The case for caring about awards, even if the system is rigged
Whether you were one of the 19.5 million people who watched the Oscars last Sunday night or you actively avoid the annual award-show hype, the conversation around the Academy Awards often focuses not on what the Academy got right, but on what they got wrong. (My hot take: Past Lives should’ve won Best Picture!) For example, one of my favorite movie and culture publications on Medium, Fanfare, has a whole series on the Greatest Oscar Injustices: Saltburn’s cinematography snub, Leo’s losses, the crowning of the clown. (And if you skipped the show, here’s a recap of who won.)
Big-picture, Oscars-world has some flaws. International films are put into a separate category, Black filmmakers are overlooked, and film criticism discourse continues to be dominated by men. And in other award spaces, like the Hugo Awards, popular creators like Neil Gaiman and R.F. Kuang are being disqualified from winning.
Given these qualms, why do we still follow who wins? Perhaps the existence of awards, and the pursuit of award winning itself, serves to advance filmmaking. As Jeffrey Harvey argues in his essay “Awards Are Meaningless. So Why Do We Care So Much About Them?,” these awards give moviemakers a goal to aim for, and “ultimately a striving artist is more creatively vibrant than a complacent one.”
Or, as writer Shelby Fielding posits, maybe it’s simply because we care deeply about the films themselves: “I hate that I still care, but it’s only because these stories mean so much to me.” We love stories at Medium, so we’re on board with that stance. To those who celebrate, I hope you had a happy award season!
— Brittany @ Medium
What else we’re reading
- When facing something as unknown as death, it can help to exert some control over the details. In My Dad’s To-Do List for When He Dies, essayist Brad Snyder reflects on how making plans for canceling magazine subscriptions and selling stamp collections is an act of thoughtful parenting.
- A total solar eclipse happens when the sun, earth, and moon are in perfect alignment. If you’re in North America on April 8th, you might be able to see it for yourself. Total solar eclipses are rare because of geometry: most orbital paths are elliptical, not circular, so things have to line up just right for a perfect line-up to occur. Here’s an explanation of the physics behind total solar eclipses and how to prepare for safe viewing.
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Written by Brittany Jezouit
Edited and produced by Harris Sockel & Scott Lamb
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