New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

For decades, animation was present in film, but it never threatened live-action in any way. Oh, sure, animated movies make a lot of money, but when it comes to prestige, when it comes to handing out little trophies, they weren’t posing any serious threat. With the advent of Pixar, however, the Academy had a problem. Clearly, Pixar movies were a cut above most animation; they almost singlehandedly sunk Disney’s hand-drawn animation studio by simply being better in every respect. Since the Pixar films avoided lots of memorable, toe-tapping music, how could they be honored on live national television? Even if Toy Story 2, for example, was a great sequel, a great movie, it didn’t stand a chance of being nominated as the Best Picture of the year. For this reason and others, the Best Animated Feature category was created. Pixar would get an award or two. Everyone goes home happy.

The hitch, of course, is that over the past few years, Pixar movies have not only been vast, amazing improvements on their predecessors, but they’ve been among the best films of any year. Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, and now Toy Story 3 are all achievements of the highest esteem. With 10 nominees in the Best Picture category, mostly to encourage more popular films showing up on the list, Toy Story 3 looks to follow in Up’s footsteps and be one of the nominees. This is not the issue at hand. Few, if any, Oscar writers are arguing against the film being nominated. But more than a few are not only pointing out the anti-animation bias in the Academy voting ranks that puts the kibosh on the film winning, but engaging in said bias. Saying the movie won’t win isn’t the problem; saying it won’t win because you can’t stand animation winning is.

“What anti-animation bias are you talking about?” Good question, person I just made up. Seriously, here’s the thing: the biggest voting bloc in the Academy are actors. Even though every Pixar movie features the voices of actors (and the Toy Story series stars Tom Hanks, an Academy leader), they don’t actually feature actors. The presumption — and it’s more than that, seeing as actors usually cop to it — is that an actor won’t want to vote for an animated movie no matter how good it is, simply because it’s animated. So, despite Toy Story 3 featuring a big, diverse cast including one of the most beloved actors to come out of the Hollywood system, don’t hold your breath for Toy Story 3 to come away victorious on Oscar night. The bias is what it is: disappointing, selfish, but not shocking.

And, yeah, that other Oscar writers hold this bias isn’t surprising, but it’s annoying that those who inform the opinions of Oscar voters (more often than you might think) are trafficking in a foolish line of thought. A phrase I feel like we need to use more and more is that a movie is a movie is a movie. Maybe you, dear reader, saw hundreds of films this year. Maybe you saw family movies, horror films, mainstream, indie, and so on. And maybe you think Jackass 3-D is the best film of 2010. Having not seen the film, I can only imagine that others who have would think you’re nuts, but hey, it’s your opinion. If you’re an Oscar voter and you have that opinion, you’re probably not going to be happy when the nominations are announced, but so what? You voted what you felt.

Continued:       1       2       3