The Oscars Encourage Terrible Movie Making
Hey JessCar WInners
It's that time of the year again, after 12 months of releasing mediocre content that earns millions since there is no real competition in this space due to IP laws. Hollywood now decides to waste some of those earned millions by patting one another on the back for a job well done. I love movies as much as anyone, but I have to say the content being put out has deteriorated, and each year they surprisingly keep going downhill.
Yes, one or two brave production companies a year used to put out a decent movie. Because well they wanted to create a decent movie while the rest try to pander to the academy and ensure they cater for a wide enough audience with a generic plot and forgettable actors. This is done so that they can make back their overinflated budget and a hefty profit from entertaining the masses.
Any sane person would hardly give a shit about the Oscars, its just a made-up ceremony by elitist to congratulate themselves and jerk one another off on, off and backstage as if they don't do it already. But that's not my issue; my issue is another example of how a central authority can influence an industry.
Most movies are aiming for Oscar bait
While some may judge movies on their artistic merit and storytelling, others to judge theirs on the commercial success of how many tickets it sold. The issue here is to make something unique or try something risky doesn't always resonate with audiences who have become increasingly vanilla of late as you can tell by the success of franchises like the Fast and The Furious or anything the Rock puts his name on these days.
There's nothing wrong with making movies for pure mindless entertainment and making money but what I'm saying is that's what makes this award such a joke. It's perceived as an award for the best in the craft, but now it's all about the most appealing for an audience and not for the impact the depiction of the story has on the viewer.
Image source: - oscar.go.com
Stay on topic
If you're not a war movie, biopic or retelling from history or now, some PC topic with a positive outcome you're pretty much shit out of luck when it comes to winning an award. Hollywood wants the winners to reflect their ideals such as commercial success, political agendas and some artistic value. Combining those three will always result in certain movies getting the nod over others.
Great movies that never won an Oscar
I mean some of my favourite movies never got a sniff in, and I would say these are universally recognised as good movies but never fell into those categories that the academy loves so much.
- American Psycho
- The Big Lebowski
- Pyscho
- Heat
- The Dark Knight
- American History X
- Fight Club
That's only a few I can remember off the top of my head, but there are plenty of examples of movies that didn't get a look at because they don't fit the narrative Hollywood is trying to push on the masses.
I'm not saying parasite was at all a bad movie, it wasn't, but I can't help but feel it won the award only because it would get the most clout for winning. Oh look at us, we're so woke, the best picture this year was a foreign film made by what Americans would see as a minority look how progressive we are as a society.
It was rather slim pickings too, and none of the other movies would get the media attention it would get for winning. A film like Ford V Ferrari or 1917 would fit the traditional role of an Oscar-bait winning movie but wouldn't have that shock value. While Ford V Ferrari was pretty good, 1917 was shockingly below average for a warn out concept, surely you have enough to compare to, to up your game.
Make what we want
So as you can see the formula has been set out by the academy and instead of encouraging creativity and innovation, they drive conformity and mass appeal. Studios want to aim for that nominee or win because it's going to give their studio extra clout, it's going to pump up sales of tickets and back catalogue sales of the movie in future. Its a seal of approval that makes the film an even more significant success than the content itself deserves.
This is a distinct issue with all central authorities as they dictate the macro behaviour of the industry and artificially change it to what it would be should it have been an open and free market of ideas. While you may be celebrating these movies and think they're the best Hollywood or Indepednats can produce, there are plenty of concepts sitting on the cutting room floor because they don't pass the Oscar test or fit the mould of mass commercial appeal.
A gap in the market
I feel like this leaves a distinct gap in the market for your so-called streaming sites who now have quite a bit of power to be riskier and give the projects that don't fit the mould a platform to showcase their ideas but It seems they've also sold out to the award system. Netflix is already trying to make movies that can be considered for Oscars like the Irishman and I think they're losing out on real business by following this route.
They could have created a platform for niche projects to find a home and attract an entirely new user base of disillusioned people who feel the generic stuff isn't for them and want something new. An audience with money that are willing to pay to be entertained.
Have your say
What do you good people of steem think?
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