In Reality Thursday’s Academy Award Nominations Were A Great Day For Horror Movies
That A Times Op-Ed Author Argues The Opposite Illustrates Divide That Hollywood May Never Overcome — and It’s Not Their Fault
One of the phrases I’ve heard in Hollywood in the last decade in particular has been a call to battle by so many performers of color, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community: “Representation Matters!” It is their cry of resistance in America in the era of Donald Trump, their fist in the air towards everything he and the conservative movement stand for.
And I do agree representation does matter…to those creative people of color, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community of Hollywood. In the grand scheme of all the problems facing America and the world today, it is a dot so insignificant it could not be seen from space, certainly compared to the many far larger problems that all of these minorities outside of Hollywood — and if we’re being honest, outside the rank-and-file of Hollywood.
One of the problems that Hollywood has never been able to come to grips with throughout its existence — and particularly in the last decade — is that they seem to believe they represent a larger underrepresented community when in actuality they have far more in common with the one percent than the characters they usually portray on screen. They seem to think they are part of a higher calling when in fact they are essentially members of a wealthy community. They think the films they make and the TV shows they create are more important then they are, not just to them but to America and the world. All they are is in entertainment.
To be clear — and I can see some people sharpening their knives already — I love a lot of what they produces and that is particularly true of the work where this representation takes place. I believe themes are universal and a great work of art transcends racial, gender or sexual barriers. Pose resonated with me even though I am neither African-American or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Beef resonated even though I’m not an Asian American of any time and I could certainly find joy in Ramy and Dark Winds even though I’m not anywhere near either of those minorities. And while it’s irrelevant to me because I’m not a fan of comic book movies. I understand why Black Panther and Wonder Woman would matter to their audiences. But all of that being said, I know all too well that they are just works of entertainment, end of story. And I also know the only reason any of them got made was because the studios though there was money to be made in them. I don’t deny that Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy are titans in the industry of television and that their presence in the industry is substantial, but anyone who says they have the societal impact of Rosa Parks or Harvey Milk is, in my opinion, delusional. They made groundbreaking television and opened doors for many actors of color and in the LGBTQ+ community in Hollywood. Don’t pretend that either of them are working class schmoes.
Now let’s move to the Academy Awards. As long as I’ve been alive it has been accused of every bigotry under the sun, all of which basically comes down to them being exclusive. Duh. They’re an awards show. By definition awards shows are exclusive. There are winners and losers and the standards they have for what is considered award-worthy is always subjective. It’s not there to give participation trophies for every single movie that gets made in Hollywood or the awards would have no meaning at all.
This actually brings me to another basic canard I’ve had with so many people in Hollywood, as well as those who want to trend things like #OscarsSoWhite. Don’t you have anything better to do? Not everything in America is a reflection of the bigotry, patriarchal system that has been part of it. And I’ll be honest, you should be concentrating on fixing the things that assuredly are. If what happens in Hollywood is microscopic compared to the rest of the society, the Academy Awards — really any awards show at all — could not be seen with the kind of scientific equipment they use at CERN. I am very aware of that fact, and it frankly stuns me how many outsiders take the Oscars this seriously, but so many insiders do.
It used to be fun to comment about which films were snubbed by the Academy and it used to be relatively harmless. Now every year whenever certain films are excluded in critical categories it somehow is now considered an impact on whatever systemic flaw a certain group wants to make it about. And it’s increasingly clear that even though the Oscars keeps doing everything in its power to make the membership more inclusive, particularly in the last decade, it has done nothing to abate the criticism. If anything, it keeps getting harsher.
The Academy Awards give an Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. Every year there’s a mark of how many female directors aren’t being nominated. African-American directors get nominated once or twice? Suddenly they have to be nominated every year. The Oscars recognize a record number of Asian-Americans in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Women are outraged because Sarah Polley was ignored for Best Director; African-Americans by the fact not enough African-Americans were nominated for acting. And of course last year the outrage that Greta Gerwig was ignored for Barbie and how the Academy is sexist again. I guess no one noticed Justine Triet’s groundbreaking nominations that year.
