Will Avatar Spell Oscar’s Doom?

I had my reservations about the Academy Awards’ “Best Picture” category being expanded into 10 nominations when they announced it last year, and now that the nominees are out, some of my concerns have been confirmed — but there’s hope for absolution.

First, the obvious concern was that the category would become over saturated, with too many slots to fill and not enough quality films. Happily, I wouldn’t say that happened this year. The only real lenience the abundance of spots brought was allowing titles like “Up,” which was a very good movie but not a great one, to receive some recognition for its achievement. Up isn’t really in danger of winning the award, but a nomination is a fine accolade that it wouldn’t have gotten in a 5 nominee set.

But the real concern here is that the expanded category would be the beginning of the end for The Oscars as the last true semi-artistic award show. One would hate to see yet another show like the popularity-driven Grammys or the marketing-soaked Golden Globes (where lifetime achievement awards magically transform themselves into ads for upcoming features). And now, with the addition of the PR machine that is Avatar and the saccharine The Blind Side being added when they may not have been otherwise, some are suggesting that a win for either could spell disaster for the Oscar’s prestige.

Avatar was a fine film, and its normalization 3D gimmickery is something many a producer is cheering about. But if it were to somehow win best picture on the merits of being either paradigm-shifting or hugely popular (because if it wins, it probably won’t be on its merits as a film alone), then how long will it take for the diluted nominee field to include popular titles with even less artistic value? If there were ten nominees in the past, would Jurassic Park have snuck a best picture crown? Would Cameron have also won for Terminator 2?

I hope this is just nonsense and my such concerns are proven entirely ridiculous. And heaping this much pretense and gravitas onto an award show which is already considered meaningless by some is probably not healthy. But I do know one thing:  If Avatar wins, it probably won’t be because it was the best film out this year, and that’s not a good thing.

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