The Hurt Locker, Oscar Politics, and the 50% Rule...
By Darren Williams
3rd February 2010

There's a new factor in the best picture race. In the past the winner of best picture has been decided in a simple fashion, everyone votes for one film, the film with most votes takes the Oscar. But this year they've expanded the list of nominees to ten films. This raises a problem. When there were five nominees, a film had to take at least 21% of the votes to win best picture. With ten nominees, a film only needs 11% of number one votes. It would be kind of embarrassing, even by the Academy's standards, to proclaim a film the best of the year if it only got 11% of voter support. So the change was needed. Now voters won't just pick their favourite, they'll rank all ten nominated films from 1 - 10. Then the preferential ballot system that decides the nominees will come into play to help decide the winner as well. So here's how it works. Here's the ten nominated films.

Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air

People rank them 1- 10 and the votes will then be counted based on the preferential system. Which means all the number one votes are counted and split into ten piles. A film will then need over 50% of the votes to be declared the winner. So let's say from the number one votes it breaks down like this

Avatar - 20%, The Hurt Locker - 18%, Up in the Air - 15%, Inglourious Basterds - 10%, Up - 8%, Precious - 7%, The Blind Side - 7%, An Education - 6%, District 9 - 5 %, A Serious Man - 4%

A Serious Man will be eliminated from contention and the number two votes on those ballots will be checked and they will be redistributed to those films. So after round 2 it could look like this

Avatar - 20%, The Hurt Locker - 22%, Up in the Air - 15%, Inglourious Basterds - 10%, The Blind Side - 9%, Up - 8%, Precious - 7%, An Education - 6%, District 9 - 5 %

After this round the District 9 ballots would be redistributed based on their number two votes, any number 2 votes for the already eliminated A Serious Man would move down to the third placed film on those ballots. This goes on until one film has broken the 50% barrier.

So what does this mean? For a start it means that the winner really will be the popular winner. It also means that the chance of an upset, and a picture/director split, is greater as best director is still decided by how many number one votes it gets. It also means that the more divisive films will be hurt by it. Take a film like Basterds that provoked controversy and claims of racism. It has a good deal of support, that much is evident. But for all the people who adore it, there are also a number of people who hate it and are likely to keep it at or near the bottom of the ballot. The same goes for Avatar, which has already been established isn't popular with the actors guild by missing a SAG nomination. Also, the roundtable discussion with Freeman, Bridges, etc made it clear that some actors are very dismissive of the film, but they don't speak for the rest of the Academy so not too much can be read into that. This may not make much of a difference. The Hurt Locker has been a consistently popular film through the awards season, it's very easy to see it being number 2 - 4 on a lot of ballots that didn't put it in first position. I actually think it could push it to an easy win. But it could also greatly help the more human dramas, the ones that aren't quite as controversial as a revisionist WW2 fantasy, a film about an ongoing war, or a soulless special effects film. This could help Up in the Air, The Blind Side and An Education greatly. They're films that are easy to see appearing on the top end of a lot of lists, even if they don't pull in as many number one slots as some other titles. This is all speculation, and three of the final four films in contention for the win (and I don't think the 50% target will be reached before then, especially in a year this divisive) will probably be the leading trio of The Hurt Locker, Avatar and Up in the Air. It's the fourth film that's the unknown and I have a feeling it could be something that we're not expecting.

"Up in the Air", one of the supposed leading trio, along with "The Hurt Locker" and "Avatar".

But let's look at those best picture nominees more in depth

So The Hurt Locker is looking likely to take picture/director at the Oscars and Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to win best director. The Hurt Locker is becoming an unstoppable force, but why now? The Hurt Locker was first released in 2008, it even qualified (and was nominated for) Indy Spirit awards that year. Yet you didn't hear about it as a glorious statement on the Iraq war then. Ok, so it wasn't eligible for Oscar consideration, so it didn't have the same level of publicity, all those are important points. But here's what I'm getting at, if this had been eligible for an Indy Spirit nomination this year, given the level of publicity, you'd expect picture/director/actor/screenplay/supporting actor nominations at least, right? Last year it managed just actor and supporting actor. It was considered a decent little film that picked up a few acting nominations. Why the sudden change? Simple. For whatever reason, it caught the attention of early critical awards, and when one critics group awards something, others will follow. That's not to take anything away from the film, it's still a good film that deserves some attention, but is it really this groundbreaking film where Bigelow earned the distinction of being the first woman to win a DGA award (and probably the Oscar)? Not really. An Education is a better film directed by a female director this year, churlish as it may sound to acknowledge it, Bigelow's race to glory has a lot to do with taking on a traditionally male subject matter. Oscar politics and groupthink is always like this. Your film doesn't have to be the best nominated, it doesn't have to be the best of that type of film. It just needs to have the public perception that it's doing something special. Helping fuel this fire is the large number of Oscar bloggers out there. Take note that I don't include all of them in this sweeping statement, but mostly the world of Oscar blogging is not a nice place. You get the same favouritism and silly politics as anywhere else, yet a lot of these bloggers try to pretend that other people's favouritism is worse than their own. Take, for example, the Brokeback Mountain/Crash year.

Anything even slightly against the idea that Brokeback was a masterpiece the likes of which we'd never seen before brought accusations of homophobia. Take a simple example like making fun of the name. Now, for Brokebackers, dubbing Crash, Crap, was acceptable. Yet dub Brokeback Mountain Bareback Mounting and there were cries of homophobia. Which is, of course, idiotic. There's nothing homophobic about making reference to a sex scene in the film, as if bareback sex is something associated with gay men anyway. So let's be honest about this, if someone is going to dislike a film because of a gay sex scene, it's not going to take a pun on the name of the film to remind them about it. But let's take this a step further and pop the little bubble of self-delusion some people have been living in for the last four years. Crash did not win best picture because of homophobia. Sorry, it just didn't. The facts are against it. For those having trouble figuring it out, a fact is something based on evidence. The 'Brokeback didn't win because of homophobia' crowd are basing their theories on rumour.