The latest straw — not yet the last one, but it’s close — came in a Saturday op-ed in the New York Times. Now as a reminder a record number of women of color were nominated this year, including one for Karla Sofia Gascon, the first transgender woman nominated in this category. Fernanda Torres, a Brazilian was nominated for I’m Still Here, another international film. Cynthia Erivo was nominated for Wicked and Colman Domingo has become the youngest African-American Actor nominated for back to back Academy Awards. Emilia Perez became the most nominated international film in Academy Award history with thirteen nominations. And look in Best Director Coralie Faregate is nominated becoming the eighth female director to ever receive a nomination. Aside from Fox News, who could have any problem with the nominated films this year?
Well according to Zach Schonfeld, the Oscars is still failing in its biggest blind spot horror movies. Now to be clear he does acknowledge that The Substance is a horror film and a gore fest, something that is rare for Hollywood. But to be clear, he doesn’t think that the nominations for this film the first horror movie since Get Out to be nominated is truly a positive step. Let me quote him directly because it needs to be seen to be believed:
Yet ‘The Substance continues a tradition in which the Academy members embraces horror only when voters can focus on anything but the horror, a pointed social message, an obvious allegorical lesson, and an actors overdue comeback narrative.
All of these, of course, are part of what makes the majority of almost every single Oscar nominated film in my lifetime. One wonders if Schonfeld has ever seen anything but horror movies or any Oscar nominated films at all — or if he believes films are nominated because of merit.
He argues, convincingly, about the lowbrow tradition of horror which is true but its worth noting that more or less applies to almost every movie not nominated by the Oscars over the years. Their biggest blind spot is comedy. Then he chooses to make that age-old argument that horror is a guaranteed box-office draw “one of the few that can reliably lure audiences to see original, non-franchised movies to the big screen.”
Schonfield is ignoring his own genre as anyone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s is well aware: some of the most successful horror movies are franchises. The fact that he chooses to mention Nosferatu, I Saw The TV Glow and Longlegs in his article — but omits A Quiet Place Day One and Smile 2 shows his willingness to cherry pick to make his metaphor work.
The crowning insult, in my opinion, comes when he announces that when Demi Moore and Hugh Grant were nominated for Golden Globes (Grant for Heretic) they were nominated in the Best Musical or Comedy category the sort of absurd mischaracterization that illustrates how ill equipped the awards season apparatus is to honor worthy work in the horror genre.
I have encountered few remarks — certainly in professional publications — that show the kind of bigotry and exclusive that Mr. Schonfeld illustrates by that statement. Just a few paragraphs earlier he argues that horror films are a vital part of the Hollywood box office and show be included; not a few paragraphs away he is essentially more or less advocating that inclusion in a comedy category is beneath horror and a form of bigotry as well.
He’s aware of this to be sure — he acknowledges that Get Out and The Substance are the kind ‘of vehicles for social commentary that’s consistent with the kind of film that the Oscars tend to celebrate’ but in his mind that ‘renders the institution blind to the artistry of other exceptional horror films.” So by that logic the Oscars should honor movies like the Saw franchise in recognition both of his economic success and the artistry of the gore. To be clear the Saw films are a type of body horror as much as The Substance is.
And there’s some kind of insulting to the institution that is supposed to be honoring great films that Schonfeld makes it very clear that by failing to honor films he considers the best in its genre makes them worthy of recognition. That the Academy Awards is not there to recognize the best in any genre film but rather ranks them overall in the same group doesn’t enter into his thinking.
