Absence of Meritocracy

by

From Sasha Stone‘s “Is The Oscar Movie Really Dying?” (1.2.23):

“You can easily see our future as a species. Civilization is migrating online. Our online behavior is determined by clicks, views, engagement, and branding. That takes away the power of the ordinary consumer to vote with their feet. One person, one movie ticket. Now it’s what will get a lot of likes if I stand next to it on Instagram. What will make ME look good? How can I define myself as a Good Puritan?

“Hollywood essentially built its house of straw, and the big storm finally came. COVID wiped out their main demographic: wealthy white liberals. They are the kind of people who wear masks while walking alone in the park. The chances of them going to the movies are going to be slim. But even those people are also kind of done with ‘woke Hollywood.’

“What that means is that movies have robbed the public of the essentials of storytelling. There has to be an anchor to the truth. As a species, we have an attuned bullshit detector. We can spot their manipulation of reality from a mile away, and when that happens, the focus is off the story and on the people who are so afraid of criticism that they drag out a person of every type and skin color to use as shields to protect them.

“The Oscars now have the same problem. No white men for Best Picture or Best Director has led to them twisting themselves up like pretzels trying to right the wrongs of society every time. Well, if there is one industry that really must rely on meritocracy, then it’s film awards. Otherwise, there is no point. If it isn’t about the best, and a majority of professionals don’t decide the best, why even have awards at all? Why not just hand out certificates of achievement? Doesn’t that serve their purposes better than pretending “deserves” has something to do with it?

“I say this as someone who argued for decades about inclusion and diversity. But never in all that time did I think they would then rig the game to hand out awards that got them off the hook and made them look good. I always thought the person winning had to actually deserve it.”