“Why don't we just say there was a whole raft of female performances that are in concert and in dialogue with one another? And stop the televised horse race of it all.”
These are the words of Cate Blanchett, as she accepts the Critics Choice Award for Best Actress for her performance in Tár. With a win for the same accolade at the Golden Globes, and further expected wins and the BAFTAs and Oscars, the esteemed Australian actor delivers a poignant reflection on the state of awards shows, and further, on the inflated competitive nature of the film industry.
The irony here is in Blanchett’s acceptance of these awards in the first place, regardless of her apparent anti-attitude. Would it not be a bolder statement to outright refuse the award, and use this action to platform your beliefs? Why then, does the awards season hold such a powerful grip over Hollywood and its various creatives, and why do the winners continue to evoke the same political narrative in and around the shows, rather than simply boycotting them? Are those shiny prizes just too hard to resist?
To gain some insight let’s go back to 1926, and the founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy, as it is colloquially known, was set up not with the intention of an awards show, but rather, to monopolise unions in Hollywood. Louis B. Mayer, Hollywood super-producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), was looking for a new property at Santa Monica Beach, Los Angeles.
Wanting this beach house to be just as he envisioned it, Mayer decided to have it built from scratch, and knowing how quickly sets at his studio could be created, he assigned the head of design, Cedric Gibbons, to draw up the plans. Mayer planned to use studio labourers to build Gibbons’ design, but soon he learnt that the studio was signing an agreement with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, a union that would grant the labourers secure rates of pay, including overtime. Mayer, being the oh-so noble man that he was, opted to outsource most of the construction work to cheaper, non-union workers.
With the worry that the artists – or, the 'talent' – of Hollywood may soon seek to unionise for, God forbid, some similar basic labour rights, Mayer acted fast, and soon enough the Academy had been established. With the help of other Hollywood bigwigs, Mayer would use the Academy to settle labour disputes and scandals (of which there were many) in-house and on studio terms, as well as acting as a PR machine for all the squeaky clean work of Hollywood. But what would be the best way to legitimise them and the industry as an esteemed totem of artistic prestige? Ah! How about an awards show?
And so, the Academy Awards, AKA The Oscars, were born - a private and prestigious show where each of Hollywood’s richest and most successful patted each other on the back along with an “Oh, aren’t we just wonderful?”. Before long, a whole host of other organisations followed, trying their best to match the might of the Academy. So, nearly a century after their inception, have these ceremonies succeeded in showcasing the world’s best and brightest in film, or have they been a self-serving, aggrandising party for the wealthy all along?
From a representative standpoint, things have never looked very good for the Academy. Let’s take a look at how women have fared outside of the solely female categories of Lead Actress and Supporting Actress. Only seven women have ever been nominated for Best Director, of which three have won. Three nominations and no wins for Cinematography. For Original Screenplay, a field which sees a high proportion of female writers, only eleven winners.
Things don't look any better from an ethnic point of view. As of last year's ceremonies, there have only been 56 wins for people from ethnically diverse backgrounds in the acting, directing and writing categories, with half of those not being until the previous decade. Despite efforts from the Academy to clean up their act with the introduction of 'Representation and Inclusion Standards', this year's fairly undiverse list of nominees shows this to amount to little more than virtue signalling that anyone can see through.
Of course, there's more to blame than the nominating committee for this embarrassing track record - namely, a historically systemic inequality of opportunity for women and those from ethnically diverse backgrounds in the film industry. Nonetheless, given every instance to promote and highlight creative ideas from places unfamiliar to the average cinema-goer, where directors such as Spike Lee and Agnes Varda were innovating the movie sphere, the Academy chose to ignore them. Why then, given their conservative and unprogressive nature, are the awards so lauded among creatives and audiences alike?
Well, let's hear actors in their own words. "No matter how cool everybody says they are, everybody wants one", says Whoopi Goldberg. Helen Mirren admits "we do all love a gold star, it makes us feel proud, that we've achieved something". "I don't think there's any other award that compares to that one", remarks Benicio del Toro. Ultimately, it may just come down to that - we like awards, we like tangible recognition. When I watched one of my favourite actors as a teenager, Leonardo Dicaprio, finally win Best Actor after four previous nominations in 2016, it just felt like such a grand achievement to see.
Despite the arbitrary nature of it all, we like to win things and it feels honourable to be invited to partake in such events. Illusion or not, it must be a real buzz to be in the room where it happens. Hypothetically, imagine being invited for a private tour around Buckingham Palace by the King, despite holding an anti-monarch stance. I don't know about you, but I'd find this a pretty hard offer to turn down.
My point here is, we all feed this vanity machine in our continued anticipation and viewership of the awards season. Our job is easy enough: just don't watch, or even give it the time of day. The real task lies with the attendees and prospective winners not to turn up, and take a real stand.
Of course, there is the opportunity to use your acceptance speech time to comment on the continued unequal and unjust state of Hollywood, with all its liberal-elite virtue signalling, culture of sexual predators and climate-activist hypocrisy. But all of this seems to be in vain; imagine a mayor unveiling a new coal mine for the town and then proceeding to say how environmentally damaging coal mines are.
The closing words of Ricky Gervais' monologue at the 2020 Golden Globes echo this sentiment aptly: "If you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg."
So let's put an end to this glorified members' club, one that tends to exclude underrepresented backgrounds and low-budget films more often than not - the average Oscars campaign costs around $100,000. There was so much great content sidelined by the mainstream last year: Bones and All, After Yang, Decision to Leave, Nope, the list goes on. Digest and support it, and ignore all the accolades. Who cares what some old blokes in Los Angeles think, anyway?
It's a good point you make, you can draw a parallel with British awards for services (MBE, OBE etc). It always amazes me when people like my school mate Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Laundrette author) accept an MBE when he's spent a lifetime criticising the British Empire. As you say, vanity project. I would admire them much more if, like Benjamin Zephania, they were to take a stand. "Benjamin Zephaniah OBE - no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire."
George C Scott famously turned down his Best Actor Oscar for Patton, saying of the awards hoopla "I don't want any part of it". Marlon Brando also turned one down for his portrayal of Vito Corleone, and unlike Scott, chose to say what he was protesting about (Hollywood portrayal of native Americans, amongst other issues).