Why we need to stop caring who the Oscar goes to

With this issue going to print just before the 86th Academy Awards, you, dear reader, will now be privy to the winners at that glittering spectacle, for which votes are cast by an ageing Academy 94% Caucasian and 77% male. “Oscar voters have a median age of 62,” reports The LA Times. “People younger than 50 constitute just 14% of the membership.”

What’s more, Academy memberships are for life: many of the voters haven’t worked on a film in decades – and their tastes haven’t changed in as long. So predictable are their votes, sociologists at the University of California-Los Angeles examined over 3,000 films for “Oscar appeal”, coming up with six basic rules for wannabe nominees. Apart from R-ratings, end-of-year release dates, previously nominated directors and independent divisions of large studios, the study also suggested stringent rules regarding subject matter. Drama, war, history and biography all score highly; plots based around political intrigue, disability, war crimes and show business do too.

Now, you’d think nine-times-nominee 12 Years A Slave should be a shoo-in. But never underestimate the appeal of fun, flashy movies that (even indirectly) reference Hollywood – or indeed the fear that elderly white men betray of having to think too much; especially about their white, middle-to-upper-class privilege. 12 Years A Slave is undoubtedly a more important film than American Hustle; but then, Brokeback Mountain was way head of Crash. And we know how that turned out. By the by, watched How Green Is My Valley lately? No? Well, it won over Citizen Kane.

This eagerness to reward flashy, showy, but ultimately conventional films is why Jennifer Lawrence may well beat Lupita Nyong’o’s superior turn; why American Hustle may well win Best Film – and why we should stop taking it so personally. The Oscars are not about rewarding great cinema but rewarding the taste of an increasingly irrelevant group of white dudes. So let’s take pride in the performances that proved too good to win. We can embrace the fact that the subtle, tragic beauty of Inside Llewyn Davis went over the heads of voters; and that Stories We Tell was too daring for the Oscar masses to understand. This way, we can keep our cool, feel superior delight in appreciating the challenging work the Academy will never get – and sit back and enjoy the punchlines to the film industry’s favourite joke: “And the Oscar goes to…”