Yesterday’s announcement of the Academy Awards nominations resulted in a lot of questions. Among the “The Reader? Really?” mutterings were a few queries surrounding the Best Original Song category, which only had three nominees from two movies despite a surfeit of potential contenders that included one Bruce Springsteen, who took home a Golden Globe for his title track from The Wrestler last week. Tom O’Neil at the Los Angeles Times‘ Gold Derby blog tried to sort everything out, and he pointed a finger at the semi-arcane criteria for nominating songs as part of the problem. Here’s the portion of Rule 16—which outlines eligibility for the Original Song, Original Score, and Original Musical categories—that is the likely culprit:
In the Original Song category, Music Branch members shall meet to screen clips of the eligible songs and vote on the achievements. A DVD copy of the song clips will be made available to those Branch members who are unable to attend the screening and who request it for home viewing. Voting shall be conducted as follows:
Nominations will be determined by an averaged point system of voting using 10, 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7, 6.5 or 6. Only those songs receiving an average score of 8.25 or more shall be eligible for nomination. There may not be more than five nor fewer than three nominations.
So even if, say, every voter was into “The Wrestler” just enough to score it as an 8, and that was enough to give it the fourth-highest overall average score, it still wouldn’t be up to snuff by the Academy’s standards. The rule also notes that only two songs from a single film can be nominated, even if more than two songs’ average scores go over the 8.25 mark. Is this something else that we can blame on the fragmentation of pop music, or what?
Rule 16 [Oscars.com]
How Bruce Springsteen got shut out of the Oscar nominations [Gold Derby]
I’m too lazy to figure out if the two-song max. rule is recent given that Enchanted had three songs in the running last year.
@Chadams28: I was thinking the same thing. This rule is less than a year old.
The rule also notes that only two songs from a single film can be nominated, even if more than two songs’ average scores go over the 8.25 mark. Is this something else that we can blame on the fragmentation of pop music, or what?
@maura, @Chadams28: Chadams28 is correct. This is a rule change reflecting the Academy’s displeasure that Enchanted had three nominated songs last year and Dreamgirls had three nominated songs two years ago. The Academy wanted more diverse representation in the category. But, they obviously didn’t achieve that goal, as only two films are represented this year. I think the “bar” should be a little lower, allowing for scores of 8 and maybe 7.75 to make the final ballot, which would surely help the competition.
@Rob Murphy: Also, I have no idea, but I suspect this rule was supported by the people who write songs for films. When a film has multiple nominated songs, the voters are believed to have a tendency to split between those songs, and another song wins. So, the rule gives a song from a big musical film a better chance to win. This vote-splitting may have happened to the songs from Enchanted and Dream Girls, but I’ll never know.
I don’t want to live in a world where “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” isn’t at least a 9.5.
Don’t blame math. Blame artistic peeps trying to do math.
Why it’s like a mule and a spinning wheel.
@Rob Murphy: I’d also blame it on “Falling Slowly” being way better than the Enchanted songs.
What about the Robyn Hitchcock song from Rachel Getting Married? That song got no buzz (and no nod) but was the highlight of that movie.
I’m still waiting for the morons of the Academy to explain how Eddie Vedder got completely shut out last year for his Into the Wild soundtrack.
I’m still waiting for the morons of the Academy to explain how Eddie Vedder got completely shut out for his Into the Wild soundtrack.
Woops…sorry for that double post. But hey, Eddie Vedder is awesome so it deserves to be said twice. :)
not quite as bad, but more confusing, than Johnny Greenwood being ineligible for his There Will Be Blood score.
and I agree with @Poubelle: everything related to “Falling Slowly” were among the best and most honest moments of last year’s ceremony.