the din of comic-book inspired mediocrity, I think there's reason for optimism. The last few years have actually given us quite a few very innovative and original works, both by studios and independents. I recently watched the film Annihilation, and while it's not everyone's cup of team, it's certainly a bold and original vision - and it was financed and released by a studio. Yea, the loss of the cinematic monoculture is sad, but on the flipside, there is certainly vibrancy in present American cinema, if one looks beyond the usual Marvel fare.
(for what it's worth, given the financial risks of releasing a non-comic book movie, I predict theatrical releases will eventually dwindle down to big event comic book-type films, and small independent in niche arthouses - such as Alamo Drafthouse - and nothing in between)
As for the Oscars skewing liberal... Despite protestations, it's not a recent thing. If you doubt me, look up Brando's Oscar win for best actor in 1973.
Enjoyed this very much. Also note that the role of critics has changed. Where trends were set and interpreted by the likes of Pauline Kael and Siskel and Ebert, and those of us who weren't schooled in cinema paid attention to "Five Star Reviews", there are few who wield such power these days. I tend to wait for the films to show up on HBO. Those that I do see in the Cine-plex are often too loud -- environmental challenges such as hearing problems that are better managed in my own home. I do, however, miss the shared experience of watching a movie with lots of other people.
3
Be careful dismissing "Black Panther" as just another superhero movie. It made $786 million in just five days. Yeah, a lot of white comic-book fanboys went to see it. So did a LOT of African-Americans, who finally saw a cast that looks like THEM. There were only TWO white major characters in the whole show--the villain Ulysses Klaue and the CIA operative Everett Ross. Not to mention that the cinematography, costuming, and CGI were stunning. The movie-watching demographic is changing, and Marvel picked the right place and the right time to release this movie. I'm sure other studios are noticing.
I disagree with the premise of political sermonizing being a secondary reason for viewer decline. I don't like hearing a sermon while I watch entertainment, which is why I didn't watch the Oscars. Whether or not I agree with the sermon, sermons are for church, and the Oscars are for entertainment.
3
The Oscar people and the actors/actresses who participate are as isolated from mainstream Americans as a Buddhist monastery in the sky. I never watch them anymore because the glamour and glitz are so predictable and cliche to me. To me football players and actors are way over estimated and way overpaid. To me, society's finest are doctors, lawyers, teachers, tech people and those who grind out excellent work in their own small way without recognition or praise.
1
I stopped paying attention in 1998 when "Shakespeare In Love" won best picture. "Saving Private Ryan" will still be talked about years from now whenever great films and especially great war films are discussed. When's the last time you heard anything about "Shakespeare In Love"? Everything that's wrong about the whole Oscar "thing" is captured in that absurd and inexplicable oversight.
2
In a year when Hollywood and the academy awards are attempting to address the industry-wide abuse of women while promoting films that place women at the center of the piece, how is it that Jimmy Kimmel is the emcee?
Most of us first noticed Mr. Kimmel when he was co-host of The Man Show, a broadcast that gloried in its sexual commodification of women while claiming it was all "tongue in cheek". Each episode, of course, culminated in girls in skirts jumping on trampolines in slow motion.
It was a show full of bad jokes written for men who liked to think themselves above the objectification of women who could watch because it "wasn't serious". I found it nauseating. It's the height of masculine privilege to lampoon sexual harassment by depicting it, unapologetically, on film.
Hard to see how Kimmel is the spokesperson of the Woke Male.
1
The sea-change in viewing technology and habits may determine why the ratings have dropped. NASCAR and pro football have seen their share slide, too. But i note that many conservatives are trying to interpret the ratings decline as a political slap in the face for liberalism. Once again. Well, I respect Hollywood stars and producers who reach out to the world and do good and support charities. Conservatives should look to their own gatherings, like CPAC, and ask what are they up to as they congratulate themselves?
1
Perhaps the Oscars represent a transition period in which the changes that need to be made in the film industry—greater diversity throughout the industry and the process of filmmaking, elimination of rampant sexism and the casting room couch—have to be made public in order for them to happen. Film stars and directors preaching about these issues on television are going to help them happen, make them have higher priorities in viewers' minds when they see a film, and make some time-honored disgraces (e.g. white actors playing Asians and Native Americans) untenable to the public. If the Oscars then can focus on artistic quality as the sine qua non of award-worthiness, ignoring box office as well as message, they will serve a purpose—that of reinforcing quality in the industry. What we have now is a necessary, though often labored, step toward righting some wrongs so the Academy can proceed with its central mission of picking out the best films, performances, writing, and technical achievements.
I recently spent time with a high school friend, now a right-wing, "born-again," Trump supporter, who grew up going to movies and loved watching the Oscars. Alas, no more . . . too liberal-progressive/political. What struck me watching this year's broadcast is that the nominated films make enough of a political statement on their own, that added political commentary isn't really necessary (although I myself was happy to see Hollywood addressing, if awkwardly, long-standing issues of harassment, assault, and unequal opportunity during this year's broadcast. Add to that the lack of "populist" films (could be wrong, but it seems that the peak in Oscar show ratings was the year of "Titanic"), and the decline makes sense. Add to the real or perceived impressions of exclusion and elitism one more element: Awards Show Fatigue. After the Golden Globes, the SAG, People's Choice, and Independent Spirit Awards, by the time the Oscars roll around, we're pretty much sated with Red Carpet arrivals and vapid interviews, as well as the awards themselves (and the faux-humble, self congratulatory ambience in which they are enveloped). This year there were no surprises. Pretty much the same people who took home prizes elsewhere won at the Oscars. No electrifying moments until late in the evening when Frances McDormand finally jolted the snoozily pleasant proceedings awake. I enjoy the Oscars and hope they won't go away, but there's ample reason they are in decline.
Douthat overlooks one important factor in the decline of movie attendance: the sheer unpleasantness of the theater experience, especially the need to sit through endless trailers for future movies. These trailers, with their repeated deafening explosive sounds are painful to sit through. The experience makes staying home with a quality flat-screen TV that shows one's choice of virtually any movie made more than six months before an attractive alternative to the theater.
3
Maybe we're just growing up.
An actor, after all, is someone who is good at pretending to be someone who is doing something. Maybe we're starting to appreciate the people who actually do something for real, but I doubt it.
2
Thoughtful analysis and painfully accurate, I think. I suspect that the economics of the industry remains a key issue to address going forward as I just don't see the culture dominating effect that movies of the past may have had on us being replicated recently or ahead. The history of the American 20th century could be written by profiling films of each era, but today's fare do not provide us such substantive fodder. The way we watch movies has changed so drastically, that one wonders how long the cineplex will survive, if at all. Lots of good stuff in here, Ross. Well done.
For me, part of the problem is that so many movies get nominated for Best Picture that it is difficult to see more than just a few of them. Which kind of lessens the excitement. I think I saw just 2 of the 10 movies nominated this year. So much easier and cheaper to wait for them to come out on Netflix or Amazon.
2
this is a column that should have ended up on the cutting room floor. it tries to lament the present by harkening back to some purportedly better time that just happens to correspond to the writer's youth, when movies were supposedly better, or if not better, at least people went to them more, or if they didn't go to them more, there were at least fewer alternatives in other media, or something...
3
The explanations of how the Oscars and the movie industry to it's present state is accurate. The loss for sure is how the movies are no longer a shared national experience. Back in the '70's, before the rise of the multiplex, I remember standing in long lines outside the theatre in anticipation of a major cinematic event. And it didn't have to rise to the level of Jaws. It could have been just a really good movie as opposed to a blockbuster. Now the act of going to the movies is very ho-hum.
When you project out further this loss of a shared national experience seems to explain a lot in terms of our current national psyche and by extension, our politics. You can project this beyond the movies. Your colleague D. Brooks wrote a while back about how people across the country as part of their cultural consumption through the newspapers and general interest magazines, were made aware of art shows in New York museums, the latest literary masterpieces, and the latest Miles Davis album. Now we just swim around in our own fishbowl with our tailored tastes being catered too.
1
As other commenters are saying, this is a stimulating and perceptive piece about our most popular art form, which has also had a powerful influence on the rest of the world.
Movies reflect the times in which they produced and exhibited. Two recent exemplars were a film I saw last year about two brothers who robbed small banks in Midland Texas to pay off a lien on their late mother's property, which had oil reserves. The landscape had billboards along the highway offering loans and mortgages at absurdly low rates, and decaying housing. The other was Three Billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri, a cautionary tale about people unable to control their anger. Both films told a lot about Donald Trump's America, had strong writing and storytelling, and won Oscars.
They were not special effects blockbusters that mainly appeal, I suspect, to teen-agers and young adults.
Generally, I don't observe films being made today of the quality of La Strada, The Third Man, The Horse's Mouth, DOA, The Asphalt Jungle, The Quiet Man, Casablanca, or Ninotchka. This may be a function of my selective memory and the test of time.
I almost never watch the Oscar ceremony, because I am suspicious of people who give awards to themselves.
I very much enjoy Mr. Douthat's columns on American culture and religion.
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Movies should tell stories about the human element that ALL audiences can relate to. There can be niche subject movies but the Oscars should recognize those that would have the broadest appeal from a human standpoint, rather than lowest-common denominator. They could, or should, focus on the higher levels of human behaviors and not the baser ones. A crime drama can be good if it portrays the humanity of the subjects in an artistic or dramatic way. That is the quality Oscars should recognize.
The Academy Awards need to be scheduled much earlier in the year. Being the first, or maybe the second (after the Golden Globes) awards broadcast of the year, gives it news value. The element of surprise is missing. Also, this might force the studios to release movies before the holiday season when so many folks are over scheduled. If there isn't a built in audience of people who have seen the movies, then the show needs to spend as much time selling the movies as they do selling the music in the movies.
The Oscars take place during the last week in February. However, because of the Olympics, the Oscar telecast was moved to the first Sunday in March this year.
My suggestion is much more radical, a January broadcast. How about the last week of January, a week before the Super Bowl?
People do not want to be preached to and hear nasty comments about others. And, the hypocrisy of those who speak at the Oscars and the entire industry is suffocating. They speak the loudest in condemnation of people who abuse women yet this very industry quite knowingly allowed if not aided and abetted the abuses. Everyone knew what Weinstein was doing and he was hardly alone. And, for women who do not want to be seen as sex objects, why would they wear plunging necklines, see through attire, and slit skirts? They belie what they say, but expect all do bow down and believe. I think the audience has had enough and the ratings reflect just that.
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So on target!!
Also, maybe we don't need to see people applaud themselves! Love to see it in my field and nationally televised. Go social workers!
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I think you’re right. I saw almost all of the nominated films and, other than the unfairly shutout The Post, they all achieved new levels of boredom.
The Shape of Water? Another version of the Frankenstein theme. Mel Brooks did it better.
Call Me By Your Name? Just peachy, but basically a beautiful snooze fest.
Get Out? A racial Exorcist.
Phantom Thread? A lovely soporific.
Lady Bird? Nice story, limited appeal.
Dunkirk? Oscar-bait, but really just a noisy and unfeeling depiction of heroism.
Darkest Hour? See Dunkirk, except for Oldman’s portrayal.
Three Billboards? Laudable acting, preposterous story.
The Post was the only one that grabbed me and didn’t let go. I guess Hollywood is tired of Steven, Tom, and Meryl.
Nobody wants to touch this theme, but moviegoers are tired of being preached to — diversity and inclusion only seem to apply to black actors. What about Asians, Native Americans, cancer survivors, left handers, natural blondes? You see where this is going? People are rightly sick of identity politics.
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David,
You appear to be guilty of the very thing you deride. And as far as diversity goes, black Americans are the last people to whom the term seems to apply. I would even argue that the term was created to mask black people in the very way you describe in your "rant." Let me suggest an activity that forces you to actually interact with flesh and blood people who don't share your opinion about things. You just might absorb a new idea.
I rarely agree with Ross Douthat, but i think he is right on the money with this column. While TV is in a new golden age, good quality movies with mass appeal are definitely in decline. I am past the age that I would want to see a superhero movie. A movie like Schindlers List would be lucky to be made today, let alone make any money. I long for the day that serious movies were the norm rather than the exception.
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Ross Douthat, Wow...You are a Nattering Nabob of Negativity! (1) I am now more inspired than ever (1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was the start) from Truly great movie like Shape of Water combining High Mythology & High Romance by the movies today! Even the gay romance in Italy was cool in its own way.(2) I agree with some that great drama has moved to television (3) A locally published Movie Critic wouldn’t watch the Oscars for the Political chatter. Likely the stance of so many...I believe that it’s their loss because Art & Life intersect to all our benefit! Your loss Ross!! I think you should find something else to write about other than your nostalgia for 1996.
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I love Marvel's movies- yes, they're silly pop movies, but I like seeing women in movies who aren't fawning damsels. The whole industry is so skewed toward the male gaze and most movies coming out of Hollywood just don't interest me.
The Oscars are declining because TV is better
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Mr. Douthat's piece is filled quite insightful. I'm particularly intrigued by his observation that "the decline of the Oscars is overdetermined." Overdetermined? Did every liberal's favorite conservative really use a concept introduced into academia by Marxist-Leninist philosopher Louis Althusser? Yes he did. Yes he did.
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"Red China"? Seriously? Mr. Douthat, I know you enjoy painting yourself as The Last Classical Conservative In the William F. Buckley Mode, but try as you might, it is no longer 1957. In case you haven't noticed, your party's president is a Russian operative.
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Ah, too bad we’re not as homogenised and mediocre as we used to be!
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Things aren’t all bad, Ross. I see they redid “Death Wish.”
Perhaps it was the Weinstein story that showed all Americans how spineless, amoral and self-serving all the A list players in Hollywood really are. We've heard about decades of abuse while every actor and actress looked the other way out of their own self interest while preaching each year about what's good or righteous or honorable in their acceptance speeches. The mask has fallen. We see the cowards for who they are now. And that includes you, Meryl.
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People are getting used to longer stories told through binge watching multiple episodes on Netflix and Amazon. It may be that the two hour traditional film is starting to leave people feeling short-changed with under-developed characters and a too rapid plot. Also, perhaps, once the movie ends, many unconsciously want part two, season two teed up and ready to watch. Getting out of the house (or a away from the smartphone, ipad, lap-top) may not be as attractive as the long session, the deep session of a series at home.
Also, many young people would rather play video games online together, chatting and talking and team-working on the "phone" as they play some epic adventure.
Increasingly, Oscar type movies may be more of a old person medium. The young have better, more engaging things to do. Black Panther will pull them away, but not Shape of Water.
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Interesting analysis--you are mostly right. However, like so many things in U.S. society (an overwhelmingly partisan press/media, a starker division between rich and poor), what is happening in the film industry is more like a throwback to the 19th century. Remakes/reboots have more in common with travelling Shakespearean troupes of the 1850s--audiences knew the plays by heart, but were interested in seeing the most recent interpretation of the works. Marvel/DC/Star Wars etc. are all well-known to mass audiences, and give a certain comfort and commonality within the confines of a much more narrow originality. Think of how many Supermen and Spidermen have we seen in the last thirty years, and consider recent analysis about how the cinematic Wonder Woman compares to the television Wonder Woman. Marvel/DC have become the Shakespeare of the 21st century. Still, I find it refreshing that the Academy is rewarding true originality--I've always ignored the Oscars since my favorite films were rarely considered; this year is definitely different, and in a positive way!
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"Marvel/DC is the Shakespeare of the 21st century"
I liked Black Panther, but that sentence is profoundly depressing. Sigh...
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Ross is expecting higher standards in a nation that elected donald trump. He regrets or is jealous of I am not sure of Hollywood's liberal bent. There have been and are conservatives in Hollywood but like many creative endeavours today we see little creativity from conservatives. We have vapid conservative arm folders in our leadership like McConnell and Ryan. They seem focused on retaining a stranglehold on power and enriching the lives of the already rich.
Like Ross lamenting what he sees in the lack of quality of movies he waxes nostalgic for he good old days which seems to be the conservative refrain these days "make America great again" or in other words let us retreat into our perception of the past. The ground is shifting fast under Hollywood these days and around our ever shrinking world. Conservatives need to figure out how to play an effective beneficial role in these changes other than digging in their heels and wishing it was 1970.
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“But even if… we are entering an age of stronger minority and female representation in cinema, without the mass audience that high-middlebrow cinema once enjoyed that representation’s influence on the American imagination will be limited.” Ross may be right, but why would it be limited? That would have made a great column.
Is it because we seek escapism in movies rather than be reminded of reality - of racism, sexism, and predatory priests? Could the “old mass-audience, high-middlebrow model” exist in an environment of raised consciousness as we now have?
And who was that “mass audience” that had the “shared experience” from those movies? Minorities? Women? Gays? That mass audience and the movies reflected a white-male-centric view of the world.
I too bemoan Hollywood’s current lack of imagination. Technology is a main culprit. It has shortened our attention spans, and addicted us to the dopamine thrills that movie special effects provide. And the invasion of technology is fueled by capitalism, good old conservative free-market capitalism – the one that also drives the Hollywood business model. Another factor is our education system and its emphasis on STEM subjects rather than humanities and the arts which produce more imaginative minds. This trend too can be laid at the feet of the conservatives who slash school budgets and restrict curriculums.
The milieu that created better movies no longer exists. Instead we have the stark reality of who we are and our divisions.
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"Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman of “Black Panther” are talented and charismatic, but they ultimately serve the superhero brand, and they are unlikely to gain the kind of black stardom-in-its-own right enjoyed by Eddie Murphy and Denzel Washington."
