The Academy's Best Picture May Not Be YOUR Best Picture, and That's Okay

I think the primary reason anti-Oscar grumblers express such negative or jaded opinions about the Academy Awards is a misguided perception that the awards are meant to represent some kind of divine truth. If Picture A gets nominated, and Picture B is “snubbed,” the entire process must be inherently wrong because a higher power clearly would not have done it that way.

The TRUTH is that the nominations and winners are selected by human beings – not by a deity like God or Krishna or Santa Claus. 

The selection of a particular film as Best Picture of the Year is based not on a universal truth but on the opinions of a select group of individuals – individuals who work in the film industry, yes, but human individuals nonetheless.

Just as the average movie fanatic, like myself, has her own criteria for determining favorites, Academy members each view the performances, technical achievements, and features with their own preferences, biases, and gut reactions. 

The Best Picture winner is not the TRUE BEST PICTURE as handed down on a stone tablet to the Hollywood equivalent of Moses. The Best Picture winner is the movie that the greatest percentage of Academy members liked best. Different members may have voted for it because they felt it was most entertaining or satisfying to watch, or most skillfully crafted, or the best representation of a collection of artists working together to create a single piece of art. But ultimately, it is only the Best Picture because a larger number of Academy Members voted for it than the other nominees.

When Sally Field said, “You like me! You really like me!” she was not talking to God (or Krishna or Santa Claus); she was talking to her peers.

-Kristin