The Politics of the Oscar Race

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Society & Culture

4.4 • 679 Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The campaign for an Oscar is just that: a campaign. In the weeks and months leading up to the ninety-sixth Academy Awards, actors and directors have been hard at work reminding voters and the public alike of their worthiness, P.R. agencies have churned out “for your consideration” ads, and studios have poured millions of dollars into efforts to help their films emerge victorious on Hollywood’s biggest night. In this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the state of the race, from the front-runners to the snubs and the season’s unlikely “villain.” The hosts are joined by The New Yorker’s Michael Schulman, the author of “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears,” who describes how Harvey Weinstein permanently changed the landscape in the nineties by treating campaigns as “guerrilla warfare.” Today, much of the process happens behind closed doors. If the game is rigged, why do we care about the outcome? “Even though we know that there is a mechanism behind these things, a glow does attach itself to people who win,” Cunningham says. “We are still very much suckers for the glamour of merit.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears,” by Michael Schulman

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

“Barbie” (2023)

“May December” (2023)

“Poor Things” (2023)

“The Zone of Interest” (2023)

“Nyad” (2023)

“Maestro” (2023)

“Shakespeare in Love” (1998)

“Saving Private Ryan” (1998)

“Can You Really Want an Oscar Too Much?” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker)

“Anatomy of a Fall” (2023)

“Titanic” (1997)

“Ferrari” (2023)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Okay, I know someone in this room must have an impression of an awards acceptance speech.
0:06.5	Does anyone have an impression ready to go?
0:08.4	Do you an impression of an actual real speech?
0:11.0	Interpret it how you will.
0:11.8	If you were to get an award tomorrow, what would you say to the Academy?
0:16.9	I would like to thank God, my family, and my dermatologist.
0:24.4	Beautiful.
0:25.6	Beautiful.
0:26.5	The spiritual and earthy.
0:28.1	Yes.
0:29.0	In that order.
0:29.7	I love it.
0:33.3	Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker.
0:36.9	I'm Nomi Fry.
0:37.9	I'm Vincent Cunningham.
0:39.0	And I'm Alex Schwartz.
0:40.5	Hello.
0:41.2	Hi. Hi, guys. What's up? Each week on this show, here's what's up. What's up is it? Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now. That's what's up. What is happening in the culture right now as we are in the, hopefully final days of winter, is the long, extended, seemingly endless period of the year that is known as Oscar season.
1:07.3	Yeah, I mean, we're still well more than a week out from the awards themselves, and yet talk about the Oscars has been going on for what certainly feels like months. I think in actuality is months. No, certainly months. Yeah, I mean, the drama, the snubs, the nonstop interviews, the magazine covers, the photo shoots. The red carpets. Oh, yes. And, you know, nonstop. So, as we all know, the art of the Oscars campaign is an elaborate and very expensive song and dance. And the more of these that I watch as the years go by, the more they really just directly make me think of a political campaign, you know, the degree to which you were putting yourself forward to be
1:46.0	someone's candidate, to be best, to be voted for. Of course, like, you know, the big difference
1:52.9	is that we're not voting for these people, but we have this weird vantage point of watching
1:57.0	all of this take place in plain sight.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.