I am appalled by this sentence. What does the phrase "black stardom-in-its-own-right" even mean? Have you seen any other work either Mr. Jordan or Mr. Boseman? For Mr. Jordan, I suggest a viewing of the first season of "The Wire" or the film "Fruitvale Station." He was memorable in "Friday Night Lights" and was also the best thing in the Rocky-based "Creed." Mr. Boseman gave a fantastic performance in "42" and I look forward to seeing him in "Marshall." Rather than "serv[ing] the super hero brand," I think these fine young actors are displaying their range and talent as they spread their wings. They are highly accomplished actors with bright futures whose star-worthiness need not be defined by their color-
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Boseman was also excellent in the James Brown biopic Get On Up. That the Academy had to reward a glorified Twilight Zone episode like Get Out out of guilt of not nominating Boseman or Will Smith for Concussion is regrettable.
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The news of a dramatic decline in ratings for the Oscars, Super Bowl and Olympics heartens this old codger. Don't get me wrong, I love movies. I'll watch a football game now and then. And I used watch the Olympics decades ago, when it actually had some "amateur" athletes competing. No more.
Those naive notions have long faded. The Olympics is the worst. Since the US commercialized the event, dropping any pretense of amateurism, using a feeble excuse, the Soviets use pros, I don't give a hoot who wins. Bribing judges is par for the course. So much for any objectivity. Thus it doesn't matter who gets the bronze, silver gold. Obamacare's bronze, silver and gold levels of health care has more relevance. On top of that, you have the Olympic Committee, perhaps the most corrupt board to ever govern Sport. Why would anyone watch this travesty?
Professional Sport in America has reached similar bombastic levels. The sheer arrogance of its owner overlords, who for so long held millions of gullible mainly male fans in their palm. They never knew when to quit, when to stop from down milking that cash cow dry. The Super Bowl? Relevant? Name me the last five winners?
We all know what's wrong with the Oscars. Take an awards show which ninety years ago took all of 15 minutes to present and blow it up to an unmerciful 4 hour bore, what we're they thinking? Today, watch the last 15 minutes and all will be revealed. Those in power never learned one thing: Enough.
DD
Manhattan
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I think the main reason the Olympics have steadily gone down in viewership is that in the past the Olympics were a proxy for the Cold War. I t was us versus the evil empire and their steroid using cohorts. Events like the USSR
vs USA basketball gold medal game 1972 and the steroid using East German marathon runner stealing a gold from Frank Shorter was emblematic of this. The commercialism
Only added fuel to the fire.
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Dear Mr. P. Greenberg:
I agree. Like many good intentions, what starts out as a noble idea gets taken advantage of, capitalized upon, and eventually corrupted. And yes, it was a proxy war between US and Them. Better a proxy war than a real one.
But the real culprit is the Olympic Committee. They have flagrantly abused any sense of fair play in deciding what city should host the Games and how much money under the table said city is willing to fork over to the Board members. Simply outrageous. Knowing this, I cannot watch this atrocity anymore. I can appreciate the individual athlete's talent, but the venue in which they compete is fraught with nationalistic bias and corruption. What is there noble to support?
DD
Manhattan
Frankly, if you're not from Scotland, it seems to me that the difference between Braveheart and a movie like Black Panther boils down to a few bloated action sequences in the superhero movie, the willingness to show a hero go down in defeat in the historical movie, and skin colour. And Braveheart's glorification of independence at all costs feels less mature and relevant than Black Panther's debate over isolationism and international solidarity.
It's easy to look at the past through the rosier lens of your naive 20s and think it was better. Unless you're looking for easy certainties, of course.
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Why do you assume it’s only conservatives who enjoy the decline of this self-righteous, self-adoring spectacle? Doesn’t anyone else have taste? This was the third awards show for “best movie”. Maybe they should call it “bestest”.
In what world is Trump really a conservative?
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I gave up going to see movies in theaters a few years ago. We had to take those foam rubber ear plugs for the over- loud music, background, but take them out to hear any dialogue. The same problem seems to persist when watching them later at home. Likewise the over- reliance on special effects, while the background is dark. I now have a new appreciation of old movies with real backgrounds, mountains, buildings,...real people as extras. And sound, music and voices, that I can hear equally. As for topics...violence dominates- but unlike the old western shoot-em-ups, modern violence seems to try to outdo in sicko, psycho, gore. Lol...bring back the bloodless gun fights! We can certainly imagine the reality, given...reality.
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It would be nice if Douthat was actually old enough to have a fuller perspective on the movie business. If he thinks "Braveheart" was a standard bearer, I've got big news. As Pauline Kael said, the 1970's was the "Silver Era" of Hollywood films. I was an adolescent then. I would tend to agree, even as a youth I had an inkling we were seeing some pretty major stuff.
And conservatives have rarely "been in on" the making of the big films. They generally are NOT writers or the "talent." Douthat is sad in general, this is really sad, and shows the limitations of his real life experience.
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Plus, all those great European movies..and Asian cinema.
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What a good idea. Affirmative action for conservative themed/styled movies.
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How about the fact that it’s just boring?
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Let’s get serious about films and entertainment.
Movies are a recent development. Starting less than 130 years ago, films were once short clips, then multi reel full fledged films which folks might see in movie theaters, several times per week. Then TV came, and film itself is fading in favor of digital.
Now we the viewer can see moving pictures on our phones, on computers and tablets, and on TV. We also can go to the movies. But the best acting may be as often on TV as in a blockbuster film.
The real issue is that the Oscars pretend that “movies” are somehow different from TV and internet videos. Once they were. But they are no longer. When I was a teenager, we did research in large volumes in quiet libraries. We do this no longer.
As obsolete as the Oscars is the bizarre idea that those he disagrees with are “liberals” - a rubber stamped single minded idiot who he continues to make fun of. Sorry, many of us are independents with ideas that don’t follow a single party line.
It's all of the above: the politics, the hypocrisy, the poor quality of the movies and the superior alternatives on the streaming services.
Based on decades of reading critics' reviews, I have identified only three whose opinions I value so I no longer waste time and money on terrible movies with high Rotten Tomatoes scores.
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Liberal movies, conservative movies blah blah blah.
Make the Oscars 60 minutes and I might watch. As for superhero movies vs the “ladybirds” of the world: Follow the money. That’s about as conservatives as it comes.
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Very insightful and on point. Thank you.
For the record, Braveheart was an awful movie starring an awful human being.
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When the columnist referred to "Terms of Endearment" as a "little mother-daughter movie" I knew he wasn't up to the task. That "little" movie featured some of the most bankable stars in the industry at the time (Nicholson, Shirley McClaine and Debra Winger. Directed by James Brooks. Hardly comparable to "Lady Bird."
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Mr. Douthat:
A very elegant and gracious piece, but as always you are too fair and too kind. The title is perfect however. It is the end it seems, and it has to be because the night of the Oscars was for me one of the most excruciatingly boring, politicized spectacles I have ever endured. All the movies nominated were charming but third rate except for Dunkirk, which got no play whatsoever. Denzel Washington's movie was all but ignored, and it too was wonderful. The Shape of Water was so over-rated that it was comical, and as happy as I am for a female director's moment, Ladybird was a sweet and charming diversion. This is not only the 'autumn' of the Oscars, this is the end. The Oscars have turned into a platform for political harangues and even though those political statements maybe the right ones to espouse, this is not the venue many of us seek for being glued to a tv screen for four hours or more. The glamour is gone, the really interesting actors are all gone, the replacements are all under 20 and though displaying great potential, it is ridiculous in a way to pay tribute to them at the beginning of their 'careers'. (The best part of the evening were the collages of old films). The singers who sang the nominated songs couldn't sing, and Jimmy Fallon looked bored out of his mind and was falling back on the filler of taking another audience by surprise with hot dogs and candy. We have reached the lowest common denominator. I am terribly saddened by it all.
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The Oscars this year were terrible, and here's why: 1. 2017 was a really bad year for movies. With the possible exception of "Get Out" will you remember any of these movies in ten years? 2. Jimmy Kimmel is a terrible host, as unfunny as his late-night network counterparts, and only relevant when he's shedding tears. That "let's have celebrities hand out candies to cinemagoers who have chosen to watch something OTHER than the Oscars" (and how smart they were to do so) was painful. The Oscars need to be hosted by either a great showman, like Hugh Jackman who did a spectacular job ten or so years ago, or an edgy comedian like Ricky Gervais. 3. The Oscars are boring. "Best Sound Editing"? Who cares! Who wants to see ANOTHER montage? Nobody. Cut them all, condense the ceremony so that it doesn't run over two hours, or continue to lose viewers. 4. It's not that the Oscars are too political, it's that they're too hypocritical. Seeing all the people in that room suddenly get religious on supporting women and openly condemning men like Harvey Weinstein because it's now safe to do so is sickening. Those people protected men like Weinstein and it's only thanks to news outlets like The Times and The New Yorker - NOT Hollywood - that their behavior is now condemned. 5. Cut the list of Best Picture nominees back down to five. Most of the movies nominated these days don't deserve to be and they're diluting the entire field. Unless they adopt these changes, I won't be watching next year.
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Trump supporters anticipating a slew of verbal attacks on our President simply did not tune in.
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Ross's columns --- and especially this one --- are among the shrinking number of reasons we critical thinkers still read the NYT which we once considered thought-provoking and a good source of information.
(And this is from a non-partisan immigrant educator whose monthly take-home is seldom in four figures.)
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Despite the personal politics of many workers in the entertainment industry, many movies are written to the following stereotype: one hero, acting alone, against the advice of others, saves the day often using violence. Examples are a different as Three Billboards and Black Panther.
Isn't this script propaganda for conservative individualism ideology?
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I've noticed that a lot of a-list movie stars are starting to do more work on television. Why, because that's where you find quality writing. Movies tend to be remakes or they rely heavily on special effects. Even streaming services put out more interesting fare than what's served up in the theaters from the comfort of your own home.
The heyday of old Hollywood is done. The Oscars will still exist but won't be televised.
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Cary Grant never received an Oscar.
Judy Garland's performance in 'A Star is Born' was passed over in favor of an uninspiring Grace Kelly, who received the Oscar in a Bing Crosby movie where Bing was likewise passed over.
The Oscar choices cannot be taken seriously — then or now.
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The reason for decline in movie attendance might be best described in two words: Amazon and Netflix. Still, its great fun to see stuff on the big screen with big sound. What won’t save the industry are niche films like Ladybird - an interesting tapestry of character sketches that somehow found itself on the list of best pictures, along with a number of other categories.
We need to remember what the Academy Awards are - an industry voting on itself. James Cameron is disliked, so his incredible “Avatar” lost for best picture. Can you remember the title of what won? Then go back a few years and try to figure out why the brilliant, anti-war “Saving Private Ryan” was ousted by “Shakespeare in Love.” Better yet, go forward a couple of decades and predict which film will still be remembered.
Movies are around to stay. (Read about how some predicted that they would be put out of business by television.) So is the Academy Award show. It just might have to settle for lower ratings. For the Academy members it’s a chance to pat themselves on the back. For the rest of us it’s just some entertainment, actually pretty lame but fun to watch for those of us curious enough.
Douthat wants to argue that the '70s saw middle-brow films with mass audiences taking the Best Picture award.
Was he there the year that Chariots of Fire took home that statuette? The dullest film with the dullest soundtrack about, well, I have watched it. I still can't recall much about it, other than it was about Olympic level runners. I found it hard to distinguish between the various characters.
Braveheart? Seriously? It was a terrible movie that reduced the attempts of an entire nation to shake off British rule to one man's quest to get revenge for his wife's death. (In literature, it's the Orpheus syndrome, and it's dull.)
The Oscars tend to award films that cover prestige subjects - World War II seems to be a current favorite, but they also love movies on Elizabeth I. The films are typically about Brits, but they will give a nod to biopics on Edith Piaf.
At least lately, it's possible for smaller films covering new subjects and featuring people whose bodies are not white and British can get attention. Bring it on.
Also, recent articles have bemoaned the decline of the guitar. Kind of sad, one of the great instruments of popular music ever. One culprit nobody ever mentions is our increasingly regimented school system. School systems today take over too many aspects of students's lives, including after school. Kids don't have the time to learn to play a guitar (or other instruments) at the level of the classic guitar heroes of yore. The market has also changed. Yes, YouTube is full of awesome kid guitarists playing in their bedrooms. But the only bands who can fill an arena, not to mention a football stadium, aren't even sixty anymore...they are seventy. When you lose the popular aspect of music, it's hard to have songs that really resonate with the culture, therefore interest declines, along with broad levels of musical competence.
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How many times a year are our favorite shows preempted so that we can watch (or not!) beautiful people wearing gowns that cost more than my wife's wardrobe sit around tell each other how wonderful they are? Movies, TV, plays, musicals, recording artists ...
The market is just overloaded. And waaay overhyped.
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The trailers for “The Shape of Water” stunk.
It wasn’t until it was nominated for so many awards that I took a chance out of curiosity. Turns out, I fell in love with this movie - really everything about it.
Tender on so many levels.
What a way to instill in us to take the chance on trying to get to know someone who may not be glamorous, or rich, or popular, and even ugly and unsightly. Leave it to a disabled character to lead us the way! Partner in crime - someone of another race, a believer in women’s stamina. Another partner in crime - a gay man, who may have struggled for much of his life.
So much more than what meets the eye in this movie. Walking out, a lot to digest, but definitely with a sweet inward smile.
Today, going to re-experience tenderness - catching “The Shape of Water” again before it leaves the big screen.
It was Harvey Weinstein that soured the movies these past months. Let’s blame him and his sickness or whatever anyone wants to call it. It cast a nasty cloud upon us.
But don’t blame the whole industry. Let it be a lesson. Come on Hollywood. Perhaps you can do better. Perhaps we need to lighten up and try to give movies more time in our lives. Perhaps we ought not to be so content to sit in our living rooms and watch movies there. And perhaps theaters need to know - we really don’t need those soft cushy reclining seats - families can’t afford them.
If we can’t introduce our grandkids to enjoy real movies, in theaters, who can?
Are the Oscars really declining because movies are irrelevant, or because the Oscars are irrelevant? Why does anyone want to watch a whole bunch of people congratulate themselves?
Every year it is the same. Bland host with bland jokes. Some sort of tribute to a Lion of the Industry, a social cause celebrated, snarky reviews how really beautiful women are dressed (hey, talent is one thing, couture another... the important thing is the critics like your look, not your brains or talent.)
The Oscars are losing audiences because they are boring.
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I used to love to see movies. Now I love to watch TV, steaming services in particular. These, along with Starz, FX and HBO (hit or miss) are my new movie houses. There is plenty of junk out there but more than a few gems, both foreign and domestic. “Godless,” for example, was as cinematic as any movie nominated this year. “Sneaky Pete” on Netflix, “ShutEye” on Hulu, “Little Big Lies” on HBO and the magnificent JK Simmons in “Counterpoint” on Starz—why go out? Home is safer, more comfortable and the food is better. As for the shared experience the movies used to represent, they’ve been replaced by Facebook.
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I think the demise of the film industry's, as well as other "old school" entertainment models is much simpler - the key demographic (12-24) that is nurtured early on to enjoy these diversions has moved on.
I teach in a small alternative high school and not one of my students regularly watches television. Few attend movies and even less care about professional sports.
Snapchat, Youtube and Spotify are what occupy their free time. None of which are enjoyed on any screen bigger than 7". And if the story can't be told in 3-5 minutes, the audience is lost.
Storytelling still matters, but the paradigm has shifted exponentially.
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Why would I - a movie lover - want to watch the spectacle of "wokeness" typified by the smarmy Jimmy Kimmel and the #MeToo movement? I used to watch every year and enjoy the spectacle. The thought of watching this year, or even the past couple made me nauseous. How about we start a new meme #OscarsSoLiberal and leave it to the Left?
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How about this? The writing was mediocre, the set looked like something out of a Trump hotel, and Jimmy Kimmel was rude to the winners of the Best Picture award, not even letting them speak so he could deliver that stupid jet ski.
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I love being an old person. I wish I could have been one all of my life--I'm very good at it.
Here's today's old person diatribe: They don't make 'em like they used to.
So my wife and I rented Wonder Woman. After awhile one of us asked: "why is this supposed to be so good?" Then, later: "how soon will this be over?"
Last year we bought a set of Gene Kelly movies. Not his most famous ones, but ones like On the Town and Summer Stock. What amazing talent he had. I know the actress who played Wonder Woman was supposed to be awesome (I read it repeatedly), but really if I passed her on the street I wouldn't recognize her.
I'd recognize Cyd Charisse, though.
Old movies had actresses and actors who you just "wanted " watch. I can watch Audrey Hepburn playing an Indian, of all things, in The Unforgiven and enjoy her (and i get to see Lillion Gish, Burt Lancaster, and Audie Murphy to boot!).
Now instead of sets we have special effects and explosions. Actors and actresses don't need much talent. For the "musical" Chicago the two main actresses never really even danced---they were shot with short takes so we couldn't see their lack of dancing talent. (Did I mention Cyd Charisse? I meant to).
Get Out was terrific fun, but it was no more of a "message" film than one from 50 years ago The Scalphunters (1968), which was even more fun. Ossie Davis, Burt Lancaster, Telly Savalas, and Shelly Winters romped through the old west.
I'm old. You have to listen to me.
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I, too, love being old—it's so liberating.
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Can't wait for the day Ross' columns are tuned into a blockbuster movie.
