Do Oscar Snubs Really Exist?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
With Academy Award nominations come a slew of complaints. Naturally, like any art, film taste is subjective and what one considers an omission from a series of accolades is entirely based on their opinion. This leads me to what these award-season complaints are: snubs. Yes. Every year, critics, moviegoers, and industry personnel air their grievances as to what films and/or people got snubbed from the list of nominations. Sure, people complain about what films win and what deserving nominees lose, but this article is more about the endless rants about what films don’t get included. Now, before I come off as a hypocrite of the highest order, I will clear the air by admitting that I, too, go through the films and people that I feel got snubbed from each category, but I try to emphasize that these are based entirely on my opinion. This leads to the point I intend to make once I stop circling around with explanations: do Oscar snubs really exist?
In short, they absolutely do, but I need to clarify what the goal of this article is. We’ve turned the concept of a film and/or person missing out on the final nominations into this demon that festers and eats us up with rage. What I said before is that I personally think that there are snubs each year, but that also doesn’t make it definite in a factual sense. In fact, I should rephrase this to make this point clearer. It’s not so much that I believe that the Academy has committed some snubbing, but rather that I would have gone about these nominations differently. The way the concept of snubbing is treated is that one’s opinion is a fact, and this becomes a big problem because we are overshadowing the positives — what the Oscars are getting right (which, believe me, as much as I follow and admire them, is far from a lot) — with what we perceive to be fact (when, more often than not, these are just personal reflections).
Take this year for example and the discourse surrounding Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. The two biggest complaints many people had is that Gerwig wasn’t nominated for Best Director and star Margot Robbie wasn’t nominated either. I can see why people were disgruntled with these omissions, but the following tirade that came was treated as some sort of crusade. I won’t get into the whole thing where people got upset that Ryan Gosling was nominated and not Robbie (when America Ferrera was nominated alongside him, and yet people are more than happy to omit this fact) because this proves that people don’t understand how the Academy works. It isn’t some committee that has a list of every single performance of a year that whittles down the candidates to five names. No. Nominees are voted upon. The Academy as a whole isn’t responsible for every category, either. If you are an actor, you are qualified to vote for acting categories; so those who want to proclaim that the same people who “neglected” Robbie are the same that “ignored” Gerwig are dead wrong. The only category that all members of the Academy vote for is Best Picture (and, lo and behold, Barbie is up there). This kind of proclamation (that the Academy is trying to follow everything that Barbie spoke again) is dead wrong because of how many moving parts are being intentionally overlooked in order to make such a nonsensical claim.
Time to get back on track. With the voting concept in mind, you have to understand that the Academy members are electing who they want to be nominated, not enforcing who they don’t. I understand that the award season is one that is overwhelmed by proliferating promotional campaigns that evolve for weeks and months on end; not partaking in such an exercise will likely have films being overlooked. Perhaps people get upset when their favourite films (the ones that do play the award season game, anyway) feel unanswered by the lack of nominations, but this is a sign of their fanaticism for the film and not a vendetta that the Academy is perceived to have. Does the Academy have people who are set in their ways and unwilling to budge? Sure, but that’s a sign of their non-daring simplicity (a whole different problem) and not any intentional mission to omit films or people for any rhyme or reason.
Again, the members are all focusing on who they are voting for, so much so that, yes, maybe their affinity for a particular film will show up across the board (say, if an actor keeps voting for Barbie-related actors in the various categories). If people are complaining about snubbing, they should maybe pivot how they look at the situation — should they remain cynical — and observe the oversaturation, the safeness, or the bombardment of votes for one film that the Academy exhibits again and again. Yes, the omission of what you may perceive to be a greater nominee will happen as a result, and the Academy’s makeup is not entirely based on qualitative merit as a result (which, again, is a whole different conversation to have another day). Again, this isn’t a quest to shun nominees as much as it is the obsession with those who do get nominated.
