On this, the morning that we celebrate the release of the Oscar nominations, allow me to briefly turn our attention to the new paper from Gabriel Rossman and Oliver Schilke that argues chasing after Academy Awards is, in a way, a form of rent-seeking and that failing to obtain at least a nomination has a stark financial impact. However, attaining a nomination produces significant rewards, so it more or less averages out. Furthermore, over a five year period the characteristics of Oscar winners/nominees are similar. As Rossman and Schilke note:
Therefore, we argue that one can accomplish the otherwise intractable task of operationalizing prize-seeking by exploiting the tacit logic of prize seekers to imitate the observable traits associated with past prize winners.
Or, as Kate Winslet put it:
That episode of Extras debuted in 2005. Winslet would not win an Oscar until 2009—for the Holocaust drama The Reader.
Coincidence? I think not.
Rossman and Schilke have done us non-mathemeticians the task of quantifying this notion. By tracking tags and genres on IMDB and nominations (and the predictions of nominations by experts at Entertainment Weekly) along with box office figures, they found, "In essence, there are two types of high Oscar appeal movies—those that do not receive nominations (and tend to lose money) and those that do receive nominations (and tend to make money)." Why would a good-but-not-Oscar-nominated movie lose money? Appealing specifically to Oscar voters necessarily limits your appeal to mainstream audiences, which are less interested in things like "art" and "quality." (My sarcastic quotes, not theirs.)
Which brings us to today's nominations, a largely unsurprising medley of period dramas (12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Wolf of Wall Street) and hot-button social issue films (Philomena, Dallas Buyers Club) with a pair of crowd-pleasing action flicks thrown in (Gravity and Captain Phillips). The biggest surprises, from the perspective of Rossman and Schilke's paper are probably Her and Nebraska, though those likely fall under the heading of quirky-but-semi-serious smallish comedies that we've seen more of in recent years (Little Miss Sunshine, The Descendants, A Serious Man, Juno, etc.).
I am, of course, disappointed that James Franco failed to receive a nomination for Spring Breakers. Alien is the key figure to understanding our time. But I'm not terribly surprised.
Who will win? Hard to say. If you twist my arm, I'm guessing it's probably 12 Years a Slave, thanks in part to the format used to choose the winner. I would be very surprised if 12 Years a Slave had the highest number of first place votes—I'd bet that honor ends up going to American Hustle, which is getting a ton of love—but I'm guessing it gets a ton of second place votes, as voters want to show their support for this "important" film. This is an entirely uneducated hunch based on little more than guesswork and feelings. So, you know, don't bet the house on 12 Years based on this post. Just keep it in the back of your mind on Oscar night.