From Anne Thompson‘s “We Need the Academy Awards to Save the Movies That Only Get Made Because Oscars Exist,” posted on 9.30:

“The Oscars need to stay classy and aspirational, but they increasingly alienate vast swatches of moviegoers who see them as simply representing woke limousine liberals. The board of governors often have blind spots when it comes to marketing themselves, and the Oscars. As they cater to ABC’s demands for a popular show with younger appeal, the board also makes dumbfounding rule changes — like not announcing all the craft categories, or Best Popular Film, requiring voters to be active — that generate so much blowback that they wind up reversing themselves.

“Some Hollywood insiders think the Oscars should be more democratized. ‘The Oscars are only vital for the industry future if they can engage their widest possible audience in celebrating the cinema, finding ways to make it relevant to many, fun, inspiring and important to culture,’ says one independent producer, adding that the awards ‘risk further alienating the public by continuing to feel self-congratulatory, insular, and elitist.”

Paul Schrader to Thompson: “It’s the big spotlight. We saw last year what happens when you put a dimmer on the big spotlight. It probably would have been better just to have a virtual announcement last year. It made the awards feel small, which is death to the concept of the Academy Awards. We have to reassert its place as the big show.”

The Soderbergh Oscars all but murdered the notion of the Oscars being “big” in any sense of that term. In one fell swoop they became the woke death-pill Oscars…Oscars trapped in an elite rhetorical closet…a combination of a “we need to share our stories at length” and “lemme outta here so I can snort some heroin in the bathroom” …the Oscar telecast from a train station that injected an unprecedented surge of despair.

Nobody wants to watch another Oscar telecast like that again…ever.