Now I acknowledge that there have been many extraordinary horror directors in the last decade. He mentions Ari Aster and Robert Eggars and an argument could be made about the bigotry that has led to, say, Hereditary and Nosferatu being omitted from the major categories. I have my own grievances in this category to be sure — I was infuriated by the Oscars ignoring Lupita Nyong’o for her incredible work in Us and I’m annoyed in hindsight about how Emily Blunt was ignored for her work in the first Quiet Place film. But the difference in both cases I didn’t think it was a grievous offense against humanity and there were other worthy contenders in both categories that I thought were included as well as excluded.
I’ve written in other work that historically the Oscars has a type of film it recognizes and it has always been difficult for most films that are not that type to get inviting. They have been improving in subtler ways in the last decade — the nominations of Top Gun: Maverick two years ago, films like The Martian and Dune receiving Best Picture nods, Black Panther Best Picture nomination in 2018 and the wins for Everything Everywhere all at Once. None of these are nominations or films that I could see the Oscars nominating even a decade ago.
Get Out and The Substance are similar leaps forward in that respect. It took more than forty five years into the Oscars history to nominate a horror film — William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Jaws was nominated two years later and while I have my issues with this classification Silence of the Lambs is one of only three films to sweep all five major awards. Progress is being made.
But Schonfeld’s article makes it very clear what is one of the bigger problems with so many people in Hollywood overall: no matter how big the progress it will never be enough for the fans of a genre. The fact that Schonfeld chooses to look at a significant moment for everybody involved — women and his genre — and still fundamentally finds this not nearly enough speaks to a larger nature of so much of both Hollywood and the often political movements at its center: no matter what an institution gives or how generously, it’s never enough.
This is made clearest in a paragraph where Schonfeld argues about Jeff Goldblum’s performance in The Fly being passed over “because it was a horror film and not a film with an obvious social conscience.” Based on the way Schonfeld phrases it there has been no advancements for his genre in the last forty years and the nominations for The Substance are just scraps. One wonders if he intends to boo the screen at home if the film wins any awards as it very well might. Would he consider Moore’s triumph for Best Actress a victory not for his genre because it is acknowledging her comeback? This is what the Oscars has done almost during its entire history.
And by that logic even if The Substance won Best Picture it would be an empty victory because the Oscars didn’t have the courage to nominated or give the award to a real horror picture. To Schonfeld this is not representation but tokenism and not something he approves of. Is he still angry the Oscars never gave Best Picture to any of the movies in Friday The 13th? Does he think Robert Englund deserved a special Oscar for his work as Freddy Krueger? These may seem like ridiculous questions but they are all but crying out to be asked from Schonfeld’s article.
It is criticisms like this that, honestly, make my job far more difficult. I long since accepted that awards shows will rarely nominated the works I love and they will inevitably give it to the wrong people and actors. But that’s how awards shows have always been and always will be. When I was younger I will admit I took it far more seriously but I let it go by the time I was in my late twenties. Schonfeld’s in his forties. You’d think he’d be over by it now.
The Oscars are not to be taken seriously, just by and large like most of what Hollywood says and does about them. They are not a microcosm for society, America or the Federal Reserve. They are not a resistance movement in the march to freedom. They are a show where the richest people in an industry get together to give a shiny gold trophy to an exclusive few. They will always make more people upset by who is left out and who doesn’t win then they ever will based on their winners. And no matter what they may think, no matter how many wins Emilia Perez gets it will only show how inclusive Hollywood is and only to people in Hollywood.
Horror films were recognized in a record number by the Oscars this year as Schonfeld might very well know if he actually studied the history of the Oscars. The fact that he says nothing about Margaret Qualley’s exclusion — one of the most glaring on Thursday — shows that he doesn’t even care about the films that get nominated as much as the ones that don’t. That is the nature of awards show. Whatever inclusion you might want has to have a limit.
And that’s what I see Schonfeld’s op-ed as a larger metaphor. His genre got a lot of representation. To him, that doesn’t matter because it wasn’t enough. There is a pointed social message in this, of course, but since Schonfeld doesn’t think they should count, why should I be any different then him?