>A common complaint about the Oscars every year is that they inherently fail to honor the best films that came out over the course of the preceding 12 months. That they are biased. That so-called Oscar-bait has an edge over the competition not because of merit, but because of what an extremely white, extremely male, extremely old body of voters happens to like, regardless of how removed that makes them from general moviegoing audiences.
>Now, not all of these complaints is entirely invalid. In fact, even accounting for differing tastes, ineligible movies and the like, there always seems to be some great divide between what is good and what is Oscar-worthy. One needs to look no further than this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees to find thoroughly mediocre offerings like Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Vice (2018) and Green Book (2018) among legitimate, best-of-the-year offerings like Black Panther (2018), BlacKkKlansman (2018), Roma (2018) and A Star Is Born (2018).
>Now, not all of these complaints is entirely invalid. In fact, even accounting for differing tastes, ineligible movies and the like, there always seems to be some great divide between what is good and what is Oscar-worthy. One needs to look no further than this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees to find thoroughly mediocre offerings like Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Vice (2018) and Green Book (2018) among legitimate, best-of-the-year offerings like Black Panther (2018), BlacKkKlansman (2018), Roma (2018) and A Star Is Born (2018).
