The award season is finally coming to an end.
With The Academy Awards right around the corner, many fans are excited this year because of the stories we got to see which should be the sole reason to spread the feeling of exuberance. Ongoing the drama among the fans as Barbie got snubbed by the academy this year when the nomination list was released; Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie were not nominated for Best Director and Best Actress. Seeing the collusion among the fans, Bruce Vilanch has made a statement regarding this which kind of puts an end to the discussion “There are no snubs when it comes to the Oscars.”
“People Who Vote Who They Like, Whose Work They Like,” says Vilanch
“The Oscars is the only awards show for the movies voted on by people who actually make movies. These are not movie critics. These are not people polled in a mall,” he explained. “People vote for who they like, whose work they like. It’s not a snub when someone doesn’t get enough votes It’s not like they’re saying, ‘Oh, I hated that!’ I mean, the idea that there’s a concerted intelligence that says, ‘We hate this, we’re not going to acknowledge it,’ that is crazy.”
The veteran Head writer Bruce Gerald Vilanch is a Two-time Emmy winner, he was also a head writer for the Oscars for more than 10 years. He is also a featured writer for the Tonys, Grammys and Emmys.
Bruce was pretty direct when he said that there has to be a reason that Justine Triet made it to the nominations but not Greta Gerwig
“Maybe [Triet; Anatomy of a Fall] got one vote more than Greta Gerwig,” he said. “The fact that Greta Gerwig made a blockbuster doesn’t mean that directors think it was a well-directed picture or the best-directed picture. To turn it into a feminist argument, I think, is beside the point.”
He further added that according to him Ryan Gosling’s Ken is a character, not everyone can pull off, “Ryan Gosling had a more difficult role than Margot Robbie, she got nominated [as a] producer [for Best Picture]. It’s not like they all hate Margot Robbie. She was nominated previously for I, Tonya.”
Academy’s Evolution Over the Years
Vilanch stated that the Oscars have come a long way, the Academy Awards have opened different to various cultures. He said in a conversation with Yahoo Entertainment,
“It’s a product of the academy becoming more diverse, more international, and younger, I don’t think 10 or 15 years ago you would have seen movies like Parasite or Everything Everywhere All at Once. I don’t think movies like that would be winning Best Picture if the academy hadn’t made a concerted effort to widen the tent.”
He also talked about the watch rate of the award functions over the years, when popular movies played a huge part in the ratings. The viewership is not a static line, it constantly flickers, like “most watched Oscars is in 1998 with around 55 million viewers” Because of The Titanic, the number has decreased in recent years, in 2022 the rating was 16.6 million and in 2023 it was 18.8 million. But this year the 1998 record could be broken because of Barbie and Oppenheimer.
Bruce’s take on the Barbie might be hurtful for some fans to understand but he did back his opinion with some major points proving that the movie isn’t snubbed. Barbie is nominated in around 8 categories.
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