Additionally, we’re forgetting what is perhaps the biggest point of this article: if someone thinks the Academy is snubbing their favourite film or person, they may be guilty of the same neglect they are projecting onto others. I’m talking about the unfair dismissal of the nominees that did make the final cut. If someone has seen every film and disagrees with what was selected, they may have an argument there. However, how many people who championed Gerwig after she didn’t get a Best Director nomination actually saw the five directors who did get nominated? Also, let’s face it: there are only five nominations for most categories (outside of Best Picture’s ten): there will be films that don’t make the final cut. In fact, many categories have shortlists before the final five nominations (and even longlists before the aforementioned shortlists). That doesn’t mean that the Academy is whittling down by the process of elimination as much as it means that their pool of what they can select to vote for gets shrunken down. Some categories don’t share this process, including Best Director or the acting categories, mind you. Nonetheless, whether there are shortlists involved or not, there’s this obvious idea that only five nominees will make the final cut.
If one really wanted to, one could watch as many films as possible and point out the plethora of films that don’t make the cut for every category, but this is an impossible and frankly stupid task to carry out simply out of spite. At the end of the day, to blindly call out who got “snubbed” without all the proper information is impractical. All of this talk about snubbing is just a personal endeavour: a self-fulfilment to carry out one’s taste through disagreement disguised as truth. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with feeling like someone or a film has been snubbed, because, let’s face it, many great artists get left out all of the time. However, this annual tradition (of sorts) is usually uninformed or self-aggrandizing whilst tethered to biased passion and affiliation.
Besides, this kind of frustration leads me to the last problem rooted in this discussion, and it may be one you’ll be surprised to read on this very site: the Oscars really don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, many people dream of winning Oscars, but they aren’t the be-all-end-all of cinematic legacies or importance. Many great films and artists get cherished over time with or without trophies. The issue is I think most people who complain about snubs are aware of this because the majority of these same people call the Academy Awards an opportunity for entertainers to pat themselves on the back. If you don’t think the Oscars are valid, why do you care about what nominees they miss out on?
This leads me to my final suggestion. Of course, the Oscars — and other awards shows — are going to miss out on a lot of nominees. It’s impossible to get them all because of how limiting the number of final nominees is, and the amount of qualified films that get churned out every year (not to mention the insane amount of campaigning and promotional competition for months on end). Shouldn’t we instead celebrate those who do get nominated, especially those we believe are deserving? I think we’re so focused on the negative because we become comfortable with our own taste in film being the only valid takes in this day and age of social media (so says the idiot with his own review website, but I will always aim to ensure that these are my opinions and are not the facts that the world must abide by). Snubs are based on what we ourselves feel, and this culture of pointing out these omissions best serves this concept brought forth nowadays by our profiles, algorithms, and feeds: we are our own most important critic, and everyone should know it. Gone are the discussions we can have with others about these kinds of events.
Instead of going on this trek to promise others that the Academy is out to get Gerwig or Robbie, people could notice that Gerwig was nominated (as a screenwriter) and that Robbie did make the cut (as a producer). There are many films and artists who didn’t get acknowledged whatsoever, but that’s what happens when awards have finite lists. The most important thing is how much you connect with Barbie (or whatever film). Sure, you’d love for your favourite art to get recognized, but in the same way that you feel like your opinion is the basis of reality, you should focus on your personal connection with these works. The Oscars come and go every year with a new batch of candidates and the same old vitriol. Your connection with a favourite film is forever. Treat the Oscars as an ongoing discussion and/or a series of discoveries of new works, and you’ll feel far less hostile towards them. View them as the proclamations of what can only be considered the best films out there, and you’re bound to be burdened by the weight of supposed snubs.
Yes, snubs do exist, but for many unfounded reasons, and usually against our better judgements. They also exist to us, because what you may consider a snub won’t be agreed upon by everyone else (and the same goes for me and all other cinephiles). What I think we need to do is shift how we feel about omitted films and people in these awards shows. There’s nothing wrong with reflecting on who didn’t make the final cut, but getting so bent out of shape on these omissions to the point of delirium is just not worth it. Many of my favourite films, filmmakers, and stars don’t have a single Oscar to their name (most don’t even have a nomination, never mind). I’m not letting that affect my relationship with these works and minds, and neither should you.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.