What The Heck IS This Oscar® Voting Thing… That No One Understands?
Preferential Voting, New To Oscar Voters, And Us All…
Thankfully, Oscarologist Pete Hammond understands how it works, and explains it in a simple way.
As has been widely publicized the ballot will be the same as always with voters asked to choose one winner in each category. The big difference is only in best picture where the “preferential” system employed for the nominating ballot will be used here as well. In other words members have to rank their choices of the 10 nominees with No. 1 being best and No. 10 being, well, least best. It’s unlikely with 10 contenders that any one film will wind up instantly with the requisite 50% plus one needed for victory so with the endlessly complicated method of tabulating, a voter’s second, third and fourth choices could be crucial in coming up with the consensus winner. A voter needs only to fill in the No. 1 line to have their ballot counted but the academy language on the instructions “encourages” them to rank all the films for full impact.
This was the exact system the copycat Producers Guild employed this year and the result, a win for the low-grossing “Hurt Locker” sent shivers down the spine of 20th Century Fox which was sure thehighest grossing “Avatar” would take the prize (these are producers, folks!). It immediately cast a spotlight on the academy’s contest. Could the same thing happen there?
Let’s look at the films that also have key directing nominations and are considered front-runners among the 10.
Say you are an “Inglourious Basterds,” “Up in the Air,” “Precious” or “Avatar” supporter. You put your choice at No. 1 but you also really admired “The Hurt Locker” (as apparently lots of members do) so you place that at No. 2 or No. 3. In essence you are handing the prize to “Locker” over your first pick. It is likely to emerge as the “consensus” choice because it is higher up on more ballots but may not necessarily be on more No. 1 lines.
Conversely a Fox executive told me he thinks the preferential system will actually help “Avatar” because it may not be on a majority of number ones but it will certainly be “everybody’s No. 2 because who doesn’t like ‘Avatar’?”
Obviously he’s been reading box office gross reports more than Oscar blogs lately. The feeling is despite its massive success “Avatar” is still a sci-fi film and sci-fi has never won the big prize. It likely gets a lot of No. 1 votes from its admirers and those who see it as pioneering the way of the future, maybe even the majority of those No. 1 votes. But it may rank a lot lower with the rest of the voters who have no inclination for 10-foot-tall blue people. The Academy hasn’t been called a group of “elitist snobs” for nothing.
Actually though many are calling this a two-horse race between “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker.” I think the preferential system could produce a “shocker” as my colleague Tom O’Neil likes to say.
“Up,” a movie everyone really does seem to like is a shoo-in for best animated feature and perhaps original music score. It’s unlikely it will find too many first place votes for Best Picture though because academy members will think it’s rewarded enough and it is a ‘toon after all. Like sci-fi, no animated film (or even Disney film) has won best picture. However, if the race is close and “Up” winds up with the majority of No. 2s then watch out.
It reminds me of the 1951 race when “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “A Place in the Sun” were considered the only two realistic contenders. “An American in Paris” which had been released much earlier in the year and largely discounted pulled off an upset and an astonished MGM took out a Variety ad the next day showing Leo the Lion with the line: “Honestly I was just standing ‘In the Sun’ waiting for a ‘Streetcar.’ “
Of course, when I passed on my UPbeat “Up” theory, a person connected with the film’s campaign asked me if I was on methodone. Still you never know how the voting is gonna go when you’re marching into uncharted territory as we are with the new Hollywood 10 this year.
One Oscar winning academy member told me that during the nominations process he always votes strategically,usually against something rather than for it. With the preferential best picture voting he will be able to employ that strategy now on the final ballot as well.
But again when you talk to most academy members about this accounting system and what it could mean for their votes their eyes glaze over much like mine did in freshmen algebra. Creative types don’t want to spend much time thinking about this stuff, they just want to check off a winner and be done with it.