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Kimmel was sharp & funny. Speeches ranged from humorous to heartfelt and inspiring. The running jet-ski gag was hysterical. The sexual harrassment issue was met head-on. And the Best Film contenders were of a standard I haven't seen in years. Way to go, Hollywood!
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A pleasure to see you squirm, Ross. As a conservative you feel obliged to defend an old institution, in this case the Oscars. But on the other hand you dislike its liberal leanings, which you jab. Thus you twist yourself into a pretzel while displaying the illogic of the conservative position. Anyway pope said it better for you (Alexander, that is, not Francis): “All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good. And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, 'Whatever is, is right.” The sentiment is wrong, but at least it rhymes
1
Why don't you stop complaining and go out and start your own film company? You could make movies that enshrine the greatness of America like "The
Birth of a Nation" or the entirety of the Ayn Rand library. You could do a whole series of light romantic comedies on the "training" of alter boys. How about a look at the espionage of "great American millionaires" trying to make America great again by aligning with Hitler in the run up to WW2. I mean that was a real tragedy, failed coup and all but it had a happy ending, none of them go to jail and they all get richer off the war. Really, get out there and make your blockbuster action packed movie about the guy who killed Bernard Slepian. What a hero. This market is ripe for some real Americans to step up. And lets not forget that new Alamo of the Cliven Bundy story, there must be thousands of people who would love to see those federal agents in the bullseye of a scope on the big screen. By golly then we could really have an awards celebration without all those pesky women and minorities, throwing their collective progressive ideas around.
2
Yet another meandering, pointless column from Douthat that is some sort of lament for a past "golden" age of... exactly what?
Please, Ross, try a little harder for some degree of coherence and a point in your observations.
2
I wistfully remember the good ol days when Oscar hosts like Billy Crystal and Bob Hope were true class acts. Neither Hope nor Crystal told cringe worthy off color sex jokes. Talk about bad taste. Jimmy Kimmel should be hanging his head in shame for pointing out that Oscar didn't have any male genitals in his opening monologue.
I also remember when the general public flocked to the multi-plex to see the Oscar winning films. Back then the
winners were films everyone genuinely wanted to see. Not anymore. Todays movies are made by elitists for other
elitists. Quick--can anyone name the last 5 Best Picture winners?
3
I find almost all of the new movies impossible to watch. The last movies
I remember watching from start to finish in the past six months were:
Mrs. Miniver
Lonely Are The Brave (This is the best movie Kirk Douglas ever made, with a Gena Rowlands to die for.)
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Maltese Falcon (Humphrey Bogart/Sam Spade says “Don’t be silly. You’re taking the fall…. I won’t play the sap for you.” to Mary Astor/Brigid O”Shaugnessy.)
Network (“I’m mad as Hell.”)
The Thin Man with the always great William Powell and Myrna Loy.
Dr. Strangelove (General Ripper to Mandrake: “Women, er, women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake...but I do deny them my essence.”
Harry and Tonto with the great Art Carney.
My Favorite Year (Peter O’Toole)
All The King's Men (Broderick Crawford)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre with a great Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Houston.
The General with the one and only Buster Keaton.
The Dentist and The Fatal Glass Of Beer (W.C. Fields. Funny!)
The Hospital (George C. Scott. Every doctor in the country should be required to see this one.)
Thank G-d for Turner Classic Movies.
5
The Maltese Falcon has one of my most favorite lines of dialogue ever: "I'm bad, worse than you can know" delivered by Brigid O'Shaunessy, played by Mary Astor. And, as it turned out, this was actually true in that Mary Astor had slept with pretty much everyone.
I can't believe you put Eddie Murphy in the same sentence as Denzel Washington.
1
It's shocking: you consider the president a conservative?
2
Very interesting and nuanced analysis.
Academy Award ratings hit a all-time low for many reasons...most of them very obvious. First the Oscars have become anti-Republican political rallies. That's beyond dispute. Even I as a Democrat find this tiresome. You lose half the audience before you ever go on the air. Second the ceremony reeks with hypocrisy from top to bottom. It's hard to take these wanna-be SJW seriously when they're wearing $5000 Valentino dresses encrusted in jewels while preaching to the plebes. I'm not sure this is the right forum to talk about gun control either, although we need that legislation passed ASAP. These celebrities live in gated communities with large walls surrounding their homes. Some travel with armed personal security details. And there were more than more than 500 armed law enforcement officers, from local police forces and the FBI, protecting the gathering at the annual awards ceremony. Was Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel the right messenger to lead the charge on sexism in Hollywood? His four years as host of The Man Show, made a virtue of exploiting women and putting them in uncomfortable situations. It regularly featured bikini-clad women jumping on trampolines. One segment had Kimmel approaching women on the street and asking them to guess what he had in his pants. The never ending virtue signalling & lecturing by Hollywood celebs is backfiring. Everyone is tired of it...over it. They should at least for this event, turn it down a tad, unless they want ratings to continue to fall.
8
The Oscar nominated films are a litmus test for the tolerance of America. The fact that a homophobic, intellectually limited, Mike Pence would not watch the brilliant "Call Me Buy Your name" is a stunning indictment of our society
4
I never go to movies. There is really nothing there, there - that is not surpassed by a good read, a walk with my dog or just reading the papers. The experience is that of being herded about in some massive macroplex, stuffed into a filthy room , bombarded with ads, and then going deaf from the volume. I’d much rather stay home. Apparently so would many others.
4
From my perspective the Oscars were awkward, not especially liberal and certainly not all that entertaining.
The only highlights for me was Alison Janney stating that "she did it herself" and the trip over to Grauman's Chinese theatre to surprise the audience watching "A Wrinkle In Time", passing out snacks and thanking them for supporting the movie Industry.
With all that is going on in our country I think people have become too tired to even tune into Awards programs right now. They need mindless entertainment, if any at all. Probably that is why Wonder Woman and Black Panther are so popular. Very little of the political, very much entertaining. Messages in both films were very subtle.
Maybe that is what we are all in need of right now. It doesn't matter if you are Conservative, Liberal or Moderate. Everyone is drained.
2
Boy, do I hate to agree with you Ross. About anything. But this is it.
I do not go to the movies anymore, when I used to go every week.
Loud, and fast and obnoxious. Screaming scores and mediocrity. Bad writing and acting.
I go back to the days of real Hollywood celebrities.
I was in the doctor's office the other day and picked up a magazine about supposed "celebrities", and never heard of a single one, page after page.
Real craft - in writing, acting, directing, is a thing of the past, and it's just too damn bad because film has always been a place to escape to, to wonder and awe and lose yourself - the real opiate of the masses.
Classics like "Rear Window" and "Casablanca" and "Gone With the Wind" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "All About Eve" and "African Queen" and "Streetcar Named Desire" and "Roman Holiday" and "From Here To Eternity" and "Singing in the Rain" and"The King and I" and "Giant" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Ben-Hur" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "All the King's Men" and "Inherit the Wind" and "The Hustler" and "Splender in the Grass" and "Lillies of the Field" and "Hud" and "My Fair Lady" - films that lived in our hearts and became a part of us - where are they?
Marvel?
9
The Academy Awards consists of several hundred swells congratulating other swells for their swell performance in a film....well, you can fill it in.
The primary purpose of this now lib-driven glad-handing is to make more money and backslap one another for a performance driven more by the script than their talent.
The best films and actors today are in foreign films where one finds almost no explosions, bombast, and sci-fi effects. I mean how many great balls of fire do we need to know it's bilge?
The wife and I await the Brit's films and series, like "Downton Abbey" and "Victoria," for example. No bombast, just fine acting and a good story, full of good sense and sensibility. instead of rampant "sound and fury, signifying nothing."
4
I used to love movies. I loved them so much that I got my degree in Cinema Studies from NYU in the 70's, hoping to write and teach others about the art form that I viewed as both magical and thought-provoking. The actors back then weren't just hired because they were pretty or classically handsome. Being off-beat looking was a plus. Loud music soundtracks and a high body count didn't take the place of a solid script containing actual dialogue between characters. Even unsettling films could make social statements without being preachy.
Fast-forward to today, I haven't been in a movie theater in about five years. My last experience was mind-numbing. After paying nearly $15, I was surrounded by people talking and texting, parents bringing young children who are unable to sit still and twenty minutes of coming attractions that we're nothing but guns, explosions and car chases delivered at ear-splitting volume. And despite it being winter outside, it was also winter inside. The theater air-conditioning was on and we were all forced to wear our coats the entire time. Not exactly an environment conducive to movie enjoyment.
Hollywood is rendering itself irrelevant by making films more for a global market and specifically appealing to kids and comic-book minded adults. Franchises flood the theaters. Bad sequels to bad originals are pushed. Why bother? I would much rather stay home and dial-up a documentary on-demand. No annoying distractions and no gouging at the candy counter.
10
Bargain matinee days feature reduced prices, sparse attendance, and thus the luxury of arriving late enough to miss the over-hyped and too-loud trailers but still having a choice of good seats. Oh, and smuggle in your own candy.
Sadly, no bargain matinee days here in NYC and trying to guess when to arrive in order to miss the endless trailers is a crapshoot, so I'm happy to watch whatever I want from the comfort of my home.
I vote with my pocketbook. I’m tired of being lectured to by Hollywood elites with their liberal caustic know it all attitude. My wife and I use to go to the movies regularly, but now I abstain to make the point that we rent a microphone to entertainers for entertainment, not to be lectured to
3
Perhaps the Oscar ratings are down because we are finally recognizing there are far better ways of wasting time than watching the privileged remind us how wonderful they are.
6
The Oscars were boring because they showed few clips.
3
I appreciate this thoughtful piece, also backed up with some history of box office grossing economics.
I'm conscious, however, of the trope: it used to be better when I was young.
There was--perhaps--a certain cultural collective bonding happening when we all went to the movies of a weekend night, but that was because there was no internet. We need to ask the young 'uns how bonded or collective they feel as they twitter between themselves over cultural moments we can't yet, if ever, fathom.
By the way: Donald Trump is not a conservative. He's an angry former reality television star with a chip on his shoulder who is just out to spite and shaft anyone from any blue state milieu who has ever laughed at, or looked down on him for his tacky, trumpeting, gold plated shtick.
181
Best comment ever on the "politics" of Trump!
Here's another reason the audience for Oscars is dropping: the decreased attention span of the smartphone generation. In this case, I don't blame them. I haven't watched the Oscars in decades because, as deserving as the special-effects, hairdressing, and script-editing people may be, it is tedious as watching grass growing to see them rewarded and endure their fatuous speeches for over four hours. These awards ceremonies are FAR too self-indulgent. Cut the Oscars down to an hour of major rewards and you'll get that audience back in no time.
1
When you suggest cutting down the awards to a few major players, you're leaving out all the hardworking behind the scenes people like the makeup artists, costume designers, and other craftspeople for whom it's the one night they are celebrated. Those people maybe aren't flashy or glamorous, but they make the movies shine. The Oscars are supposed to represent more than just story and actors. Perhaps the Oscars need to be presented more like any company's annual banquet and awards ceremony and be designed to be viewed the Hollywood community and viewers truly interested in filmmaking as art form rather than a beauty, fashion, and late night tv spectacle.
2
I go to few movies anymore, even ones masterfully told and acted that I would otherwise have seen (based on reviews), because of the graphic violence (physical *and* psychological) that has become the norm in movies and TV.
I have no interest in being put into the position of being a voyeur. Particularly when what I am forced to witness is the most destructive, cruel, and degrading of human behavior.
Perhaps it is because I am getting old, and being shocked and grossed out of my comfort zone no longer holds any appeal; real life has taught me all I need to know about the dark side of human nature, and there is nothing entertaining in its grahic depiction for me, even if the point in the end is to see evil vanquished or redeemed.
Our society is in an ugly place right now, and the movies reflect and reinforce it.
As a feminist I also find it dusturbing how equality is portrayed on screen - too often depicting women as gun-wielding, cruel, violent, and criminal as men. Some may consider this progress; I am not one of them.
And so, I mostly stay home. Still, I watch the Oscars every year and will keep watching, so long as they are broadcast. I chafe at the political correctness surrounding anti-elitism; I admire those in the arts with great talent and those without it, but with a work ethic strong enough that you'd never know they lacked it, who reach the pinnacle of their professions. I enjoy seeing them rewarded for their achievements. And their happiness.
1
Interesting. Mr. Douthat's premise is that at the viewership decline is not due to liberal politics and then concludes that Oscar's future is as a "boutique affair for American liberals." Viewers being constantly scolded by the make-believe set is not good business practice regardless of political affiliation.
1
Movies are entertainment, a way to pass a couple of unproductive but enjoyable hours. That puts them one degree away from reality. Shows about movies, be they Oscar presentations or Entertainment Tonight, are one step away from the one step away from reality.
I enjoy watching some movies, but i do not think of them as some overwhelmingly important part of society. As to award shows, I will make up my own mind about what movies, songs, or plays are good and what ones are bad, and the opinion of other critics is irrelevant to me.
1
Enough with the conservative/liberal breakdown in all things. What we see in movies now is a diversity of choice, not just some big budget movies decided by a studio head, there are options that fall outside of that old way of doing things. When I look back at some of “great” movies that have won in the past I recognize they revolve around white people making white people movies. Finally those groups that found themselves not depicted in what we watch are taking the initiative to show they are part of the narrative also. Obviously some people lament that loss as if they are now locked out and decry the changing culture. When it comes to art it is subjective and you just can’t please everyone. The Oscars are a tribute to those that do that art and it is their choices they make, not you, you and you. Don’t like it? watch something else.
Not one single film, seemed to have that.. must see feel.
They all had the...will see it later when can rent it feel.
The writer of this article was spot on.
1
The movies made today have a lot more competition than those made in the past. Why pay money to go and see something new when all those great productions from the 1940s, 1950s, etc. are all free on the TV movie channels. Besides when one watches the old stuff the actors and actresses are recognizable and even their names are familiar. Also men were men and women were women in the days before political correctness became fashionable.
The Oscars always have been a sales event of shameless proportion. Hollywood celebrates and congratulates itself. It’s not a measure of the contemporary state of cinematography. Streaming opened new avenues of satisfying mass appeal and the artistic appetite of the connoisseur. It’s the golden age of movie making. Hollywood represents an aged industry that will shrink and become irrelevant, the way of the coal and steel industry, some day needing the protection of tariffs.
2
They have really never mattered, because they are another vehicle for self praise by a privileged class which creates fantasy normal people can’t even approach. Sometimes entertaining, but usually I can’t remember who won what within a months time.
Ross omitted any mention of the instant gratification-demanding, modern consumer Tweet-length attention span, and all but direct-to-streaming --DVD is s-o-o old-school gauche-- as contributors to the decline in the quality (certainly not the quantity) of cinema art, not to mention their impact on the bottom line. Toss in TV screens that obscure practically the entire wall of a room with their shiny black presence that don't cost as much (in today's dollars) as did the 19" color wonders of 1959, and you have the recipe for the monotonous mediocrity of modern movie making.
1
Great film artistry in the 1970s? I was 15 when that decade began. I see that Mr. Douthat was but one month old when the decade ended. I can assure Mr. Douthat that the 1970s, save the two Godfather films, was a creative desert for Hollywood. The Golden Age ended with the studio system in the early 1960s. Film historians acknowledge 1939 as Hollywood's high water mark.
For the first time in my life, I didn't watch the Oscars. I felt I should, and felt guilty because I didn't--the kind of guilt I used to feel if I missed class or Mass. Then it hit me: the Oscars feel less like magic and more like indoctrination--hardly a way I would like to spend 3+ hours.
2
Here's another perspective: Why sit through a long TV show when I can see all the highlights the next day on Youtube? The show is important to people like me, we just view it on our own terms. No commercials or minimal ones, highlights, funny lines--watching on YOutube is like skimming a newspaper of the best parts.
1
The Autumn of the Oscars is due, simply, to three things. Firstly, the quality and easy access of web-based entertainment of all kinds; secondly, the rise of mind-blowing productions of extraordinary quality and creativity now available on TV; and thirdly, the fact that the Oscars are a bloated enterprise of inane, meaningless "entertainment" that often falls short. Politics aside, it's all so 20th century. Now, having said that, we saw all but one of the best picture nominees; we did watch the Oscars; and, of course, we nearly fell asleep before the best picture was awarded. However, (you guessed it) we're 65 years old. What's more important to understanding "The Autumn of The Oscars", is that our 20-something and 30-something children....had no interest at all, nor did they see any of the nominated films.
I'm a staunch liberal who has no problem with the Oscars (or for that matter all of the awards shows) fading away. But a note on the ratings numbers: ratings are based on people actually watching shows on their TV - not on people who stream what they watch, which is about 85% of any audience.
I like the fact that Hollywood has an investment in the political culture, and the one thing I applaud about the Oscars is the willingness of so many people in the industry to come forward and speak up. It gives them breadth, and it gives me hope. Why would I want to wade through a bunch of hollow, self-serving speeches with no relationship to the world around them? But Hollywood needs to get smaller, so should the music industry, the sports industry the medical business, and Wall St. I think what we're seeing is a huge cultural adjustment, people beginning to understand that the only way good art will be made, good songs written, and good games played, is by scaling back the money, the idol worship and the whole mechanism of big business "entertainment". It mirrors what's happening in Washington - the old ways just don't work anymore and the people, yes, the people, believe it or not, are stepping up to fill the void. We can take our country back psychically as well as politically.
1
85% of a show's audience is now streaming the programs? With all due respect, where does that number come from?
