by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — Happy Friday. After last Sunday, you might come away thinking that the only noteworthy thing about the 94^th Academy Awards was The Slap. But I’m here to tell you: they actually gave awards out too.

Every year, the Oscars are outshined by something they never planned, instead of the actual awards. Whether it’s declining viewership, a physical altercation, or the fact they neglect to include non-white people, the awards show just can’t seem to get it right.

This year isn’t any different, the distraction is just more widespread. Everyone on the internet can’t wait to share their terrible take on Will Smith that they forget another crucial part of the event: it sucked.

I’m not just saying that because my predictions were another historic failure. No-one seems to care about who actually won because the trophies went to seemingly random winners (with a few key exceptions).

Sure, Ariana DeBose and Jessica Chastain were excellent choices in their categories, but why the hell did Dune take home Best Editing? There were other baffling wins, but Dune’s six Oscars smells like Hollywood shenanigans to me.

The Oscars are unlike any other American award show, however, in that they actually matter. No one cares if an artist has a Grammy at home because their songs only last three minutes and it’s far easier to settle in a niche. An Oscar can make someone’s entire career.

So, if we have to keep paying attention to this terrible awards show, it might as well be good. Here are some ways to do that:

1 – Never cut categories again

The biggest sin of this year’s broadcast was cutting a number of important awards for the sake of time. The unlucky categories on the chopping block were Sound, Editing, Make-up and Hair, Production Design, Score, and the three Short awards.

Not only was this show longer than 2021’s iteration (which showed all 24 categories), but it seemed to drag, defeating the entire point. The Academy received mountains of criticism for axing some important nominees, so they attempted to cover their mistake by inserting edited presentations of the awards throughout the night.

These awards are supposed to reward vital behind-the-scenes creators and burgeoning filmmakers, so forcing them to accept the biggest award of their lives to an empty auditorium with their victory speeches cut short proves the Academy doesn’t truly care about the industry.

2 – Expand categories to include stunt work, choreography, and more

As long as we aren’t cutting categories, let’s add some while we’re at it.

The Academy and ABC seem to think the length of the awards show is the biggest obstacle to regaining their prestige. The actual problem is that they pick horrible winners like Green Book and think they need to cater to people who wanted Spiderman to take home Best Picture.

Rather than cut everything to trim the awards to three hours (a time limit they never honor), make the awards a day-long event like the Super Bowl and include all facets of filmmaking.

There are countless factors that go in to making a good movie, but most people ignore them unless you’re a film nerd. That shouldn’t be a problem if the Oscars actually want to reward people who deserve it because the film nerds are always going to watch and cheer along.

People like stunt actors, choreographers, voice actors, casting directors, and more are vital to the industry, so why not reward them as such? It’s not like ABC can’t move their presentation of “America’s Next Top Singing Competition” to Monday that week to make room.

An added bonus: if they reward stunt work, Marvel movies will win and they never need to show us “cheer-worthy” moments again.

3 – Revamp the animated category

There may not be a more broken category at the Oscars than Best Animated Feature.

Let’s look at Flee. Flee was the only animated movie nominated this year that wasn’t directed at kids. It was a harrowing story about a gay Afghan refugee who escaped his home country in the early days of the American war only to have terrible experiences with human traffickers and Russian authorities before he even turned 18.

It was a moving documentary and an insightful look into the plight of Afghan refugees, but it didn’t have a shot at winning Best Animated Feature. Because that’s not what the category is actually about.

The category is actually awarded to best kid’s movie every year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because we should definitely award those types of movies. It’s just not what the category espouses itself to be. Animated storytelling is for all ages and restricting it the best Disney or Pixar film is disappointing.

If the Academy even truly cared about kid’s movies, however, they’d include anime movies from Japan and Disney would never see another trophy.

4 – Rebuild the voting base

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but the Academy is terrible.

Part of this is unfixable, due to the way the system was created, but it doesn’t have to be as crippling as it is now. The short answer to who votes on Oscar winners are former nominees and Hollywood figureheads.

There’s a longer version of that statement that includes boards of directors, 17 branches, and eligibility standards, but that’s the concise version. That means, it’s especially hard for actors in their early careers to win when another Hollywood staple can text Tom Hanks to vote for them.

This also means that the voting base is *ahem* less than diverse.

The Academy has pledged to diversify for years, but why do I still see Judy Dench on the ballot and films like Zola completely ignored? It’s because diversity (whether it be gender, race, sexuality, age, etc.) is hard to build into a current organization of 9,500 people.

Even if they added 500 more people of color, it would still only be 10% of the voting pool.

Instead of trying to slowly evolve the voting base while the awards presentation dies on the vine, the Oscars should expel all the current voters and start from scratch. Sure, a lot of the same people will get added back, but it’s far easier to build a more inclusive base when you don’t have 5,000 old, white dudes telling you it’s “too fast.”

I love the Oscars, even with all their faults.

Honestly, it’s one of my favorite television events of the year and I don’t want them to disappear. They never pick the right winners even though I give them a list beforehand, and they seem hellbent on awarding people who don’t deserve it, but that doesn’t change the fact that they celebrate the best form of entertainment in the world: movies.

That’s why we should try to fix them.

Meme of the week

I, unfortunately, can’t look at every meme that dominates the internet every week, so if you see a meme and think it should be the meme of the week please send it to: SumnerCultureCow@gmail.com

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