Oscars 2022: The full list of nominations
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The new #OscarsFanFavorite category is a stroke of genius
The #OscarsFanFavorite vote has commenced online and votes have already started flooding in for the likes of Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Suicide Squad, Zack Snyder’s Justice League and even Netflix’s Army of the Dead. Seemingly, this unprecedented experiment from the American Academy of Motion Pictures to see if they can get audiences interested in the outdated ceremony once more, looks to be working.
Once a staple of any cinephile’s viewing calendar, the Oscars have lost their relevance in the past decade or so with audiences seemingly less trusting of the Academy’s skewed opinion on the previous year in film. Long-ignoring popular blockbusters and turning a blind eye to major successes for black and female filmmakers, the ceremony has been caught in the middle of a public outcry with #OscarsSoWhite becoming the rallying cry for a generation of film fans demanding change.
In response, viewership for the annual Academy Awards has experienced a steady decline over the past few years, with the ceremony in 2021 proving to suffer the most from the recent outcry, despite its own milestones in recognising diversity. Hauling in an impressive viewing figure of 43.7 million people in 2014, 2021 saw just 9.23 million viewers tune in for the award show that saw Nomadland take home Best Picture, a 51% drop from the 18.69 million who had watched the previous year.
Making recent strides in diversifying their list of nominees, the Academy announced in 2020 that they have doubled the number of female members from 1,446 to 3,179 and has tripled their members of colour from 554 to 1,787 with the likes of Moonlight, Get Out, BlacKkKlansman and Judas and the Black Messiah having been honoured in the past five years. With this issue being slowly addressed by the institution, the Academy has now turned its attention to how it can get more eyes on the ceremony with the announcement of two new audience-led categories.
Collaborating with Twitter for the brand new award, users of the social media platform can vote for their favourite film of the year by using the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite and #Sweepstakes alongside their favourite film. As well as being able to get their favourite film noticed by the Academy, using the hashtags also gives voters the chance to win an exclusive chance to attend the award show in 2023.
Being able to vote up to 20 times a day, fans are allowed to vote for any film that came out in 2021 even if it has not been nominated in any categories. In addition, using the hashtag #OscarsCheerMoment, movie fans can also vote for their favourite scene of the year, with the appearance of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire being an obvious shoo-in to receive this particular award.
Four years after the Academy proposed to make the ceremony more inclusive with the ‘Best Popular Film’ category, it looks as though they have finally gotten it right with the new Twitter-led category. Utilising social media is an obvious, though an undeniably savvy move, with the buzz and excitement of popular cinema existing on Twitter discussions throughout the year. Shifting an Oscar category into that space produces an organic understanding for fans across the world, finally, their voice can be heard by an infamously outdated establishment.
With no outrageous calls for Diana: The Musical, Space Jam: A New Legacy or any other objectively poor films to receive the award, this new decision from the Academy doesn’t seem to be turning into a piece of social media self-sabotage (along the lines of the infamous case of Boaty McBoatface). Instead, this seems like an innovative decision from the Academy as it looks for a way forward following decades of alienating elitist superiority. For illustrative proof, simply look at the excitement of fans.