All the major-category winners have been decided weeks before the Oscar telecast -- by the Hollywood Foreign Press, by the Screen-Actors Guild, by the Brits (BAFTA), so there are no surprises there. For me, it's just less-fun to watch for that reason alone. Indeed, the only reason to watch the DVR version is for the technical awards the show does show -- cinematography, editing, screenplay, costume design, and the shorts & documentaries.
There are now so many choices of cinematic shows to view -- in theater but also at home -- that the "mass appeal" and large-money amounts made earlier in Hollywood's Golden Era (i.e., 20th century) are just . . . out-dated and altered forever. Things change.
I do like gemli's comment that the Op-Ed author's lament is over the loss of conservatism which was a requisite in the 20th century for a movie to make it to the list let alone garner the prize.
I was moved by Gary Oldman's Oscar acceptance speech, I must say. When I saw the movie and his performance, I knew he'd garner that prize, but had no idea he'd deliver that heart-felt speech about his adopted 'home' country. Wow.
2
My son is an independent film producer in Los Angels and works with budgets up to $1 million on independent features. His last two films won multiple awards at Toronto, Los Angeles, and Sundance, yet the audience for them is primarily online (streaming and digital downloads). It's extremely difficult for films like this to garner Academy attention, although not impossible - Moonlight, last year's winner, was made with a $1 million budget.
The problem now is that studios are increasingly placing expensive bets on so-called "tent pole" blockbuster movies that can tie in easily to theme parks and merchandising deals (Disney is particularly adept at this). These movies may garner awards for special effects and sound mixing, but are basically fluff entertainment. Consequently, the money that would have been spent to $20M - $40M movies on more down-to-earth topics is drying up.
Yet, the merchandising part isn't always working. To quote from a story on the Bloomberg Website back in January, "Hollywood and toymakers have fixated on toy-friendly films at a time when kids are increasingly turning to YouTube, Netflix and social media for entertainment. More than 20 major films, including “The Last Jedi,” had robust toy-licensing programs last year. Movie attendance in the U.S. has dropped almost 14 percent in that span."
The decline in Oscar ratings has a lot to do with these new models of film making and distribution.
1
The notion suggested by Mr. Douthat that a certain kind of movie is honored by Oscar for Best Picture is quite true. There are exceptions, such as the superb 'Moonlight', last year's surprise winner. The tradition for most of The Academy's century long practice has been to bestow its highest honor on the 'safe', 'meat and potatoes' kind of film, be it a huge blockbuster such as 'Gone With The Wind' or 'Ben-Hur', as well as potent black and white dramas such as 'Casablanca' and 'Marty'. The traditional, conservative kind of classical movie making was born out of the silent era (though there were astonishing, risky films being made then also); gritty realism proffered in the early 1930s, most notably by Warner Bros. The studio system could also put out junk alongside prestigious fare, but the aim was to please the masses with solid storytelling and great production values. Good movies are still being made, but the magic of Hollywood's Golden Age is long gone.
1
Interesting article but it only goes so deep. So today’s nominated films only earn a fraction of what they did decades ago? Why is that exactly? The Hollywood corporate machine has done it to themselves. Why should I spend $20 on a film in an only semi-clean theatre sitting in front of patrons who chat the entire time and sitting behind patrons who refuse to turn off their phone when I can rent the movie for far less and watch it in the comfort and quiet of my own home on my large flat screen? Why should I spend money to go to a theatre when I know it will be on DVD/Blu-Ray and streaming services a month after its release? Where’s the incentive?
Hollywood has conditioned consumers to change their movie-watching habits in exchange for their own short term profits. Don’t blame the quality of the pictures or the political leanings of the message, blame the industry itself.
11
You nailed it, Brian! Douthat wallows in the pool of political division while most of America chooses to pay for a month of Netflix for less than one ticket to a cramped, dirty theater. This isn't the 1960's.
Aside from all the political aspects of the Oscars, they are also interesting as theater. And, as theater, the leading roles are for those presenting the awards.
These stars, former stars, or popular persons, especially the women, spend countless days selecting a gown, planning their accessories, and getting their hair and make-up just right.
Then, on the big night, these actors who can memorize pages of script when necessary, seem suddenly unable to remember the few words in their scripted presentations. Without their reading glasses, they squint at the cue cards and stumble through their lines, and woe unto them if their companion adlibs (e.g. Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence) because they quickly lose their composure.
It's theater, but it often seems like summer stock.
2
The Oscars -- and Emmys, Grammys and Tonys -- are an annual touchstone of how artists engaged, entertained or inspired audiences in a particular year. They also provide a historical record, a snapshot of how audiences thought or felt at a particular moment of time. But because these artist-awards are designed to celebrate and honor the year's art of the artist -- not just which artist was most successful at attracting or moving an audience, these artist-awards will remain relevant, whether the award broadcasts themselves attract an audience. If there are historical trends year-over-year, decade-over-decade toward less engaged film, television, music or theater audiences, artists take notice. So, the challenge becomes how artists can better engage an audience, given all that has come before and all that distracts a potential audience. And it's that challenge that I, as a member-of-the audience, find riveting.
2
Of course the Oscars are going to go to the highest quality movies that mostly appeal to limited audiences and not to the wildly popular blockbusters. The same thing happens with book awards. Heaven forbid either type of prize should go to works geared to the lowest-common denominator.
5
I am once again reminded of the line from Sunset Boulevard, when William Holden’s character says, “Hey, you’re Norma Desmond! You used to be big.” To which she responds, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
7
"Common cultural ground"? That's a bizarre statement. Hollywood has its own toxic culture, where marriages commonly fail because narcissists can't make an emotional commitment. And this year we've been been seeing the flip side -- powerful managers coercing relationships where they feel nothing but sexual pleasure and machismo.
I didn't watch the Oscars because I wasn't interested. I saw 3 movies in 2017, none of which got nominated. And I knew the ceremony would be dominated by #metoo gestures, which probably would not lead to meaningful reform..
3
What three movies did you see?
Victoria and Abdul, Orient Express, and X-Men. I didn't expect the latter two to be nominated, too "entertainment".
Some thoughts, Mr. Douthat.
You remember "Pan's Labyrinth"--a much-lauded film from a Spanish director. One thing struck me about this film.
You had the SUPERNATURAL element--the weird kingdom from which the young lady has emerged (without remembering a thing about it).
You had the HISTORICAL element--Franco's Spain, a fascist dictatorship in the mid 1940's.
And these two worlds NEVER impinge upon each other.
The supernatural beings that (at the happy close) welcome the young lady back--their interest in the sorrows of Spain under Franco (and his jackbooted minions) is NIL. As if to say, "Work it out yourselves!"
Why?
Because in real-life Spain in the 1940's, there WERE no happy endings. Franco had another thirty years to live. There WAS no huge, popular uprising in favor of freedom--democracy--human rights. Oh yes, change DID come. . . .
. . .eventually. Much later. When (at long last) the General died.
And in America--all these Marvell Comic book tales and characters?
Is the same thinking at work?
We seek our happy endings--our super-heroes in the world of fantasy. Make-believe.
'Cause we cannot envisage those endings in real life.
Our problems really ARE. . .
. . .insoluble.
Thanks, Mr. Douthat. Good piece.
1
Nope, it's the politics. Watching millionaires preach is completely insulting.
8
Hmmm... But if they were "preaching" something you liked, you'd probably watch. Recurring theme.....
1
The most sensible thing I have read about the current state of the film industry.
1
Alas, Mr. Douthat knows as little about movies as he does liberalism. For all his laments over Hollywood's political agenda, the movies which glorify state violence and American moral privilege are churned out as regularly as ever. This is not an industry which produces an audience of socialists, pacifists, matriarchs or Bernie Sanders supporters.
And "lowest-narrative-denominator blockbusters" is exactly what you would expect from the economic system Douthat and his cohorts love best. Which brings up another kind of hypocrisy: "hideous revelations about the film industry’s tolerance for rape." The industry's "tolerance for rape" is exceeded by at least one other institution which comes to mind. which would be the Catholic church. But don't expect equal time and distress, in the airing of this columnist's distress and preoccupations.
133
Tea Party. Brexit. Trump's election. NFL and Oscars tanking after pushing far left ideologies.
Why is it so hard for the Left to see it is driving itself to irrelevancy with its promotion of far-Left viewpoints?
Pretty sad for the supposedly smart people in the room.
3
A related question: why do conservatives think they are relevant at all when their theory has been proven fundamentally wrong since the economic collapse of the 1930's?
5
Great column. Not just conservatives are turned off increasingly by the Oscars. Hollywood has dumbed down its product so much the average moviegoer is less interested.
6
The Oscar's are dying because there is little to celebrate.
American film is now a joke. Marvel? Really?
There is no quality in writing, acting or directing. Loud and fast is the new mantra, but that will not make for quality films that you will remember.
Where are the newest actors? Who are they? The ones that make you forget your reality for a while and take you away. Who transport you. Who make you forget that Donald Trump is actually the President of the United States? That takes talent and I don't see it.
7
It was just a boring show this year. Nothing more to it than that.
1
I used to love the movies but I haven't gone in years. Movies are obsolete. There is so much fantastic stuff streaming on TV there is no need to go out and watch a movie. The advent of big screens for your home just seals the deal.
4
I remember the good old days when Hollywood was a place where creative artists went. Writers mostly who wanted to create a story and put it on the big screen. Wonderful stories born of imagination set in various times and places.
Welcome to the US of A and the triumph of Reality Entertainment. No thank you to creativity and imagination. We want to see real every day Joes and Janes struggling. Fake situational battles. Winners and Losers. No story. Just pure manipulation by producers to create "drama" of schlepps seeking 15 minutes of fame on the screen.
Apparently there was some sort of manipulative denouement on the Bachelor recently that had audiences enthralled. This is what counts for entertainment in America today. Faux contests with real people winning or losing. See Trump.
Dumbing down of American culture. Winners, losers and Superheros. See Trump. Hollywood could reset and welcome the artists and creative energy back into the production mix.
3
I expect a better show from the entertainment industry rewarding itself.
3
An appropriate editorial from Ross - yes only 26.5million watched the Oscars - and Ross did not like the movies selected for awards - he must not have seen any of them. People can stream on their phones - it’s TV and cables that’s becoming the dinosaur. Ross also fails to mention that Republican politics is the lone standout to avoid the penalties of sexual harassment. It’s no revelation that other countries have film industries. To the CA bashers - it’s the world’s eighth largest economy and feeds the nation. There is no diversity in Washington, women are marginalized and ridiculed - that would make a better editorial.
1
They do not matter now. Why would any person want to spend hours of their lives watching the over compensated self absorbed fawn over each other?
5
Why are ratings and interest in the Academy Awards declining?
Look no further than a generation of not so youngish people who don't even own TV sets.
3
There are still some wonderful motion pictures being made. Paddington 2 was one of my absolute favorites this past year. No, I am not kidding: watch this magnificently produced & beautifully acted film if you haven't yet.
A film is only going to be as good as its script. We need more chances to be taken on brilliant writing, but the people making the decisions much less coming up with "nominations" are a jaded bunch who all too often cannot be bothered with due diligence.
There's still great stuff out there. With enough people on the planet, we can keep hoping for more.
Never lower the bar.
4
Where is Johnny Carson? His brand of quality humor does not exist at the Academy Awards, replaced by humorless people like Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. The three who think they are humorous are like the emperor who wore no clothes. Unfortunately, they are linked to their audiences which equally undressed laugh at jokes that are not funny sometimes before they are even completed. The Academy Awards and the Oscars just like Kimmel, Fallon and Meyers are symbols of the decline in the big world of "entertainment" that is mostly enjoyed by mindless consumers with no discretion that tune in or line up to watch.
2
NFL ratings down, Olympic ratings down, Oscar ratings down... don't get excited. It has nothing to do with flags or religion. TV and cable are not what they used to be. My niece and my nephew don't have cable. They stream everything. They tell me that no one pays for cable TV. Netflix and Hulu are their channels.
151
Precisely, Jennifer!!
This year, for the first time in several years, I held a small Oscar viewing party. Having cut the cord over three years ago, I ran out to Best Buy and bought one of the remaining packages of HD "rabbit ears." They worked just great. However, of the five people at my gathering, four had cut the cord and the fifth was on the verge.
This is increasingly the case as cable and satellite companies require us to pay for gobs of content that we don't want. One non-streaming event a year doesn't make us capable of participating in Nielsen system. Just how accurate can their ratings be under these circumstances?
2
Nailed it. Thank you.
1
Wait, Ross was an adolescent in the 1990s? Judging by his column, I would've guessed he was at least 70 years old. I'm trying to picture him in junior high rocking a Nirvana t-shirt.
Anyway ... in this column, he never really manages to explain exactly what we're losing as the Oscars sink further in irrelevancy. We may feel nostalgia for an era when more people watched the same entertainment, but I'm not convinced there was anything better about a world where sitting in front of the television to watch rich white men hand trophies to each other was considered a significant "shared experience."
Yes, movies have declined, in terms of cultural significance and, arguably, in terms of quality. But the fragmentation of our culture isn't Hollywood's fault. It's an historical inevitability brought about by new technologies and globalization. It's a bit much to expect that the movies should hold us together when so many powerful forces are driving us apart.
16
Several points:
1) In a time when everything is politicized and Americans are loathe to experience anything outside their ideological bubbles, studios that wish to succeed as business ventures need to find movies that will appeal to a variety of bubbles - the big action/adventure movies with lots of special effects can do that, so those are the movies we get.
2) There is so much talent in television right now given the freedom of subscription streaming services - people don't need to leave home to get entertainment (at a per episode rate that is cheaper than a movie ticket + babysitting + high-priced candy/popcorn/soda). Studios need to find properties that people will be willing to pay to see on the big screen - the big action/adventure movies with lots of special effects can do that, so those are the movies we get.
3) Soundbites and digital information and social media technology encourage short attention spans and an unwillingness to engage in slow, deliberative thinking. In order to make money, studios need to cater to those tendencies - the big action/adventure movies with lots of special effects can do that, so those are the movies we get.
The problem of both democracy and culture is that you get what you vote for - whether through the ballot box or with the wallet. We get what we deserve because we usually get what we want. You want better movies? Go see better movies. You want better government? Support better candidates (and actually go vote).
1
I would add that this is the problem with capitalism as well. The market gives us what we demand with no concern with our happiness or well-being. If you want better stuff, buy better stuff - the market responds to you.
1
The Oscars, like most award shows, are for the purpose of hyping box office. The Oscar usually goes to the ones who spend the most time and money promoting themselves for Oscars. They don't represent the best of much of anything. Enough with the self-congratulating.
2
As an aging Baby Boomer, the fact that the Oscar telecast was lowly rated audience-wise comes as no surprise. This was not so much because the show was over-long, or that the puffery of importance in presentations often tends toward pretension, with often long-winded speeches, as much as Oscar rules try to make things short. These are traditional standards that characterize the show. What has happened over the past few decades and has escalated in recent years is the proliferation of 21st century technology that has reduced the movie industry to a fraction of its former self, in fact it doesn't exist anymore. As with the music industry, there are so many avenues which one can access to be entertained : the burgeoning TV mini-series consisting of Seasons 1,2 and 3 ; streaming services supply endless choices for films new and old; the ability now to watch movies on Smart Phones, even wristwatches; the cult of celebrity ,now 24/7, has erased the once powerful mystique of stardom to the mundane, week after week TV interview.
Gone are the days when movies played in the ornate movie palaces, or even the local , single home town theater. Big movie celebrities were seen on newsreels playing before the movie started or appeared occasionally on The Tonight Show (the era of Allen, Paar and Carson). Good movies are still being made, but there has been a sea change.
3
The Aurora theatre shooting didn't help the box office. Many people I know stopped going to the movies after that.
4
When I asked my teen aged kid to watch the Oscars with me he didn't even know what an Oscar was. They are so NOT interested in this sort of thing.
I may have well been asking him if he wanted to go a sock hop or play a round of marbles.
5
What a through analysis of why Oscar ratings are declining and, as a bonus, why nobody goes to the movies any more but to see action flicks. But maybe, in the case of the former, people just don't want to sit through 4 hours to see who wins five or six awards, or, in the case of the latter, there's just way too many options now than there was before. Sometimes its not all about politics or declining morals.
49
Movies are expensive. Most of us have to be selective about how we spend our movie dollars. If I'm going to go see something on the big screen, it's likely going to be something that gets a big visual assist from the large screen. The default is usually the big-budget films, CGI films. I actually prefer high-brow films, but those often don't need the large screen to have a full impact. It's a bit unfair since that means they make less money (and future films like that are less likely to be made), so I have been trying to reallocate.
I am tired of all these fatuous showboats in their Gucci gowns and diamonds pontificating about inclusion, diversity and social justice, and how woke they are. Who cares what a bunch of mountebanks think about anything? Hollywood is irrelevant to the real lives of people. I'm not sure the only purpose of art is entertainment, but most of it is just entertainment, and the preaching gets tiresome.
11
My "live" consumption of media is pretty much limited to NPR and PBS - and I consider myself (and am considered by others) to be progressive politically. That said, I found it extremely annoying that NONE of the pre or post Oscar coverage I heard considered AT ALL the artistic merit or quality of the movies or movie makers up for awards. The focus was entirely on "me too" and how white and male or not the nominees were. Sad, as perhaps this country, more than ever,
desperately could use some common opportunity for the mutual appreciation of art, beauty, and quality as a more subtle form of persuasion.
