The 98th Oscars will be the first Academy Awards to have rules surrounding generative AI, and it means films can openly use the technology without hindering their chances of taking home a win.
Following the controversy involving The Brutalist and Emilia Perez‘s 2025 Oscar campaigns, which were impacted by the use of AI to improve speech and dialect, you’d think the new rule change would be the most controversial addition to the upcoming year’s overhaul. You’d be wrong.
Instead, there’s an even bigger issue that should be grabbing all the headlines and highlighting everything wrong with award ceremonies.
Wait… Why hasn’t this rule always existed?
While allowing AI to be used in any movie eligible for an Oscar win might sound controversial, the more controversial rule change highlights an issue that’s plagued the Academy Awards for years.
The statement on the Academy Awards website reads: “In a procedural change, Academy members must now watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars.”
At first, I had to take a second glance, and then my jaw dropped to the floor. Yes, now Academy members need to watch all new movies in a category before voting, which means that we’ve had 97 Oscar ceremonies so far where that was not a criterion.
How can anyone validate any Oscar win when, for almost a century, those who vote haven’t even been required to watch the movies they are selecting from?
Now, I’m not naive, so I always knew Oscars campaigns and marketing budgets played a significant part in propelling films towards a gold statue. However, I, and I suspect most of the wider population, thought that movies still had to stand out versus the field to win.
Turns out, the Academy Awards are more of a popularity contest than I had ever realized, and up until this year, a good marketing campaign and getting your movie seen are probably enough to win.
Does this hinder credibility or benefit it?
As someone who watches the Oscars every year, hoping for my favorite movie to pick up a top prize, I’m not sure how I feel about the news that Academy members haven’t needed to bother watching the nominations until now.
You see, I think it absolutely hinders the credibility of the Academy Awards in terms of how it’s perceived by the general public. The regular people of the world, who tune in on TV every year, and have no ties to Hollywood, do not even know that there was no criteria in the first place.
That said, does this now give the 98th Academy Awards and all the subsequent award ceremonies increased credibility? Like, at some point, someone from the Academy would’ve known that this rule needed to be implemented. But it would always end up in backlash, so have they just been putting off the rule change, in the hope that when they do make the adjustment, it goes unnoticed?
I’m no insider, no Academy member, just a mere fan of cinema, and while now I’ll look back at the last century of Oscar wins with a newfound skepticism, it does make me think that moving forward, the movies that deserve recognition are more likely to receive it.
The new AI rule might be grabbing all the headlines, but for us “normies,” I think we should be focusing on the fact that the biggest awards in cinema haven’t required those who make the selection to watch what they’re voting for. It’s absolutely baffling.
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