I didn’t vote for Jennifer Lawrence, even though I thought she was very entertaining in the movie, because (a) she just won last year, and (b) we can’t give everything to Jennifer Lawrence when she’s 22 years old because Jennifer Lawrence will be institutionalized. She will have gotten too much, too soon, too early, and she’ll lose her mind. I also didn’t think she gave the better performance.Another anonymous voter in 2017 talking about the Best Director race:
Damien [Chazelle] is such a sweetheart; I loved what he did with Whiplash and this one, and he’s probably going to win. But I voted for [Kenneth] Lonergan, because it was harder to make everything click on that movie, and he really succeeded.Like any other type of campaign, the personal becomes intertwined with techniques and ability, and the overall politics of the industry at the time of voting. Everything becomes possible when we rid ourselves of this idea that what is being evaluated for quality. Instead, we have a world of potential and aspiration. We have studios, producers, and above the liners jockeying for position. There will be dinners, a surge of well-poised interviews, and avoidance dances regarding scandals that could be detrimental to a film’s chances.
It would seem as if the machinations should deter from a movie lover’s adoration of the ceremony. So often, we hear the cynicism of those who discount the awards for not recognizing their favorites or giving the films the wrong awards or for pandering. All kind of true. But instead of assuming that the Awards will somehow magically conform to my taste, I’ve just begun to let go and enjoy the process of the entire thing. (...)
My favorite example of a beautiful campaign was DiCaprio’s run for Best Actor in 2016. Nominated five times previously for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Wolf of Wall Street, he had done pretty much all the things an actor needs to do for an Oscar. He paired with the best filmmakers. Played villains and heroes. Donned accents. Gained and lost weight. But he was the victim of poor timing. Then came The Revenant. The film already had a firm foundation – Alejandro G. Iñárritu was already an Oscar powerhouse, winning Best Director for his film, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). The majority of the film left DiCaprio alone most of the time, allowing him to really chew on all the scenery and have nobody come close to outshining his performance (somebody like the formidable Tom Hardy). While DiCaprio does media to support his films, this award season he seemed to be all in, in comparison to previous years – much more was said about the vegetarian eating raw meat, the hardship he faced in the cold, and the lack of glamor to the role. He wasn’t just talking about the movie and his performance, he was really unpacking the labor of his performance. He was demonstrating that this wasn’t just a role, but a lived experience, one in which (threatening or not) he deserved to be recognized for. And everybody else on the project affirmed this, as in their own interviews, they would speak to DiCaprio’s incredible performance, willingness to go above and beyond in his performance. In other words, he worked his ass off, give him the award already.
And that was the year he won. The media constantly reminded us that he had yet to win, despite being one of the biggest superstars in Hollywood and the world. We were reminded of his more than 20 years in the industry, his other great works that demonstrated he was more than just a heartthrob but a bonafide actor, and that it was his time. Regardless of whether it should have been for The Revenant or Gilbert Grape, the audience in the auditorium gave him a standing ovation, an actor finally getting his after all these years (another narrative Hollywood loves to perpetuate). He performed a phenomenal monologue as his speech, clearly rehearsed, incredibly cogent, and forgetting nobody we need to hear in an acceptance speech: colleagues (by name), team, parents, friends, and the environment. He skipped up the stairs with a strong suspicion he’d win, because he had done everything Hollywood asked. His love and labor prevailed. (...)
While for the most part, there are a few surprises on the day, enjoying the process of putting together a win, is akin to the plays used in the Super Bowl. It has become suspiciously like the political trails, where it is less about policy and more about who we’d rather have a beer with. It’s the spectacle and machinations over the substance of each film – the power of schmoozery, PACS, and campaign strategy itself over the actual quality of the content campaigned.
"It was a very tense time in Hollywood when The Creator was released; the actors’ and the writers’ unions were deep in negotiation with the studios during a work stoppage, and one of the biggest issues addressed by their negotiations was how AI would be used in their industry going forward. So, I was not surprised that the first few reviews I read about the film were all about AI, but then I kept looking, hoping that at least one major publication would address how timely the message of dehumanizing the opponent during times of war was. However, there was none. Every single review I read — positive or negative — decried the portrayal of AI in The Creator as not being evil enough to justify the fears creatives have about losing their jobs to AI.
In the third act of The Creator Taylor becomes fully immersed in the AI child’s sentience, whom he’s now named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Taylor realizes that above all else, Alphie is just a child. At every opportune moment, the movie pauses to remind the audience of the sentience of the AI robots. They have a sense of humor, they can lose their temper, and most importantly, they can love. Taylor also realizes this, and he just can’t bring himself to harm a child — so ultimately, given Alphie’s importance as the only one with the capability to completely end the war, Taylor and Alphie are on the run from both the U.S. Army and the AI Army. Fortunately, they are discovered by a high-ranking soldier named Harun (Ken Watanabe) from the AI Army. Despite Harun’s initial suspicion and anger towards Taylor, he explains that the AI never desired war with humans. He reveals that the “terror attack” in L.A. was actually a man-made explosion caused by a coding error. Much like the themes explored in The Creator, it has become evident that threats to the creative community’s livelihood stem from tangible, man-made issues rather than from AI. Major publications’ lack of in-depth analysis regarding the film’s commentary on the military-industrial complex isn’t due to censorship but rather reflects the pressure for writers to conform to online trends. (...)
It wasn’t always like this; when I first entered the field, you could write whatever you wanted about a movie, and things remained the same for me until April 2023. The publication I worked for fired a long-term editor, and all the writers were informed that revenue streams from the articles we wrote were unsatisfactory. The higher-ups informed writers that they had figured out a way to use perfect SEO practices to ensure our articles would be viewed by more readers. SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is a strategy used by publications to make their content show up as the top result on search engines like Google. It involves understanding how search engine algorithms work and tailoring articles to match those criteria. While SEO brings in revenue for publications, this “Google journalism” transforms keywords and movies into clickbait material.
At first, I welcomed SEO to my writing because I was most proud of two things in my professional life: my internet searching skills and my writing skills. With enough time, I thought I could provide a clean, well-sourced copy on just about any topic. But the story choices just kept getting worse and the enforced style of writing became formulaic. One time, a Larry David interview went viral when he revealed that he filmed a death scene for his show Curb Your Enthusiasm just in case the show ended abruptly. In quick response, my editor suggested an article where 10 other actors recorded their characters’ demise. Such a list obviously could not be compiled; that was just Larry David’s eclectic humor.
During the silver age of criticism, publications could track not only how many people clicked on their articles but also how long they spent on them. So, it wasn’t enough to write an article with a sensational headline anymore; it also had to hold the readers’ attention for as long as possible. These practices led writers to produce low-quality articles and consumer fatigue. Then, Google also started generating its own AI answers to queries, so the number of readers clicking on the stories just kept shrinking with every passing day. Suddenly, all the SEO wizardry became unable to solve these particular issues, and revenues dropped. But since consumers were now more attached to a brand than any critic in particular, the next inevitable step followed: Just lay the writers off.
It would be simpler to blame media executives for fixating on unsustainable revenue models that appease algorithms rather than actual readers, but that would ignore our collective complicity as media, in general. We writers knew when stories prioritized visibility over informational value. All of us understood how robotic and inorganic our work had become. We invited the wolf into our pen because the wolf promised to play by the sheep’s rules. And that ended up eroding the general consumers’ trust in our work. So, much like the AI robots in The Creator, I’m aware that journalists of all disciplines do not qualify as perfect victims to most readers."
~ The Creator Almost Broke Me (Fred Onyango/TSS)