6
The biggest threat to Hollywood's once-dominant position in mass entertainment are the series-dramas turned out by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and so on. You can get deeply engaged in long-running stories, well-acted and filmed, that unravel over months. The choice of subjects is getting ever larger. And you can enjoy your homemade popcorn for a fraction of what a bucket of the stuff costs at the movie house. As for the Oscars the other night, the amount of time consumed by commercials may have been double that of the awards themselves, including all the self-promoting speechifying and inane thanks to everyone from Grandma to Fido. Who wants to watch that?
8
Excellent, concise analysis.
Ross, I don't go to the movies any more for several reasons. First, the volume is so loud that even with foam ear plugs it's uncomfortable. Second, the theaters here are air conditioned to the point that I bring a winter jacket even in the summer. And third, people talk all the time. All good reasons to stay home.
For entertainment recently I've been following the antics at the White House. It's a great show — part comedy and part horror.
16
Bravo/Brava to the producers/directors of good films that have a plot and theme a bit more complex than threat, conflict about dealing with threat, resolution of conflict by hero/heroine, threat ended, swelling music over ten minutes of credits, the most fascinating part of the film, as one tries to guess the nationalities of the key grips, assistant directors, stunt people and dozens of special effects contributors as they roll by ("Hey, that name ends in -vili. That's Georgian, right?") Passively receiving entertainment has become too important a part of our lives, and the myriad choices divide us rather than unite us. Once upon a time, you could talk to almost anyone about "All in the Family", and whether they loved Archie or Meathead or neither, they watched them. You could agree the previous week's episode was great or mediocre, regardless of whose political views you shared. Indeed, you debated amongst your family and friends whatever theme was presented. Variety shows proliferated, showcasing both old and new style songs, Not everyone knew what in the world MacArthur Park was about, but everyone knew it was "melting in the dark," and everyone knew "Fly me to the Moon" too, whichever song they might have preferred. Quick, rap fans, sing a Mariah Carey song, and vice versa. Did anyone predict beforehand that we could go overboard on individualizing entertainment and it would provide the impetus for American society to disintegrate, not into individuals but tribes?
2
I had no idea there were others who tried to determine people's national heritage while watching the credits—I just assumed it was another of my freakish inclinations. Sometimes the names will reveal where the movie was filmed (which I always want to know), but mostly I just love looking for blazingly outstanding names. Although I don't remember them once I've left the theater, it's still part of the movie's entertainment value.
Ross, increasingly difficult to draw a line between...
> In-store (bricks) and on-line (clicks) retailing
> Paper-page and web-page newspapers
From a viewer perspective - the line between television and movies is down to who owns the comfortable seating from which people watch...
Sitting 10 feet from a 6 foot screen has advantage over sitting 50 feet from a 30 foot screen - including having the theater to yourselves just a short walk away and being able to watch any movie, show, or event at any time...
Munching on any type of theater snack - at Walmart prices...
This tilt to in-home away from in-theater viewing has fully rippled back into sets, stars, and storylines...
A TV show can be conceived of as 1 or 10 or 100 episodes...
A TV show can build lush and realistic outdoor sets (e.g. the alienist), precisely-themed indoor sets (most conventional comedies and dramas), or provide most of the background through computer-generated imaging...
At $5M/hour production costs, high-budget television has a 10:1 advantage vs 1st-tier movies - and the movies increasingly rely on digital magic and singular star-power...
They're becoming indistinguishable from cartoon movies with star voices - which makes them great for voice tracks in any language...
And then, there's YouTube - Where a 5-minute flick can be made in an hour, and garner more than 10M views...
Make it, and they will watch - ad money lined up ready to spend...
Theaters have become just so...
NotMySpace...
6
I think Coco IS a presold pop culture property because every parent I know, myself included, will see anything coming from Pixar.
2
For me I would rather have the opportunity to watch all the nominated movies at home on pay per view. Holding back these movies till after the Oscars is just not a good marketing plan. If more people watch more of the movies beforehand, they might have more interest in the Oscar outcomes. They should stop worrying about theater owners and get movies out to all types of outlets as soon as possible, while interest is high. It is time to look at how movies are digested and adapt new strategies. A full release at one time on many platforms makes more sense today. You might get more people engaged from the start.
6
Fine, except the industry is trying to keep the movie theater alive as a viable mass experience. We're atomized enough in our personal media caves as it is. It would be a shame to lose the shared experience just for the convenience. Broadway doesn't videotape performances of hit plays for mass distribution, because many fewer people would travel to New York and buy $150 tickets if they could just rent the show and be done with it.
I think the current system of some getting big first-run cineplex exposure, others circulating through art house screens, and still others jumping to streaming and DVD, or being presented by Netflix, Amazon, or HBO from the start, works pretty well.
"To annoy Mike Pence" is gonna happen anyway, regardless. Otherwise it's not art. Unless the GOP can successfully reduce it -- per 95 Theses -- to a failed "Counter Reformation" when even the high art of Michelangelo-like Meryl Streep and Bernini-like Frances McDormand is too teetered on indulging one's sins to have noticed the true genius of a "Mona Lisa" which nobody wanted. Like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" finally winning a posthumous Oscar for having never won one, for example. ~~LOL~~
According to Orwell all art is propaganda. Unfortunately, very little propaganda is art. If you can unravel that twisted syllogism, you won’t need to wring your hands about the politics of picture-making.
The disdain here for "Marvel sequels and other genre remakes and reboots" is suspiciously elitist and, I suspect, religiously narrow-minded, especially if you consider the Superhero genre as a contemporary incarnation of one of our oldest literary genres, the Romance.
The Romance is a deliberately anti-representational genre; its stylized characters, the dominance of action, the contrived plots, the pure sensationalism, the ritual way we like to watch the formula played out again and again--all these features make the genre work, as the great Canadian literary critic Northrup Frye taught, more like allegory. Like the sculptures of saints on the exterior of Chartres Cathedral, the characters in the Marvel Universe--Spider-Man, Captain America, Thor, and the rest of them--all teach us, in a bang-up crash of planetary gusto, quite admirable values, values I was always happy for my son to learn.
Frye called the genre our "Secular Scripture," so I wonder if a conservative Catholic like Douthat, for whom there can be only one Romance, simply does not have the spiritual wherewithal to appreciate the marvels of the Marvel universe. Could it be that his middle-brow contempt for our most popular myths betrays a despair that Hollywood has already won the competition with the Church for the popular soul?
2
No overanalyzing necessary as far as I'm concerned. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the fact that the Oscars telecast is really boring, goes way too long and too late, and you already know who the winners are going to be since the Academy insists on being the last ceremony in a way-too-long season. I wouldn't watch the Superbowl if I knew the final score at halftime, and the Oscars are no different.
3
Immensely privileged people paying lip service to causes from which their power largely insulates them: Hollywood exemplifies the Right's caricature of the Left. Of course some of us on the Left accept the Right's version of us, since it's pretty much the only one on offer in what masquerades as our political debate. American politics is about convincing voters on the Right that they have no power, while convincing those on the Left that they have any power at all.
Those whom life, rather than our politicized media, has forced into a Leftist position, might observe that conservatives, who spend the political power they gain by preaching "values" on the subjection of all values to the market, can't be caricatured. Not because they caricture themselves (however hard they try--look at the White House), but because their power lets them set the terms of the discussion. In that regard, Hollywood makes just as good a bogeyman as welfare cheats. Hollywood will survive, since it's politically useful. Just as politics survives because it's immensely profitable.
1
Comic book super heroes are the only thing keeping the lights on in movie theaters. Black Panther, the latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has provided a quarter of the box office this year. Marvel Comics and DC Comics provided the bulk of today’s audience and if you add in sequels, there really isn’t much to celebrate. So the Oscars have been taken over by lecturing by celebrities about their favorite issues. Jimmy Kimmel who had a show where he paid women to jump on a trampoline while making vulgar comments about their underwear has now repackaged himself as sensitive, woke and androgynous. We are witnessing late stage Hollywood.
1
The way things are going, in 10-15 years, they won't need to worry about the Oscars, ratings and the like since there will no longer be actors in films. It'll be 100% CGI.
My husband and I watched many of the movies in competition at the 2018 Oscars. We drove downtown, parked, and bought our tickets at Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s small “artsy” theatre. Viewed Three Billboards, Shape of Water, Get Out, Lady Bird, Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, The Post (up at the commercial movie house in the mall), and I, Tonya.
What a variety of characters, times, places!
But why would we choose to sit for three hours listening to short comic skits and actors talking about themselves? I can see the red-carpet gowns on my cellphone, and when we wake up Monday, we can instantly learn who won, who lost, and what the critics think about it.
The health of the movie industry should be judged by the quality and variety of the films on screen ... not by the size or cleverness of the Academy Awards audience.
4
We are obsessed in this society with picking winners and losers: hence the proliferation of awards and award shows, not just the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Grammys, but Golden Globes, Independent Spirit, BAFTA, SAG, PGA, and all of the "Choice" awards--KIds' Choice, People's Choice, Critics' Choice. Forgive me if I have omitted your favorite. Art is human expression--it is not competition. The presentation of the Oscars has become a ponderous elephant of a show, but let's not elevate it to something it is not by this kind of over-analysis.
2
At least one reason I don't watch awards shows live anymore is because I can record them on my DVR and fast forward through all the commercials and transitions. Or I can simply watch a "best of" recap a day or two later on YouTube. And the NYT does a good job of curating the gowns in a slideshow I can click through in a couple minutes. So of course I'm not going to spend 4 hours of real time to watch something I can see 24 hours later in 30 minutes.
An I agree with some of the commenters about being able to watch a lot of movies at home. Dim the lights in my living room and my videophile plasma with a Bluray, along with 5.1 sound, delivers a pretty good cinematic experience. Given that, there are lots of movies that I can wait for at Redbox rather than go to the theater for.
I think theaters are figuring this out. A new AMC opened near me. Twelve screens. But only a few of the theaters are designed for more than a hundred viewers, Most are smaller rooms -- still with big screens and great sound -- that are more like living rooms. AMC has done its homework and knows that they aren't going to fill big rooms anymore. And the theater is part of a huge commercial development that went up in an empty field. But with all that space, they still only went for a dozen screens. That's relatively modest by the standards of 20 years ago when it seemed like every Cineplex had 20 big rooms.
1
I really enjoyed the Oscars and 25 million people watched it-beating out all competition. We are in surreal times and having actors speak out against a dangerous president is fine with me. I agree I'd like better, more serious films with great stories and cinematography. Spotlight was the last film that I really enjoyed. The Post and Phantom Thread were less than I expected. The winner actors and Best director and Picture was fine with me. I'm sick of action/ adventure comic book movies. Ross I just can't agree with you at all.
1
It's really just that a lot of us don't have broadcast tv. I would have loved to watch the Oscars , but my Roku box wouldn't let me.
30 years ago Hollywood movies were made solely for American audiences. With globalization and over 500 million new middle class people worldwide just since 2000 Hollywood now makes movies for that will do well (or, well enough) worldwide. The big money is to be made on movies that connect somewhat with audiences everywhere. This will not leave as much room for movies like "The Big Lebowski" "Steel Magnolias" "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" etc. Not so sure political message really matters one way or another, so much as making movies that can sell reasonably well in both in Missouri and Mumbai.
1
I share RD's view of the superhero genre and the reliance of Film upon pre-established pop content. A couple of points about the market and his account of liberalism in film. It is not surprising that viewership for film and TV continues to decline. The addictive character of the net provides the central screen life experience in most of our lives. I continue to watch films, including all the Academy nominees and as much as I can from Cannes, but I am 56 and I do so as an intentional project. When I see a film at a theater what I notice is the lack of young people not only at the film I am watching but at any of the other theaters. Who goes to the films on a first date when you can hang around the house and play video games with the future love of your life? The only films that draw an audience are those where a big screen provides a special experience, thus the domination of superheros. This is not new,film turned to color to offer an experience you could not have watching TV. Regarding the so called liberalism that dominates nominees content I think it is radically overstated. Ross is of the opinion that Shape of Water was a strong message film of multi-cultural inclusion, I sort of doubt it's few viewers left the theater thinking we really need a clean DACA bill. Also recall how many "message" films have been central from All Quiet on the Western Front to Mockingbird to Born on the 4th of July....all made long before the reign of the comic book
1
Film turned to color long before television became a central part of most Americans' lives.
We would be well relieved of the self-congratulatory circus that is the Oscars. Awards in the area of the arts are notoriously subjective. So much so that they are essentially meaningless. How many winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature can you name? How many works by the winners have withstood the test of time and are rightfully considered masterpieces today? The Oscars are simply a marketing device designed to raise the take of the nominees and winners. We should dispense with this hours long commercial.
1
Methinks that Braveheart {1995} will not hold up 70+ years the way 'Casablanca' {1942}, 'The Best Years of Our Lives' {1946} and 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' {1948} have. That was a generation that lived "over the top" and didn't require the invention of emotional or visual effects to compensate for lack of personal experience. Once out of the bottle there seems no way to bring people back from virtual worlds {social-media; digital enhancements etc} to the clarity of story. And as you have noted, our sense of shared reference is distorted.
1
"...a shift toward more of a vanguard role in pursuing social change, with fewer political compromises and greater moral clarity in what messages the academy offers to the world." Sorry, but this is utter claptrap. Hollywood and "the academy" are ill-suited to offer the world moral clarity, whatever that really means, when the people and institutions who make these films are among some of the most self-important, greedy, hypocritical hacks around. Oh they're good at posturing and showing their supposed dedication to the cause du jour (some of it no doubt sincere, most of it vapid and transparently pro forma), but Hollywood and company are the very personification of the old adage about people in glass houses.
It is also quite presumptuous to assert that our LA film makers, or film makers any where, for that matter, are even capable of speaking to the world at large, for there are many places on the planet that do not hold the same view we do in many of these topics. And one cannot even begin to believe the foregoing without remembering that at the end of the day, no matter how strident the message, most movies are made for one primary purpose - to make money and a return on the investments therein.
1
Purpose of art: to entertain and to educate and to reflect. That will never change. The fact Hollywood pumps out American propaganda doesn’t mean the rest of the world is turning out this kind of material.
As usual a conservative can’t think past his snark and money.
As the opposite of Douthat (I'm a liberal) I had a completely different take on the Oscars, and my movie choices. One, his party has made America so distasteful right now that I use films as an escape for a little while. With regard to Wonder Worman, actually a war movie, and Black Panther, the latter's gift to the world was world peace. Evidently, that's not in the cards for the GOP or Douthat.
1
Glad to hear that the days are growing shorter, colder, and darker for the Oscars. I will be glad when it's winter, and when this bloated, self-congratulatory, advertisement is no longer broadcast at all. I like movies, but have little interest in the Academy Awards.
2
To me the Oscars changed when they increased Best Picture to more than 5 movies. My husband and I used to try to get to all of those in the weeks between announcement and the show. Now it’s impossible.
It also dilutes the specialness of the Best Picture nomination. Dear Academy go back to the five movie format and the telecast will not only be shorter but will have meaning again.
2
The Top Five format heralds from an era when our population was half its size, far fewer films were being made & most people could not stream any movies into their living rooms.
I don't mind the changes. What I do mind is all the noise that has nothing to do with the Art & Science of Cinematographic excellence. As cute as the gags of recent years have been, they don't actually thematically support the objective of recognizing & encouraging outstanding achievement in the industry. There are plenty of other showcases for humor & hijinks. Tighten up the focus -- and raise the criteria for being A Nominee.
True justice does not care about anyone's race, sex, age, ancestry or beliefs.
The Oscars really should go to "Who told the best story, the best?" "What films will still be watched & watchable, in 50 years?" That did not happen this year. (It has happened in years past: "Precious," "12 Years a Slave," "Kramer vs. Kramer," "Spotlight": those are all films of global, historic significance. And that's the benchmark!)
Hollywood can blame it's increasingly low ratings on two things: (1) the tiresome and didactic speeches given by celebrities on the issue de jour that rarely resonates with the general public; and (2) the selection of best picture usually goes to some film that we used to call an "art house" movie watched only by a fervent elite and having no entertainment value to the general movie goer. Some of us gave up on the Oscars altogether when they decided that "Birdman" was the best picture.
2
Let’s not forget that the Oscars is an industry insider arts ceremony that attempts to honor the best in the industry for the year. It wasn’t created for the general public and the awards are not given out with the general public’s opinion in mind.
1
I watched "Birdman" some years after it came out. It is a beautiful meditation on the nature of consciousness, or redemption, on the limitations of 'certainty...' A magnificent film that certainly deserved to win the top prize. Superb acting.
Sometimes it's hard to get invested in the Oscars because of how strongly we feel for or against a particular product. I abhorred "Django" for its violence; I thoroughly detest QT for his exploitative cheap (cinematic) shots. But my younger son was spellbound... On the other hand, we both love the work of Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg.
You can't please everyone. But standards, criteria for selection, must always remain high!
Ok. Then why put it on network television broadcast around the world?
As a huge movie fan since I was a kid (I remember being devastated when I had to go to a scout camp and missed The Hunchback of Notre Dame on TV) it has long been apparent to me that film-making is in terminal decline.
Why? Because of the corrupting influence of money, naturally. That said, the independents will continue to surprise and delight but the big money films are now just high-tech wallpaper. So I very seldom get out to the cinema. I seek out quality movies on cable and DVD and delight in discovering new gems from yesteryear to savour.
