It is not a mystery why the ratings for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards Ceremony, better known as the Academy Awards or The Oscars, have seen rapidly declining ratings over the past decade: they are nominating and rewarding every shittier movies. Gone are the times when the awards committee would go to extraordinary lengths to promote movies that told worthwhile, original stories with breathtaking skill in direction and cinematography. Now, The Oscars are little more than auxiliary marketing campaigns for the vapid blockbuster movies that earn billions solely by virtue of outsized marketing campaigns and dominant distribution deals that leave movie fans with little choice of what to see.
Naturally, it falls to the old, established and accomplished actor to give The Academy the criticism it deserves. It is a tired cliché that the masses want pablum. Hollywood could make money by making good movies. Now, they are suffering the consequences of the commodification of their products: people can only eat so much pablum. Overfed on the tasteless stuff, movie fans can scarcely stand three-hour telecasts praising the stuff they have been force fed far beyond the point of satiety.
If anyone had any backbone in Hollywood, then they would heed Penn’s criticism, but much like a dictatorship, they have become prisoners in the system they created.
