For 97 years, Academy of Motion Pictures members were allowed to vote for or against movies they had not bothered to watch.
This new rule mandating voters watch every movie in every category they vote on will take effect in time for the 98th Academy Awards ceremony next March.
“In a procedural change, Academy members must now watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars®,” the Academy announced Monday. “All designated nominees will also be included on the final ballot.”
One of the reasons I don’t publish year-end “best of” lists here at Breitbart News is due to the fact that I don’t see everything. It seems unfair to leave out those unseen titles. But, for nearly a century, Oscars voters were only encouraged to see the movies they were charged with the responsibility to enshrine (or not) into history.
And over the years, Oscars voters have become more and more vocal about admitting they have not watched every title in every nomination category.
Still, they cast a vote.
That’s nuts.
That’s like voting on Miss America without bothering to check out all the states.
The question now, however, is how does the Motion Picture Academy intend to enforce this rule? Ticket stubs? Attendance records? A pop quiz?
The truth is that the Academy cannot enforce this. It can only encourage it with even more rules that will be easy to work around. Most voters watch these movies at home through a special streaming app. All that can be gauged is whether the movies were streamed and then streamed from start to finish. It cannot verify that a specific Oscar voter sat there and watched everything.
Listen, I get it… No one needs to Clockwork Orange me to watch Wicked or Emilia Perez and then decide if I will love or hate them. I know I will hate them. If you hated Dune, do you really need to watch Dune 2?
But again, this is why I don’t do “best of” lists. Unless I’ve seen everything, or close enough to everything, I’m not qualified. If I were an Oscars voter, due to the responsibility involved, I would definitely watch everything. Oscars are history. Oscars make or break careers. Oscars can make or break an entire movie.
At the same time, movies suck so hard these days, if asked to become an Oscars voter, without any hesitation I would say no because there’s no way I’m watching all that crap — especially the gay stuff.
Now, one has to wonder how the list of Oscar winners over 97 years would look different if voters had always been required to watch what they voted for… or against.
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