The 50s, 60s and 70s (and 80s to some extent) are the true golden years. Why? Because the stories HAD to be good, they could not lean on CGI to create 'excitement'. Jaws had a clunky mechanical shark but it was still a great movie because of great characters, dialogue, editing, music and the vision of a great story-teller.
Just recently I re-watched On the Waterfront. A masterpiece, of course, absolute pure artistry on every level. And it won 8 Oscars too, so I guess in the 50s at least there was a way to do both. There must be a way to make movies like that again. But there'll never be another Brando or Malden or Lee J Cobb, so maybe that's just wishful thinking.
4
As a shared event, the Oscars have little meaning today. No one talks about it at work, and if you are evenly mildly conservative you have no incentive to be bashed fir 3 hours. Hollywood has been fully balkanized and is unlikely to produce films both blues and reds want to see.
7
What drives the Oscars? Pomp and Circumstance, the glittering vanity of those seeking not only recognition but some 'crowning'? Or a real test of popularity subject to the gross income, versus true value in the interpretation of human foibles? In this day and age of trust lost 'a la Trump', and the ongoing sexual abuse by male dominance when in power (and thus far always there), there is a distinct clouding of what could be a paradigm of joy, even transcendence, and affirmation of the human spirit. As we, humans, are perfectly imperfect, is there any surprise we always fall short of our projections?
1
The " problem " with the actual ceremony/show has nothing to do with politics or whatever excuse you dream up. It's simply FAR too long: bloated, containing about 75 Percent commercials and filler. In one word:
BORING. A streamlined show, at 2 hours maximum, would get much better ratings and attention. And I've been watching since childhood.
13
Yes agreed, the Golden Globes is a much better watch for the above reason.
2
I agree that the Golden Globes is a better watch, but that is because the champagne served to the participants results in a fun, rollicking show which doesn’t take itself so seriously as the Oscar telecast. I’m not suggesting that the Oscars go on a bender, just that they lighten up a bit.
You've heard of the dvr? NFL games are too long too, but diligent use of the skip feature, cutting out the ads and filler like halftime analysis, can tighten it up considerably.
With a dvr and delaying viewing leave room to skip ahead, any show is only as long as you want it to be.
I, for one, have never cared about an industry giving awards to itself.
6
I can think of several reasons for the decline in popularity of the Oscars:
12 year old children (the audience most movies seem to be aimed at) are not interested in watching award shows late on a Sunday night.
Few of us are interested in political pronouncements from people whose chief skill is pretending to be someone they are not while speaking lines written for them by people much smarter than they are.
Nobody is interested in the vanity projects of a self-absorbed, snobbish elite.
6
I thought there were a few nominated movies this year that fit your definition of ".. a kind of high-middlebrow work, a mix of star power and strong writing and gripping storytelling that at its best achieves great artistry.." They were the Post and The Darkest Hour. They are made like classic Hollywood films. Why didn't the garner a larger audience? Because the younger theatre-goers were raised on marvel Comics movies, video games, GIFs and 10 second commercials and doesn't have the attention span? I saw many comments on the film sites that they were slow, but to me, an older audience member, they were quite briskly paced. The film audience is increasingly bifurcated and the output of the studios reflects that. The Oscars mirror the taste of the older half of the film going public.
18
As someone who is a very casual observer of these shows, I turned the channel to something else simply because I was not being entertained. For me, other than when I choose to watch the news, TV is an escape, a source of entertainment. I do not want to discount any of the causes actors or the host feel the need to talk about, but that is not what I was looking for when I was watching the Oscars. Hopefully, sometime in the distant future, people will celebrate someones achievement simply because they are darn good at what they do and leave it at that.
5
Ross, I always enjoy it when you write about movies.
Like everything else today, the culture is becoming increasingly fractured, which has the double-edged effect of providing us fewer movies to rally around and more space for independent smaller works that often cater to smaller audiences.
I haven't watched the Oscars in eons, but I'm always interested in learning who won what afterward. I just don't enjoy the event itself that much, especially the parade of women showing off their dresses. I actually rather like fashion, but this part is boring, and the last time I watched at all a few years ago, the so-called interviews were entirely pointless.
I love the communal experience of watching movies in a theater, so I still go sometimes, although that's as often for the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts as for movies. Mostly, I'm working my way through the holdings of Filmstruck on my desktop computer screen.
3
The author says the decline may be due to an overall decline in Big Event ratings. The Superbowl has only grown over the years, so this is not entirely true. The truth is that movies that win the Oscars for a long time have been movies that the general public cares little about. Even more recently, movies have been winning for reasons of political correctness rather than quality. When movies relate to only a narrow audience or a special interest group, movie attendance and Oscar ratings are sure to decline.
9
Note Super Bowl ratings were down this year and have been flat not growing for years.
Your statement about the Super Bowl is incorrect. This year's audience was the lowest in nine years. To pick up on your theme, this drop may be due in part to the ridiculous controversy stoked by the president over anthem protests. And I'm not going to worry too much about declining movie attendance.
Not a bad analysis, but maybe it was just a bad year (not a lot of great movies). But generally I think movies are not as good anymore. I got on Wikipedia and looked at the nominees going all the way back to the 1930's forward and counted how many of the movies I had seen for different decades. I have seen so many of the nominees from past years until we get to the past five years or so where the numbers dwindle. I still,watch stuff from the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and even the 80's and 90's. From that point forward I gravitate toward the modern directors with vision. I don't like all of Tarantino's films but at least they are his and they pay homage to past genres. A really good story, actors with presence or directors with a vision are required to make great movies. I don't see a lot of that anymore.
8
Strangely, Mr. Douthat, the problem is that Hollywood is a business run by very conservative thinking, financially.
Once Star Wars and Jaws hit the scene in the 1970s, studios, and investors, realized they could make a lot of money from movies. That's when corporations started buying up the studios. That changed the mentality of the studio heads and changed their focus to blockbusters.
Blockbusters are a low risk move. Studios now only make around ten movies a year -- they used to make around thirty in the 90 -- and they make things that are recognizable, branded, rebooted, safe.
In other words, movies are run like a business with an emphasis to not take risks.
Studios wouldn't make "Terms of Endearment" now because they would have to spend around $35 million to make it, they'd have to spend another $35 million to market it. And then they have no idea if it will make any money. Sadly with a Marvel franchise, they have a built in base of fans who have read the comics so they can tell their Board, if the movie fails, this was a low risk gamble.
Ironic, no, that it's conservative thinking that's ruining movies?
But also, ninety years ago, there were no other award shows, no Golden Globes, People's Choice, Grammys. That has diluted the brand.
That and the fact that the show is just too long, too bloated, too boring.
75
Best comment here. This should have been a Times pick. Studios' reliance on a few blockbusters to make their money has greatly eroded the number and variation of movies that get made.
I am willing to spend the money today on a movie that truly engages me. Like many in my age group, I spent Saturdays at the theater, but I am not impressed by comic book special effects. The story lines are frequently poor, uncreative, or nonexistent. If I am not interested in the movies, why bother watching the Oscars? I used to be thrilled by the excitement, the entertainment, and the anticipation. We care about events like the Super Bowl or World Series because we have been engaged by the build up of a season. The movies do not provide that kind of build up no matter how hard the Publicity Depts try.
8
I agree that the story line is at the center of each and every movie. That's why movies like "Finding Nemo" and "The Incredibles" work: They're cute but cute is worthless unless the audience can relate to the story even if the story is told by animated characters and not humans. To that end, before seeing "Black Panther" I was curious about the 97% crictics' rating vs the audience's 79% rating. The movie has a storyline that's pretty serious:father/son, trust, betrayal. That's doesn't register with the demographic looking for action heroes. Quite unfortunate.
The point I find interesting in this piece is the suggestion that there is "...a decline [...] of the cultural common ground that our last mass-market art form once supplied." We live in a strange period of history when Americans cannot agree on what's true, what's real, what's news, or what fundamental American values are, and so it's natural, maybe, to mourn the common ground that movies seemed to provide generations of Americans.
Still, how common was that ground, actually? Common to whom, and at what cost to the Americans who had no say in how they were represented or whether they were represented in the movies?
There is a belief that art--whether of the high, middling, or low-brow kind--is a crucial ingredient in a self-reflective, thoughtful, thriving culture, and our culture is currently at a dramatic crossroads in its relationship to diversity, money, equality, and democracy. As wonderful as our history and culture are, we are struggling very hard to also be self-correcting--a messy, inelegant process that Hollywood is also engaging and representing, maybe to its own detriment, but the alternative, to cling to the nostalgia of a single "mass-audience common ground," would be setting up residence in La-La-Land indeed.
26
Excellent and observant comment.
Has there ever been mass art, much less such a thing as a "mass-market art form"? Such a notion came into vogue only when we started to take seriously such intellectual larks as "cultural studies". Then you could take on intellectual pretensions on the basis of what everybody already knew rather than going to the effort of pursuing ideas that are elusive or difficult. Once Andy Warhol could get enormous prices for replicas of product boxes, then anything could be profound.
Art is in part an attempt to escape and to comment upon the uninspired and the mundane. There are indeed great films. But they are uncommon by definition and they stand out from the general run of films that are aimed purely at "box office". "Not that there is anything wrong with that", as Seinfeld would say. But it's not art.
"Motion Picture Arts and Sciences"? Only occasionally.
2
The Oscars are primarily a trade show. It is a exhibition, admittedly more glitzy than the Auto Show or Boat Show, for the Movie Industry to promote its products. It parades its biggest stars on a red carpet, no less, to catch the consumers attention with their outlandish ever more revealing costumes. It's mindless skits, like shooting hot dogs at unsuspecting movie goers, fall as flat as the winners endless "thank yous" for parents, teachers, producers and mentors and the hollow "I love yous" for their spouses and children. Genuine entertainment by talented performers -- where are you Billy Crystal -- might help as might longer cuts from the films and performances that are honored.
22
I would beg to differ with this analysis and instead present an alternative view. Let’s start out by asking why movies that were box office and intellectual triumphs don’t get made? Let’s just consider the New Hollywood entries in this situation.
Is it because there are no more movies at the caliber of Bonnie and Clyde or The Conversation being made or is it that the bifurcation of the industry represents a dumbing down of the watching public? I subscribe that Phantom Thread was as delightful and well made as any of those 70s classics but it didn’t find an audience. Get Out made for an enjoyable and educational experience but was not as well received in terms of box office of, say, The Exorcist.
I read this excuse often and it increasingly comes across as somewhat curmudgeonly, about how the film, music, or whatever industry is now somehow less relevant or more debased. Maybe Mr Douthat, the enemy is us, who have a plethora of excellent options but gravitate (at least in terms of box office) to the most mundane.
15
This is a whole lot of words, and all of them miss the point of the Oscar telecast's declining viewership. The customization (or selfie-ization) of our media choices means that no one watches network TV, except for the Super Bowl. Miss America and Miss Universe used to be big ratings winners, too. Ask Donald how pageant TV ratings are these days. No one watches network TV news, either, or much of mainstream TV programming. It's not the shared common ground of the movies that's gone -- it's the shared common ground of legacy media, period.
105
And not too many people regularly go to the movies at the theater anymore.
Occasionally maybe but not weekly or even monthly as we used to.
2
@Amelia - Ross always misses the point. His religious consersative lens stunts his awareness about the real forces in the real world.
4
Reminds me of the old Yogi Berra quoute "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." Don't fool yourself. The networks broadcast free programming, don't forget. Many people do not pay to watch television and plenty of people still watch.
1
When I was a kid in the early 60s there was no cable tv or internet and a with a quick search of the living room furniture I could spend a Saturday afternoon enjoying a large screen spectacle that was unavailable on our small black and white tv. Even later an hour of minimum wage bought a couple of movies with snacks. So we went a lot, saw a variety of films, and developed a cultural connection with the genre.
The differences in today's costs and choices of entertainment have, by and large, diluted that connection and made Hollywood and therefore the Oscars increasingly insignificant. Shoot, these days even our politics are a spectacle.
41
This was an artist’s not a mere journeyman’s analysis of the state of the Oscars today – well worth the read for a rare peak in a mass-media offering of what a film class at a very good liberal arts school might teach. It basically boils down to the claim that Hollywood isn’t making the types of movies that combine art, social messaging relevant to many people, and mass-market entertainment appeal any longer – no more “Rocky”, no more “Godfather” – not even a rare “Titanic” extravaganza.
I agree. While it’s been a busy year for me, most years in my life have been, yet I nevertheless believe that this is the first year in which ALL the pictures up for Best Picture were offerings that didn’t attract me enough to bother to see them. I suggest that a diminishing Oscar audience can be explained by the reality that too many Americans could say the same thing. I also immerse myself daily for hours online, bludgeoned by the issues and priorities of the socially woke; and, frankly, I didn’t think I could actually stomach yet another social commentary by a winning actress whose profession or even whose accomplishments warranted weighting her opinion on social issues more than someone I might overhear in an Upper West Side coffee house.
I didn’t watch the Oscars this year. Unless the basic material they celebrate improves along axes that I regard as meaningful for the medium, I may not again. In the end, I suspect that a lot of Americans agree.
16
You missed out on some excellent movies.
Thanks, Ross. Thoughtful cultural critique, worth the cost of the NYT subscription.
Although you touch on diversification of tastes and the expansion of quality TV, I think it's worth noting some of the economic factors that influence content.
In the old days with three primary networks, TV moguls had a clear goal: capture a little more than a third of the TV audience that was made semi-captive by the small number of viewing options. In those days, films were where high middlebrow art was found. Studios wanted some of the myriad number of films that ran through the local megaplex theatre to be artful - or at least appealing to a more thoughtful audience.
Fast forward 3 or 4 decades and you find 300 TV channels and a smaller audience at the megaplex, which now often shows the same movie on multiple screens to maximize blockbuster revenue. Today, TV writers and producers are the ones taking artistic chances in order to attract viewers and Hollywood mostly cranks out Marvel content and endless sequels.
Ironically, folks like Tarantino and Luc Besson, who've been making comic book movies all along, now look like the new auteurs.
TV is now where the interesting visual narratives reside. Oscar's in for a downhill ride.
11
One other bit of economics I would mention -- the ever growing dominance of the Disney behemoth. So many of the most profitable properties are being gobbled up by this monster (remember, in addition to Pixar, Touchstone, and Disney Studios, their brands now include Marvel and Star Wars), that all other studios are left fighting for crumbs. That one giant tentpole movie that makes a lot of money can bankroll lots of smaller, more highbrow fare, if a studio decides to devote a percentage to do that. Fewer studios, in the end, means fewer options -- something the Justice Dept ought to think about before allowing Disney to buy anything else, but won't.
Terms of Endearment cannot be compared to Lady Bird because, although both stores we female-centric, TOE was directed by an older male while LB was directed by a young female in her directorial debut. The difference is enormous (and wonderful!) and needs to be considered when discussing the evolution of the industry.
19
Because of technological changes, American culture is simply moving on from film being the dominant popular art form in favor of television and video-on-demand. These media have produced far more compelling drama, comedy, character study, and even documentary-style content over the past 10 years. And they are widely popular, filling the "middle-highbrow" gap that used to be occupied by well-known films.
The decline of the Oscars doesn't represent a broader loss of common cultural touchstones; these have simply moved to a new medium.
8
The belief that things were better in the former age goes back a long way, at least to the era of Chaucer and no doubt before that. I am almost 76, have seen nearly all the films mentioned by Douthat, present and past, and think that many of this year's nominees for best picture owe no apologies to films like Braveheart or Apollo 13. The day that films of the ground breaking quality and lyricisnm of The Shape of Water are not nominated because of their box office receipts will be the day that I stop watching the Oscars. But not before then.
15
One of the characteristics of a wealthy society is the explosion of choice in all sectors of the economy, including leisure activities. As Douthat points out, consumers enjoy a variety of ways to watch filmed entertainment, theaters being only one. The technological changes behind this development have posed challenges to network TV as well as to the movie industry.
Since convenience ranks as a high priority to most Americans, many prefer to watch both scripted entertainment and sports on a variety of technological devices in their homes. The fact that attendance at a theater or sports arena usually offers a superior experience to watching on even a big screen TV fails to trump the lower cost and greater convenience of the latter.
In consequence, our more affluent society has contributed to a trend that causes more Americans to experience life in isolated settings rather than in a communal environment. Whether this change represents a positive development or the reverse remains unclear. Either way, the age of Hollywood is over.
4
The Oscars matter as much as they ever have to those who pay attention. Fewer people must be paying attention. Does this mean the movie business is in trouble or simply that it has turned in more that one different direction?
I have not watched the Academy Awards show for at least 20 years. I gave up on it initially because it dragged on into the wee hours and I found it increasingly tedious. All the results were in the newspaper the next day. All one missed were the beautiful people being beautiful and bad speeches.
Super-heroes and action movies, the blood and thunder genre, are fine if you like that sort of thing, but they lack finesse and have too much blood and too much thunder.
I saw Psycho when it first came out. I remember the "shower scene" vividly. It was a murder but it was suggested in sound and shadow. Little blood, no gore, suggestion. My wife would not take a shower unless I was home and close by for months afterward. Do they make them like that anymore?
The movie business will continue to do what it has always done: produce entertainment in a manner that evolves with the tenor of the times. Academy awards are great advertising.
14
The glut of films, arriving like water out of a fire hose, from almost every country and from countless streaming services and on-demand ISP services has made us very blase about the industry.
5
Not to mention the "stars". Who cares what the beautiful people are doing in self congratulating displays?
