The Academy Award, for many, is the absolute authority on the best movies and actors in cinema. But if personal connections can influence who is nominated and who wins, can the Oscars ever be a truly fair competition?
For one Tufts student, the Oscars do help point in the direction of well-made movies. "I definitely think it's a fair competition," freshman Anastasia Ganina said. "The Oscars reflect great performances, by actors and by directors, as well as everyone else."
"I think there's been a really fair distribution of awards among every background," freshman Mengmeng Zhang said. "Movies like 'Monster,' 'In America,' 'Lost in Translation,' and 'Sideways' were all independent, and they've gotten nominations."
This Sunday's Academy Awards are the 77th in the show's history. There are 17 committees in the Academy, each of which often has multiple awards to assign. The more than 6,000 members of the academy each belong to a certain group and vote on the categories for which they are considered experts.
Membership in the academy is available only through nomination by a current member. A member will invite a potential new member into the academy; then experts in the same field will review the application and decide whether or not to admit the new member.
This means that having powerful ties in the industry can lead to an easy in. It also means that for the nominated films, actors, and others, having connections with many current members can affirm the success of a nomination and of an award - or guarantee its failure.
Senior John Scholle feels that the recent change in the amount of time between nominations and awards hurts small films. "Now that they changed the schedule of nominations, it doesn't give small movies enough time to build up steam to win an award," he said.
Another student feels that one can overanalyze the importance of such awards shows' fairness. "There really isn't a need to drag politics into the Academy Awards," freshman Alex Birkhold said.
