It is official. Oscars 2020 has scored the lowest ratings of all time.
Sunday night’s 23.6 million viewers was an 11% drop in viewers from last year’s show which drew 29.56 million patient gazes.
The previous nadir being 2018’s Oscars with 26.54 million.
The only question is which producer will be promoted first?
And the competition will be stiff as not only are the Oscar’s losing the crowds, so are the most recent Emmys (down 32%), Golden Globes (down 4%) and The Grammys (down 6%).
So What’s Going On?
Good question and it has no simple answer so I’ll give you the next best thing to the straight facts which is my opinion.
Despite the way to regular announcements that this movie and that movie are breaking $1 billion dollars and setting records for earnings, the reality is; people aren’t watching as much of the old mainstream crap as they used to.
Profits are coming off the backs of ever-increasing ticket prices and creative accounting. I mean, they can say they’ve earned pretty much any amount and the only people who know the truth are the accountants and they’ll never talk because they have a stake in the scam as well.
Also, movies today just aren’t that good. Don’t get me wrong, there are oodles of quality product being made but as far as what us rubes are getting hip to via mainstream advertising is a bunch of focus group written-cast-and marketed garbage that we are finally and thankfully starting to realize aren’t worth our hard-earned money nor our precious free time.
I am speaking about movies specifically and outside of about a hand-full of shows, the same applies to television, traditional or otherwise.
By Why Do The Award Shows Suffer So?
Well, the first thing is they are also ratings hungry television show who have a long list of people to please and, I hate to break it to you partners, but you fall at the very bottom of that list.
Let’s take a look at this year’s Oscars and note there is and was little to praise about Sunday’s telecast.
Save the odd interesting presenter (RockMartinWeaver…probably a few others?) the show was sloppy and dull. The musical numbers were lame and ground the proceedings to a halt which was impressive because they were already tough to watch.
Winners, for acting in particular, were all pretty much figured months ago. No one cares about writing, costumes, foreign language short films or editing so the only real reason to tune in was to see which movie won the Best Picture. And though I haven’t seen it I’m sure it’s as worthy as anything else on the list but it all screams ‘gimmick to get some South Korean cheddar on that American Money Burger’.
And there were some quality entries into this year’s slate but did anyone here see a film at all this year that they genuinely loved?
Okay, what about three?
Were any of them nominated?
No?
Well, don’t worry because you are not alone…and that’s just talking numbers.
This brings me to my glorious and conclusive point about why the Oscars, and award shows in general, are tanking.
What is deemed award-worthy by the various academies is increasingly at odds with the sort of product audiences genuinely respond to.
Not that these are the only or even biggest reasons but are symptoms of a much deeper problem which is they don’t really seem to know what the hell they are celebrating anymore.
Is it based on merit or who ran the best campaign?
Are they progressive or conservative?
Do they even watch any of the movies or just hold an auction with agents and managers and studio heads so see who has the most to offer them if they make it to the podium.
Sure, an Oscar or even a nomination can give a career a boost but it’s not like it used to be. People are being recognized and rewarded not for their talents but instead for their and their handlers’ ability to play the game of sucking the correct ass.
Anyway, the result of rewarding garbage doesn’t make it not garbage, it just makes the award garbage.
And so it has come to pass.
Anybody that is going to give people like Anne Hathaway, Natalie Portman, Rami Malek and Brad Pitt recognition for ‘acting talents’ had to know this was coming.
Special mention to Toy Story 4 which had worse looking animation than the original.
Do You See?
No, maybe, Perhaps?
Well, then my job has begun.
Perhaps let my, main man, Freddy Gray from The Spectator give you something to chew on regarding the nature of modern fame:
The internet has killed the Hollywood star. Fame has been disrupted. Andy Warhol got it slightly wrong when he said that in the future, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes. In fact, thanks to social media, everybody is famous to at least 15 people. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook mean we don’t have to ogle stars anymore; we are too busy ogling ourselves. Yes, different types of celebrities have grown online: the influencers, the YouTubers, the streamers, and they too will try to use their position to grandstand. But the age of celebrity, of mass entertainers mattering as anything other than entertainment, is dying. It won’t be missed.