I disagree with the comments that laud the golden age of film as the era to emulate. There are a great number of terrific films...it is the public who have easy access to entertainment through YouTube, cable, Netflix, etc., who represent the decrease in movie theater attendance. Add to that the mass shooting in Aurora a couple of years ago, and one would rather enjoy their entertainment at home, where a mini-bag of popcorn doesn't cost $6 or more dollars, the seats are clean, and a family of four can see unlimited movies for the minimal cost of streaming. As to the "political statements" which many entertainers deliver, I am glad to see that some use their voice for change rather than rapidly rattle off a bunch of thank-yous to all the people who worked on the film whose names mean nothing to the non-insider audience. And to other detractors of the Oscars show...ease up. It is only entertainment. If you don't like it, don't watch it!
17
All the more reason to tune into Turner Classic Movies.
31
If it's true that we perceive our world upwards of 70% visually, then movies need to first get the look right and then develop the stories. Audiences are proving they like to see themselves on that screen regardless of whether their hero wins or loses. They are also capable of "getting" the difference between the mass appeal of a blockbuster Superhero movie and the more narrowly focused and reality-based identity stories like Lady Bird and Call Me By Your Name. Reading politics into it is a waste of time. Just give us some fun movies and good films that reflect our society, a.k.a. less white, less male and more everyone else.
63
Yes, Hollywood's penchant for churning out sequels is perhaps a sign that they're running out of ideas, but they're also still turning out terrific film like "Darkest Hour", "Three Billboards", "Black Panther", "I, Tonya", "Lady Bird" and many more.
Perhaps, Ross, Hollywood and even the Oscars are a bit more muted today than before because there's a live-action film unfolding in real time that's keeping Americans - and the planet - on the edge of their seats, i.e., "Which will come first: the destruction of the United States, or the meltdown & exit of the Trump-Pence Administration?"
That's the movie which has everyone's undivided attention.
49
Like most white institutions that claim to be embracing diversity, they do so on the hope that those being included will emulate the white institutions values, which aren't necessarily their own. The Academy is no different, and while they internally believe they are evolving, it's doomed to fall apart.
4
I hate to break it to you, but people of color can also make lousy films. Diversity, like many other ideas , means nothing without talent.
1
You failed to mention the soporific acceptance speeches which went on and on making the viewer at home dread the announcement of the next winner, who repeated the endless "thank you's"
4
While the issue of movies that most people have not seen and fragmentation of audiences over many media are issues, so was the Me Too movement re the low ratings.
These women and their male clone supporters only told half the story.
Besides Me Too, I am a victim they should have also said Me Too I am a co dependent and enabler of these predators but want to put the blame on all men for being members of the male race.
It really ticked over many men and women including me.
The only thing as worse as a predator is a co dependent and enabler of them.
3
It would be interesting to hear how being raped on a casting couch or blackballed within an entire industry because your rapist then spread nasty rumors about you qualifies the victim as being, "codependent." If you ever have a daughter who comes to you crying because she was harassed and too scared to say anything, well, I just hope you don't have a daughter.
1
Thank you for your reply JR, but here will go again.
With the exception of a minor or an immigrant who does not know the law, sexual harassment has been illegal since app. 1980 and there is no excuse for not doing anything about it.
Countless women have sued and won. I know I saw many of them in my corporation.
The predator will wait in the wood work and come out when they think they have the right combo of enablers or co dependents as with Anita Hill (wait to complain when the advancements dried up), M Streep/Hllary, hey I didn't know my best friend Weinstein was a predator although it was a open secret or org. like NOW who protected him because he was contributing to them.
You can include many men on the list too.
Again, the only thing as worse as a predator is a co dependent or enabler. Predators live for them.
1
The proliferation of various ways of watching film has made the "declining" measure of gross sales at the box office numbers almost meaningless.
This year's crop of nominated movies was outstanding - it included a diverse range of topics, excellent writing, innovative themes, outstanding cinematography, and superb acting performances. It's difficult to recall a year in which all of the nominees were so accomplished and the performances so memorable.
The basic fallacies in this column are that Mr. Douthat relies on outdated rating measures to prophesy the importance of the Oscars, coupled with a neglect of the impact of other digital means for viewing film. Look at the huge viewership of current movies on Netflix, Hulu, and the rest. If awards shows were to go the way of the dodo bird, then it follows that we will lose our fascination with the multitude of splendid stories that are portrayed on the screen. Highly doubtful!
4
People go to movies to be entertained, and as a diversion from their normal lives. If they consider being taught life lessons, being lectured to, or having political or cultural viewpoints forced upon them to be entertaining, then they will pay to see movies that "critics" consider "good". It is no wonder then that Marvel's superheroes or the "Star Wars" films and such franchises are the big box office winners.
2
We would have loved to watch the Oscars. We watched and loved most of the nominees in advance but the actual show is restricted to cable viewers. Everyone else is contractually blocked. Several years ago, we discontinued "cable/satellite" tv after watching the monthly subscription fees rise, time after time. At the highest (or lowest )point our monthly cable bill was $190. And, we still had to watch 20 minutes of inane commercials about mesothelioma and diarrhea in every hour of viewing. After HBO created it's stand-alone concept we made our break. Now, even with HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Sling TV (for Rachel Maddow), we pay a fraction of the former cable bill (and no commercials!)
I wonder how many other Americans were blocked from watching The Oscars. Perhaps NBC, CBS and ABC have shot themselves in the foot with these restrictive viewing contracts, bundled and sold off to distribution companies that gouge the public. It was easy enough to find the highlights of the Oscars a few days later. The only "transformation" in our household is how we view content, not the shows themselves.
11
Sigh. "Liberal"...."woke"...."social change"... okay, I'll give you credit for not using "politically correct," but overall, whatever good points you have made are drowned in a heavy sauce of right-wing buzzwords. Ultimately, this is why conservative writing is so tiresome; every single time, no matter what the subject, it seems to hit the same bland talking points.
Anyway, the truth of the matter is simpler and much more mundane. The reason the Oscars are less popular is because in the past, it used to be a special event. Now, due to the rise of social media, we are just as exposed to our favorite (or most loathsome) celebrities on the other 364 days of the year as we are on that "special" event. It has little to add, other than waiting all night for a few key awards to be read off. Who has time for that anymore? Swipe left.
24
The movies used to be of such high quality and had talented actors and actresses that appeared in them. I remember Terms of Endearment and it was such a wonderful movie. Hollywood used to turn out excellent and interesting fare that held your interest from start to finish. So many of the movies today are a rehash of former movies but do not come anywhere near the quality of the original. As consumers, we should demand better picture making or just stay home. Actually, I think that is what most of us have been doing. We stay away from this inferior material and spend our money on more important things.
The Oscars had the lowest ratings in its 90th anniversary for a very good reason. Just like the movies, the quality of the program has dipped to new levels of inferiority and people are tuning out. Why should they be bored and waste their precious time when they could be doing something else like watching Turner Classic Movies or renting an oldie that will not disappoint. If the Oscars do not wake up to reality and change, they will have only those viewers who are diehard fans. The rest of us cannot be fooled.
1
There are plenty of good movies out there, just not "mass" movies, catering to the lowest common denominator.
Is Mr. Douthat's issue the taste of American theater goers (in all their variety) -- certainly they have diverse tastes not simplistically explained. Or is he referring to the taste of the voters in the film Academy? This needs to be sorted out.
And of course there are various reasons to go to the movies, from boredom, to bad weather, to interest in an actor or director or, yes, the script. It seems there are more bored people than people interested in the script. And why is this?
Which brings us back to lowest common denominator, a topic related to the "populist" politics of today -- keep 'em uneducated, angry, looking for easy release. All of this is a tactic of Douthat's political allies -- attacking the humanities (funny, he seems to like the humanities of Jane Austen's era some 200 years ago) and praising simplistic capitalist macho competition and winner take all mentality. And now he complains about what he and they have produced -- one dimensional comic book heroes expressing anger, macho personalities, shoot-em-up answers, simplistic uninformed understanding of the world, and winner take all endings.
But of course in the real world this leads to the victory of the guys who lose in the Hollywood ending good-guy-triumph-world of the cinema. And some seem to still confuse our president with one of these macho good guys. How sad!
6
It all comes down to the erosion of adult culture -- rather, to adults abdicating cultural leadership to children and people with stunted childish sensibilities. When I was first entering adulthood, I and everyone I knew was anxious to enter into adult conversations. We looked to smart adults from a variety of persuasions to figure out how to do that. Of course, these adults weren't always right; they had their blind spots. But they weren't preoccupied with juvenile tastes. Today there is the opposite imperative. Adults are expected to follow the lead of children, to defer to their immature tastes.
It used to be that at a certain age we were expected to "put childish things aside." Now popular culture demands that we put adult things aside. And we seem only to happy to comply.
11
Excellent and well-considered. To me, the most memorable moments during the Oscars were bipolar in nature, one abhorrent and one genuinely moving. Abhorrent was the visit by stars to the screening of "A Wrinkle in Time" where superstars descended from their lofty Hollywood Hills enclaves to bestow their presence on the hoi polloi, actually shooting hot dogs out of a cannon at them in a Marie Antoinette-like display of tone deaf chauvinism. Nostalgic and moving was the clip they showed of scenes from classic movies, one after another, breath-taking reminders of Hollywood's glorious past, when they made well-conceived "middlebrow" blockbusters with movie stars that appealed to everyone. Movies have gone the way of pop music, modular and bifurcated into dozens of genre subsets, and it's a shame.
6
American popular culture has been devolving to the juvenile for decades now.
That's another reason we get comic-book movies. The overall cultural tone is set by adolescents of all ages. "Immature" is as good a word as any to describe this popular culture. Movies are just one element of that.
10
Hollywood has always been about following the money. Franchise films are always about the money, and they make plenty of it. We are lucky that films like Wonder Woman and Black Panther are as good as they are. Disney, which controls Marvel, and Star Wars, and Pixar, and of course all their legacy content, has become the ultimate expression of Hollywood studio culture: they want to have ALL the money, and they are coming pretty close to getting it. I’m not so sure that the Ross’s lament for the “middlebrow” really applies to the current scene. There is plenty of mediocrity out there for Oscar to celebrate, and I am not so sure there is much difference between “Apollo 13” and “Their Darkest Hour.”
4
I'd go back to the 1960s for more movies that are great, and many are based on great literary works. I mourn the loss of good dialogue in favor of, essentially, video games on the big screen. Elmer Gantry, The Apartment, Inherit the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Butterfield 8, The Miracle Worker, Lilies of the Field, Cleopatra, Tom Jones, Hud, Love with the Proper Stranger, Zorba the Greek, Becket, Dr. Strangelove, The Spy who Came in from the Cold, Ship of Fools, Dr. Zhivago, A Patch of Blue, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf...you know, movies where people speak to one another and there is drama and intrigue, along with some of the greatest actors of our time.
13
You forgot "A Man for All Seasons"!
2
My hope is that this is all cyclical, and audiences will eventually tire of the brainless superhero genre. Until Hollywood starts making good movies again, I'll find something else to do with my dollar.
3
Why does anyone bother to watch the Oscars? I like to read about the nominations and watch some of the films. I don't really care about which nominee wins. What I like is having a short list of films that I can watch and appreciate.
2
Why do the news media keep reporting on ceremonies such as the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes, etc.? Film no longer occupies a large space in public consciousness.
1
It's yet another example of "I love me" in an industry. Similar to the all star games in baseball and basketball - and being all pro in football. These entertainment types (movies, theater, TV, sports) etc should work at pleasing their audiences and nothing else. Sell tickets, take the money, and run. Until the public quits watching, they'll keep presenting these silly award programs.
The fate of an awards show might be one of the last things that matter.
Hollywood's awards are particularly fatuous. Rarely have I gone to a movie because it won an award. Usually a valued friend recommends, and I listen.
RD's unoriginal point is that they don't make movies like they used to. Duh!
In 1977, Rocky won best picture. The others nominated were:
All the President's Men
Bound for Glory
Network
Taxi Driver
All wonderful!
4
Haven't sat through a theater movie since "Schindler's List" (twice, though) and don't subscribe to/watch any via any form of television.
Very busy and happy living life itself.
1
Douthat laments the declining viewership for the Oscars awards show. He notes that "What has happened in the intervening years is well known to everyone." But then he actually flubs in his rather contorted and convoluted manner. Clearly Douthat is not included in the list of "everyone" to whom the reasons are "well known."
The number of avenues to put out content for a producer and the number of avenues to receive content for a viewer has multiplied many fold. Hollywood has become just one of the many conduits.
This trend in expanding the number of outlets is picking up steam and only time will tell how Hollywood will be affected or adapt to such changes. Until then we'll have pundits like Douthat pontificating and rambling.
4
Compare the movies nominated in 1939 to the nominees this year. Enough said.
1
Douhat invokes the usual mix of anti progressive tropes against the Oscars as if strident "liberal" messaging is some new phenomenon. Is he kidding or didn't he notice what was going in say 2003-6 at the time of the Iraq shambles, or how about back in the Vietnam era. Even Reagan who haled from those parts wasn't too popular in the 80's. Old wine in new bottles Ross.
As for the mix of movies and individuals nominated it was a reasonably intelligent mix and certainly not overburdened with the sort blockbuster nonsense aimed at 19 year olds that make up much of movie fare available today. Darkest Hour, Shape of Water, Phantom Thread, Three billboards and their stars wouldn't have looked particularly out of place at any time over the last 50 years.
70
Ross is still lamenting that “Atlas Shrugged” got panned and Dinesh Disouza hasn’t been lauded for his filmmaking skills.
2
It is one thing for the film industry to stage an annual series of ultra extravagant spectacles to congratulate themselves; that is their prerogative and if we are not entertained we do not have to watch. It is quite another thing for them to use those events as platforms for their often ill informed political messages. If these artists are truly committed to the myriad social causes that they espouse, perhaps they would be better served to wear their own clothes, cut down on the champagne and donate the funds instead to their local candidate or food bank.... They would have to do without the applause and the photo ops though.
6
Doesn't sound like you actually read the column.
1
Ross has so many things right in his column, it's surprising he didn't hit on the main thing that's plaguing not only the movies, but the whole entertainment industry. I don't even have to say it. We all know what it is.
The industry was caught completely flatfooted by the theft of their properties by people they thought were just a few nerds. It turned into a global free for all ripoff with a speed that is still outpacing anything the industry can come up with to counter it or even join it.
Earnings are a fraction of what they used to be. Monetization of content is not commensurate to the cost of creation. Blockbuster movies have to be geared to the Marvel crowd if they are to make any money at all. And we're nowhere near bottom yet. People like Douthat and I can decry the decay of what once was a great industry, but when I saw a friend's son watch a movie on his cell phone that had been recorded by a cell phone at a theater, I knew the writing was on the wall.
When digitization first hit the movies, and films like Avatar swept us up in the possibilities of where movies could take us, I was thrilled. But the thrill is gone. Millions spent on special effects and thirty dollars on a lame story does not make art I want to spend forty dollars on. I'd rather read a good book and fly in my mind until such time as we can figure out how much we need art and how much we want to pay for its creation.
28
I noticed an interesting example of how movies are inferior to TV. I went to X-Men mainly because I liked Sophie Turner. But on Game of Thrones she had an interesting arc as a once-docile girl who finally gets control of her life. In X-Men she had zero personality and her function was to do superpowers to delight the nerds. As for the main plotline about some supernatural creature being reawakened,, that was invented by HG Welles a hundred years ago. And neither the movie nor the TV show were great art.
1
I saw just two of the films nominated for Best Picture: Darkest Hour and Dunkirk. Both delivered the kind of quality expected of motion pictures in the glorious decades. No doubt there were many others and some didn’t even get a nomination.
As for the telecast, I can believe why so many don’t watch this long, tedious and often boring tribute to the likes of sound animation, music scoring writing and animated features. Four plus hours is too much.
6
I am sure the Oscars will remain. Someday they may not be televised and thus won't be quite so over the top with $100,000 dresses and millions in diamonds being displayed in red carpet interviews, but like almost every industry from dentists to project management the movie industry will continue to have an awards ceremony for it's practitioners. Heck, even I've won a nice award at a very nice awards ceremony at a prestigious location with music and video production. It was a very nice moment. I don't begrudge others their moment.
41
I'm always amused by cinema devotees analyzing public opinion and "art" tea leaves to divine deep social meaning. The movie industry (at least what we see in typical theaters) has always been about three things - making obscene amounts of money, then making money quickly, then finally, teaching all of us to long for lives that require money.
6
Why should good looks, charming personalities and acting ability give Hollywood the right to run the government? What would Hollywood have to say if every member of congress on a daily basis criticized everything coming out of Hollywood?
2
Another who didn't read the column.
In any event, run the government?
Criticize Hollywood or the government, its called free speech, which is kind of a big deal.
5
The GOP spends a fair amount of time and effort criticizing Hollywood, trying to portray the industry as elitist and "out of touch with mainstream values". With approval ratings for Trump, the NRA and the GOP crashing to new lows, perhaps it is time to reconsider the definition of "mainstream values". If a platform such as the oscars can provide a focus on the need for inclusion, tolerance and point towards a progressive agenda...I would say use whatever platform you have.
#MeToo
57
The US Constitution and citizenship give Hollywood—and the rest of us—the right.
