Oscars Fan Favorite Award Is A Terrible Idea

Preparations continue for the 92nd Oscars on Thursday, February 6, 2020. The Oscars will be presented on Sunday, February 9, 2020, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, CA and televised live by the ABC Television Network.

Allowing fans to vote on Twitter up to twenty times a day for the Oscars Fan Favorite might just be the worst idea in the Academy’s history.

Remember how they wanted to have a Best Popular Film Category a few years ago? It got nixed after the backlash but you may as well just call it Best Disney Film because more often than not, The Walt Disney Company owns the distributor. We’re in quite a different era because one would have to choose between box office or streaming hours. How would one even decide. The way I see it: Spider-Man: No Way Home, Don’t Look Up, and Red Notice are no-brainer candidates but I’m not tweeting 20 times a day to vote. This Oscars Fan Favorite idea is so terrible that I’m not voting for anything PERIOD.

Here’s the thing with Twitter: someone can create multiple counts to vote multiple times per day. Neither the Academy nor Twitter is stopping them from doing so. If the Academy is going to go with this fakakta decision, they may as well set up a special site for voting in a way that’s similar to Major League Baseball for the All-Star Game. The Academy is already social distancing at the Dolby Theatre. Maybe it isn’t a good idea to invite three Twitter users to the awards show. Will they be vetted? The last thing that the Academy wants is to have someone present while also harassing people who do not like their favorite film. Trust me when I say that this is a thing that happens. Ask critics who are harassed and threatened for merely not liking a film!

I can think of numerous terrible ideas by the Academy in recent years. Giving away Oscars during commercial breaks is one of them. Awarding them during the red carpet is just as terrible, too. They found one way to shorten the show by combining sound editing with sound mixing. Sound editors often have a  specialized focus on dialogue, effects, or music. All in all, the sound editing is what leads to the sound mixing so I can see why the Academy made its decision. That said, these are among the few technical categories that are usually won by blockbuster tentpoles. It’s funny how they keep coming up with terrible ideas to speed up the show. I’m sorry but when you have so many awards and commercial breaks, it’s next to impossible. Playing people off the stage certainly won’t help. I think you can get the idea by now.

The Oscars are not the People’s Choice Awards or the MTV Movie Awards–the Academy should nix the Oscars Fan Favorite category while they still have the chance. Leave the Oscars voting to the Academy members and forget this fakakta idea.

The 94th Academy Awards will air live at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT on ABC.

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Danielle Solzman

Danielle Solzman is native of Louisville, KY, and holds a BA in Public Relations from Northern Kentucky University and a MA in Media Communications from Webster University. She roots for her beloved Kentucky Wildcats, St. Louis Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, and Boston Celtics. Living less than a mile away from Wrigley Field in Chicago, she is an active reader (sports/entertainment/history/biographies/select fiction) and involved with the Chicago improv scene. She also sees many movies and reviews them. She has previously written for Redbird Rants, Wildcat Blue Nation, and Hidden Remote/Flicksided. From April 2016 through May 2017, her film reviews can be found on Creators.