How the Election Could Influence the Best Picture Race
We all know that Hollywood is very opinionated. At every awards show, the actors who win get 30-90 seconds to give a speech millions will see. So many of them decide to talk about issues that are larger than any movie being awarded.
In 2016, the front-runner for much of the award season was La La Land. People were happy and excited for the future; we were going to elect the first woman president. Then the unthinkable happened.
A man with no experience who incited hate and gave racists the courage to come out of their shells won the 2016 presidential election. Suddenly, there was uncertainty surrounding the future of our country.
It felt like we no longer needed an escape. Hollywood could send a message: Even if most of the country was headed backward, the rest of us could still progress.
On the night of February 26, 2017, Moonlight was announced as the Best Picture winner in one of the now most infamous Oscar ceremony flubs when Faye Dunaway uttered La La Land.
Of course, we will never know, but it’d be interesting to know how the new rank-choice voting contributed to Moonlight’s improbable win. Starting in 2009, the Academy used Rank-Choice Voting (RCV).
RCV allows the Best Picture winner to better reflect the organization’s opinion on who should win. Instead of picking one film, you rank all the nominees 1-10. A film must receive 50% of the vote to win Best Picture.
If no film receives 50% of the vote on the first tally, the film with the fewest 1st-place votes (the film in 10th) gets all of those ballots' 2nd-place votes distributed.
If no film receives 50% of the votes, the film is in 9th place, and its ballots are redistributed. The system repeats until there is a film with 50% of the vote.
You just wonder which had more to do with Moonlight winning. Hollywood wanting to send a message, or Trump being elected President.
With RCV only being around for three Presidential elections, it is hard to know if there is any correlation. In 2013 (the 2012 film year), Argo won while Obama was reelected. That probably had more to do with Ben Affleck's snub in Directing, which gave the film a narrative.
In 2021 (2020 film year), Nomadland won while Joe Biden was elected, the country hoping to return to normalcy. I still wonder if Judas and the Black Messiah came out earlier if it could have gained more traction. Could it have won Best Picture?
Or maybe the Academy was so tired from the prior four years that they wanted a nice, calm, quiet film. A reprieve from the 24-hour news cycle over the past four years.
This is to say that this year has been a down year in film, with seemingly no Best Picture front-runner in sight. Part of this was the strikes last year, which pushed films because no one was working.
There are critical favorites: The Brutalist, All We Imagine as Light, Nickle Boys, and Anora. Many have been predicting Anora as the front-runner right now. Maybe so, and maybe it wins. It’s a bittersweet message about the commerce and relationships in America.
However, with Trump being reelected, I think the Academy will want to send a message again. We will not go backward. Maybe Nickel Boys will win Best Picture.
Based on the 2019 novel The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Loosely based on the Dozier School, an infamous reform school that operated for 111 years with record abuse, even containing unmarked graves.
Critics have called it a monumental work, yet to see how it will play for the general public. Nevertheless, the voting will take place after Trump’s inauguration, people feeling despair could look to a film to show a strong message of resilience.
Sing Sing seems to have lost its steam, but this would also make a great film to send a message to Trump. It’s a bittersweet film full of emotion. If A24 played their cards right, they could get this film back into contention.
The other film that could send a message to the far-right Trump and co. is Emilia Perez. A Mexican Lawyer is hired to help a Cartel boss transition into living as a female.
The reactions have been quite divisive; it releases this Friday on Netflix. But the Academy loves a narrative, and this would provide not only a narrative of nominating the first trans actor/actress.
But it would also send a message, like Moonlight did back at the 2017 Oscars.
We have no idea what the future holds. However, it’ll be interesting to see if this election and the Academy’s reaction influence their votes come February.