6
Unfortunately, to many people, known to me, who are interested in movies as well as world affairs have, in the past few years, increasingly came to regard Oscars as cinematic equivalent of Nobel Prizes for Peace and Literature, with a blatant propensity towards following political stereotypes and sensitivities. Any "middle-brow" films about WWII, Human Rights in "evil" nations and the likes tend to get more favor from the Oscars. That is not something bad not pure entertainment either as, all said and done, a film has to be about amusing people and enlightenment without indoctrination and not depressing them.
Oscars must try to destroy itself first in order to be rebuilt anew by being very open to new universal themes, values and sensitivities.
1
I went to a movie recently and noticed that I paid more attention and was more involved in the dark room with big screen than at home. At home I would rather watch an episode than a 90 minute movie because, since it is harder to get involved with the small screen, I have more time to become interested.
6
I'm hoping for better blockbusters, with much better dialogue. It's possible, as we saw with Lord of the Rings, underpinned by Professor Tolkien's poetic writing (almost entirely gone from the forgettable Hobbit prequels).
But, honestly, my expectation is that the Oscars will go the way of the National Book Awards, highly significant to a relatively small group of people. I'm old enough to remember when novels had broad cultural significance. Still lots of novels written and sold, but they don't have the cultural weight they once did.
Regarding the politics, Mr. Douhat is a relic. What's liberal him to is mainstream to Hollywood's youthful audiences. Hollywood always plays to the people buying the tickets. Does Mr. Douhat really believe that the people who bought tickets to Get Out think of the Oscars as liberal, except in relation to Fox News and EWTN?
24
I couldn't agree more. I saw all 10 nominated pictures this year, and, in my opinion, none merited Best Picture consideration, and the nominations of several were utterly ridiculous. Exacerbating the problem is the Academy's decision to expand the number of nominees to 10, thereby diluting an already weak pool. Naming most of the last decade's winners could serve as excellent questions in a trivia quiz.
While I still go back and re-watch many of the movies from earlier decades (particularly from the 40s, 70s, and 80s), I have little desire to do the same with most movies from the last 15 years.
9
I'm guessing you nominated one by yourself? There were nine Best Picture nominees...
1
In bending over backward to be kind to the left, I'm afraid Mr. Douthat has it wrong: The primary problem *is* the politics of Hollywood. It's captured perfectly by the dead silence Gary Oldman received from the audience when he praised America. And to Douthat's point: "High-middlebrow" is not the solution. "The Shape of Water" is nothing if not middlebrow (that's why it was despised by so many critics like Rex Reed and others). The problem is Hollywood.
12
@davedix2006 Austin, TX
No the problem is you since you obviously hate "Hollywood." Shape was a pleasing little fantasy and it certainly wasn't any more middlebrow than Darkest Hour another enjoyable movie. You should give up going to the cinema since it seems to annoy you so much.
17
Leave it to Douthat to spin his culture war fallacy into a decline in the attendance of movies. There are multiple reasons why attendance is down and little has to do with the movies being "liberal." What conservatives will never get is that: THERE CAN BE NO CULTURE WAR! The people determine the culture by their behavior. It cannot be legislated. And the Academy Awards program is boring. It would need to provide more entertainment and less minor awards for it to improve its ratings.
Douthat knows that young people's tastes and attention spans are much different these days. Ever see them at a concert or a sporting event as they take selfies, text and stare at their phones, while oblivious to what is going on on stage or on the field? Hollywood movies are created by young people who do not have the same sensibilities that movie makers had 30 years ago. So the movies they make are tailored to suit a younger audience. Thus the preponderance of superhero movies.
And who goes to the movies these days? That would be young people on dates. That is the audience that Hollywood is making their movies for. That is where the profits are. It's Capitalism 101. If Hollywood made serious, adult oriented movies the profit margins would decline. So in the end it has nothing to do with today's movies being conservative (whatever that means) or liberal minded. The problem is that Douthat sees everything as a struggle for domination of the culture. A false culture war that can't be won..
4
The event is designed to reward quality. To the extent that many more tickets were sold to the nominated films than would otherwise have been the case, the ceremony is worthwhile. The schlock designed for dumbed down global audiences needs no help. But seriously, surely there is someone out there in the vast creative film community that can drag this tediously overlong behemoth out back, and reinvent it.
52
"The event is designed to reward quality."
Never has, never will. Many, many examples, but a good start is the year "The Greatest Show on Earth" won and the fact that Alfred Hitchcock never won for directing.
1
"The schlock designed for dumbed down global audiences needs no help"
Thank you but the dumbed down audiences are in the US not global. a little introspection is always a good thing
1
My mother and sister loved the Oscars show back starting in the 50s. My wife and I always watch and we are both pretty liberal. But this year's Oscar show was brutal. Way too long, when are they going to get to the awards like acting and best picture was my primary thought after Kimmel's monologue. Do we need to hear each nominated song done in a production worthy of Broadway?This year may have been my last viewing of the Oscars. I just can't take it anymore.
32
If filmmakers don’t believe in bourgeois values, they’re not going to be very adept at making films that feature them and thus draw a mass market audience.
It’s similar to how people courted by the left who eschew middle class values usually wind up stuck in government subsidized poverty. In other words, ideas are important. How we talk, what we aspire to, dictates how we act and how we’re seen. If you want to praise the niche, get used to a niche audience.
But the economics and tech trends provide another headwind. Per screen attendance and revenues at AMC and Regal have been on the decline for decades. Just like the circus went under, going to a theatre is going under too. We’ll still have the art house scene, just like our larger cities still have good arty rental places, but Blockbuster is dead and the big theatre chains are going into hospice soon. Regal was just bought out by a bargain chain from the EU. Middling Star Wars reboots can only save your fiscal year so many years in a row. And after theaters go, so will big productions. The Oscars will follow, and I would argue already have.
But is there really any loss in this? No. In variety and availability of media content and entertainment options - as well as material consumption - we’ve never been richer.
If an industry like old Hollywood, with its Harvey Weinstein’s and it’s political soapboxing is creatively destroyed as a result, we’re all better off. I think what we’re seeing is old Hollywood’s last gasp.
2
I haven’t cared about award shows for decades, and that includes the Oscars. When Shakespeare in Love beat out the infinitely more impressive Saving Private Ryan, I was done. When Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for best new artist, and it was later revealed that the two members didn’t actually perform on the record, I was done.
I can think of many other thinks I would rather do than spend 4 hours watching people patting themselves on the back for doing the job that they were hired to do. It can read the names of the winners the next day, if I care to do so.
I understand that some enjoy the glitz and the glamour. I also understand that some people like reading Us Weekly and People magazine. It’s just not for me.
That said, we no longer are reliant on the three major broadcast channels to provide us with entertainment programming. We have options.
But for the core who get into this stuff? They will always be there. The numbers may be lower overall, but the passionate fans of this kind of award show will be there. The Oscars have little to worry about.
8
Bill Seng, I so agree. What was the Academy thinking voting for Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan? Or Birdman over The Imitation Game? Do the members even watch the films? I believe the members are sent copies of the films but do they even have to prove they have watched before they can vote? Nominating ten films instead of five is also a huge mistake. Limiting it to five used to weed out the worst, it seemed. I will continue to go to the movies but I am very selective about what I spend my time and money on. My favorite this year was The Post and my second favorite was Darkest Hour-check them out.
3
Oh, give it up. SPR had some impressive sequences (mainly the storming of the beach, which had very little to do with the rest of the treacly film), but it wasn't spectacular overall. SiL, OTOH, was a masterful depiction of love and art -- and don't we fight wars so that we can live in a world where love and art reign?
1
"The key issue for the academy is that the Hollywood system no longer produces enough of the kind of movies that a mass-audience awards spectacle requires."
That may be one issue for the academy, given that they are significantly ratings and market driven, but things are more complex: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-25/economics-of-movie-making/8292352 ("The economics of movie making: Is there any money left to be made in film?")
It is wise to be suspicious when anyone tells you the "key issue is..." or the "real problem is..." Is there an analogy to the major news media, where decades ago there were a few dominant players? The internet has changed much of this--not always for the better but not many would vote to take it away. For all the nostalgia, would the loss of some Oscar focus be such a bad thing? Arguably not.
"Smaller" films, without some of the best known stars, have a better chance now given the way movies are distributed. Given the nature of our nation, the qualifiers for a "great story" are more heterogeneous these days. Netflix and Amazon and others have also diversified the market.
Do we really want the "good old days" days of the Oscars (Ross, my adolescence was in the mid-1960s), with its largely white actors and staffs (think "inclusion rider") entertained by large movie studio directors? Maybe Oscar needs to evolve--and it will do that.
60
Netflix and Amazon...."
I can' speak about Amazon movies, but the Netflix stuff is MOSTLY violent and unwatchable to me. I'm sure the "youngins" love it, but I have had enough at 75. Recently they paid Chris Rock for 2 comedy specials 40 mlilion bucks--they wasted their money. He is NO LONGER FUNNY.
Along with the "key issue is' and the "real problem is", maybe include "It's wise to be suspicious".
The good old days produced better films, period. Forcing inclusion is not axiomatically going to improve movies. Race\gender etc is a canard when it comes to artistic excellence
1
"...increasingly a business of niche markets and lowest-narrative-denominator blockbusters..."
It's interesting how this parallels political developments world-wide. You have two major trends: 1. the splintering of nation states into "niche" regions based on either ethnic or economic parameters, as in the U.S. and Europe, and 2. large scale top-down organization based on repressive nationalistic regimes such as in China, Russia, Turkey, etc. Well, the U.S. seems to be teetering between the two...
6
the other problem is which movies are actually seen by the audience. As I noted at other times, our rural flyover multiplex almost exclusively shows action movies with lots of blood and gore and children's animated flicks. Of the Oscar nominated films, only one ran for more than 5 days. Intellectual drama that makes you think? It just doesn't sell.
83
Only half of the freshmen in my multimedia class at Syracuse University yesterday indicated they had seen Casablanca. We spent some time talking about how those who had not cannot understand the many cultural references to that film that come up in popular culture and everyday conversation.
Without the "cultural common ground that our last mass-market art form once supplied" we lose some valuable ways to communicate in shorthand and humor. More importantly our society becomes more fractured because we don't all share the same cultural themes.
"Get Out" can't possibly unite us the way "The Wizard of Oz" did, and to a large extent, still does.
251
Given the current administration, these students desperately need to know the reference to "I'm shocked. Shocked."
5
""Get Out" can't possibly unite us the way "The Wizard of Oz" did, and to a large extent, still does."
Mm-hm. Probably depends a lot on who "us" are and what you mean by "unite."
7
do you read books? the classics? do you read plays such as those written by Eugene O'Neill? you will find much richness there, too.
The Oscars are doing just fine. It's the Autumn of conservative dominance that Mr. Douthat is lamenting. I can imagine that the loud and proud gay and transgender themes weren't really resonating with him. He didn't care for the Pence joke, although frankly that joke was far less offensive than Pence himself, an opportunistic, deluded Bible-thumper who preached for the teaching of creationism in public schools before Congress a few years ago.
While we're on the subject of jokes, the president is far funnier than anything Hollywood could dream up. Some ridicule of a conservative moron and the party that he heads would seem natural for a group of intelligent people who are too smart to pretend to be impressed.
Hollywood used to be criticized for its sexual themes, making conservative pundits clutch their pearls and collapse on the fainting couch. Now we've got porn stars going after a sitting president who confessed to groping unwilling crotches on tape.
Hollywood's just fine, Mr. Douthat. It's going to be a while before anyone is going to worry about Republican sense and sensibilities.
359
Delicious comment, gemli. Thank you for pointing out the irony of people demanding standards of the film industry that they cannot be bothered to demand of their government.
20
Do the math.
If, as you say, the winner, 'The Shape of Water', has thus far only grossed $58 million dollars, at roughly $10 a view, that's 5.8 million people. That's about 1.3% of the population of the US.
That means that 98.7% of people weren't intrigued enough by the available media blitz on the movie to shell out $10.
We all know that these films will be available soon for free or next to nothing, to watch in our own living rooms.
Why leave the house? Especially since the popcorn at home costs considerably less than the hostage prices at cinemas.
141
My local NYC movie theatre - part of a major chain - now has seating that replicates your adjustable living room recliner. This strikes me as absurd. I just came to see a movie, not to have my feet lifted off the floor. I returned my ticket to the box office.
1
No, that means 98.7% of the people never had a chance to see the film because the big multiplex by them didn't bother to show it.
2
At age 73, with tinnitus, I don't want to be blasted by the movie sound system. I lived in Berkeley in the sixties and do not need to pay ten bucks to be politically processed. I do not want to put money in corporate pockets in order to "celebrate" that women and people of color are somewhat more included in corporate productions. Worst, the movies tend to be boringly petulant while posing as progress in consciousness.
1
you failed to mention the impact of digital devices on the decline of movie revenue. We never go to the movies anymore...preferring to watch them in the comfort of our home that has reasonably priced drinks and snacks and plenty of comfortable seating. The bathrooms are cleaner and....well you get my drift. I just commented to a friend the other day that I don’t know how theaters stay in business or why people would pay the exorbitant entrance fees etc. in my opinion,there are still great movies being made but the fanfare (pardon the pun) has decreased dramatically.
105
Agreed - I for one despise the fact that:
a) Movies never start on time at the theater
b) I'm forced to watch commercials during the time I'm waiting for the movie to start
c) There's no etiquette whatsoever with today's movie-goers
13
I wonder why theaters still have high ticket prices when cinema halls go empty, why don't they think of pricing as a tool for higher revenue reflecting the demand. They can easily reduce prices for workday shows during daytime and many who have time will go to cinema halls.
3
Also, at home you can control the volume. I'm old, with less-than-perfect hearing, but I have to wear earplugs at movie theatres because of their blaring soundtracks. This alone has finally kept me from 'going to the movies' any more.
Our small city recently allowed a superplex to be installed, which shut down all of the other theaters in town. The neighbors of the superplex have filed a 'noise pollution' lawsuit because of the booming noise IN THEIR HOUSES from the theaters.
People want great stories, not animated video -game- quality stories.
I love film. More and more I search out foreign film, well made documentaries, and England made series. The English stories on PBS are terrific. Great dialogue, plot twists, stirring music will bring me to the theatre! And good character actors, of all ages. Come on film industry, entertain us!
214
I agree that the movie talent pool is being diluted by the crop of quality scripted TV. Why wouldn’t the best actors, writers etc want to work under the considerably less taxing atmosphere than movies.
I think you also overlook how many other awards shows precede the Oscars, diluting their impact even more.
One final question,both men and women now universally call themselves “actors” so why are there separate categories for men and women.
41
Agree with the combined actor categories and also separate movies by genre instead of gender (ie Best actor in a comedy rather than best actor). But it will never happen
4
"I think you also overlook how many other awards shows precede the Oscars, diluting their impact even more." Yes, indeed, enough already of this self-glorification for capital gain. All of these Award programs merely feed the egos and fatten the wallets of performers. Who else really cares?
2
I agree. Let’s end the best male actor category.
The movie business is run by typical representatives of today's risk-averse business environment. In the old days, in the "golden ages" of the movies, the people who bankrolled and green-lit movies actually enjoyed movies and wanted to make something good. As a child, going to the movies was a magical, bigger than life experience for and millions of others. To quote Norma Desmond: It's the pictures that got small.
166
I hope they stay small, those are the best ones. My (tongue in cheek) rule of thumb is that i won't see anything that costs over $10,000 to make. I think it's the quest for mega blockbusters that made the big films so risk-averse, lackluster, and "small".
Say what you will about Weinstein, but he's responsible for a very fine catalogue of films. Have to wonder if anyone can or will pick up that torch.
4
The disinterest of many has nothing to do with politics or content.
Hollywood is a company town, much like a coal camp or a mill town.
The "Oscars," are like a Kiwanis annual dinner at which some meaningless awards are handed out by its members to one another.
I love film and saw many of the nominees, but could care less about any "awards show."
And, increasingly, I am not alone.
288
You're not wrong. There are a lot of reasons to despair because it's easier for the industry to do a remake, sequel or a comic book movie than to come up with original scripts and concepts. I suspect we also don't come together because we're watching films at home now instead of in theaters, so that shared experience isn't there anymore either.
I'm not a conservative, but i have less than zero interest in hearing political speeches from this pack of luvvies. Can't imagine why on earth they think anyone would.
All might not be lost though. TV seems to be where it's at these days. I suspect more than a handful come together at the water cooler to talk about Game of Thrones (un-PC as they come, but it sure is fun) or other great serials over the past couple of years.
153
Truth.
But the Academy can only deal with what gets made. We are now decades away from the time when studio chiefs had the power to make the kind of movies that strove to be both worthy of an Oscar and entertaining. Somehow the idea of being entertaining and popular became synonymous with trivial or unworthy and that is a real shame. On the other hand, how can you really believe that the Academy picks the best film of the year when most of its membership thinks its perfectly fine to judge the Best Picture of the year from a DVD that they watch on a plane or on their watches? Does anyone think that Lawrence of Arabia would be the same experience on an Apple Watch? Spectacle requires an environment that celebrates its virtues, not minimizes it for convenience. What you are seeing today is the long tail of the Academy's lazy and hypocritical stance that encourages moviegoers to see movies in theaters, but does not require the same from its own members.
8
"it's easier for the industry to do a remake, sequel or a comic book movie than to come up with original scripts and concepts"
I suspect it has more to do with the money. It is so expensive to do modern movies that they can't raise enough money unless they have some sort of guarantee.
Original means risk. Original requires artistic judgment. Money people don't do those things. They do money.
2
"All might not be lost though. TV seems to be where it's at these days."
Yes. TV's long predicted take-over seems to have finally happened.