Rumour 1. Brokeback was an unstoppable force in favour of gay rights and the Academy were too scared to acknowledge it.

Rumour 2. Several Academy members had expressed a distaste for the film and were refusing to even see it.

Rumour 3. Crash was put forward by homophobic members of the press/online blogging groups/Academy as an alternative best picture selection.

Rumour 4. Crash had no precursor support that would suggest a best picture victory.

Ok, so let's break those down (Stay with me on this, this is important to The Hurt Locker's status)

Rumour 1. Brokeback was an unstoppable force in favour of gay rights and the Academy were too scared to acknowledge it.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"

Fact. Brokeback was nothing to do with gay rights. There was no call for gay rights in the film. There was no great talk of it being a gay rights film from the producers, director, writers or actors. A large section of the commercials of the film made no reference to it being a gay love story. The publicity machine for the film was quick to push the fact that Ledger and Williams had fallen in love on set, a way to show that one of the stars was straight after all. There were interviews about how difficult and weird it was for the actors, both straight men, to kiss each other. When there was a gay sex scene in the film the camera couldn't get out of there fast enough, yet it was happy to linger over Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway topless. The fans wanted it both ways, if someone described the film as one about gay cowboys, they were quick to point out how it wasn't just a film for gay people, it was a film for everyone. Yet when it didn't win, if there was even talk it wouldn't win, again the homophobia card was played because the film was a gay film and to attack it was to attack the gay community itself. It's only right to be honest and say I hated Brokeback. Not because of homophobia, but because the original short story was a beautiful and heart-wrenching tale and the film ripped its heart out. But even if I liked the film I could still recognise that the film was nothing to do with gay rights.

Rumour 2. Several Academy members had expressed a distaste for the film and were refusing to even see it.

Fact. Well two. Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis went on record to say they had no intention of seeing it. Other than that this was based on assumption. If a significant number of members had refused to see it, it wouldn't have been nominated in the first place, that's how the preferential system works. The fact that it was even nominated means that people had watched it and liked it. The likes of Borgnine and Curtis hadn't watched it before nomination and it still got in, refusing to watch it after nomination meant very little in the great scheme of things. If someone is homophobic, and it's fair to say that in a voting body of 6000 people, some will be homophobic, they weren't going to vote for the film if they watched it or not.

Rumour 3. Crash was put forward by homophobic members of the press/online blogging groups/Academy as an alternative best picture selection.

Fact. Ok, so the homophobic Academy members wanted to make sure they had an alternative choice to upset Brokeback. Why Crash? Why not something like Good Night, & Good Luck, that had the weight of historical importance behind it? Clooney's critical darling would surely have been an easier sell to the elite cabal that supposedly ruled the Academy like some homophobic Stonecutters. Ah, came the response, but half of Hollywood was in Crash and it was an acting ensemble piece so it was easier to get actors to vote for it. Wait. Let's look at that again. Half of Hollywood was in Crash, meaning a lot of votes from cast members and friends of cast members. Ok. It was an actor's film. You mean the biggest group of voters in the Academy? The actors? It's a surprise they'd vote for a large ensemble film that also had social importance? And if you have homophobics in the Academy, you're also going to have racists who are going to refuse to vote for a no racism>racism drama like Crash anyway. But this is just assumption on my part. What isn't assumption? The fact that Brokeback still won directing and screenplay Oscars. Yes, that's right, the homophobes pulled out a shock victory for Crash by voting for it over Brokeback, and then forgot to vote for Haggis as director. Because it's ok if a gay film gets best director, just not best picture. So not only are they homophobic, they're borderline retarded. If Haggis hadn't been nominated for best director and the anti-Crash vote had split between the other nominees, I'd buy the homophobic thing a little more. But as it is, this is what the conspiracy theorists are telling everyone.

Imagine I'm a homophobic Academy member;

"Fuck Brokeback. Fuck faggots. I'm going to vote for Crash in best picture. Director? Ah, let them have it."

Nobody. Is. That. Fucking. Stupid.

An anti-Brokeback vote that had been arranged in favour of Crash would have meant best director going to Crash as well. It also would have meant a Matt Dillon win in supporting actor because Crash was also in competition with Brokeback there. If the homophobes really did rule the Academy, Crash would have swept the board. Except it didn't. No film did that year.

Matt Dillon in his non-Oscar-winning supporting turn in "Crash".

So here's two scenarios.

Scenario 1. Academy members are homophobic and hate the idea of a gay film winning. Although it still managed to be nominated in the first place. They found an anti-Brokeback horse in Crash and voted for in large numbers, but only in best picture and no other category where the two films went head to head.

Scenario 2. Brokeback peaked far too soon. By the time the Oscars came around, voters found another film they just loved more in Crash, they voted Crash for best picture because that's where their heart was, they voted Ang Lee for best director because they respected his film-making more. See the vote splits for Chicago/Polanski, Gladiator/Soderbergh and Shakespeare/Spielberg for further evidence of this kind of heart vs head mentality.

Rumour 4. Crash had no precursor support that would suggest a best picture victory.

Fact. It didn't have the same level of support as Brokeback, but it did have the actors. The SAGs nominated two supporting performances from Crash and it give them the ensemble award. Brokeback got nothing. The actors are all important in getting a best picture win. For a film to win without an acting nomination is rare, it does happen, but rarely, and a hyped acting performance can carry a film to a best picture nomination (The Blind Side, Capote, Ray, The Queen). Never underestimate the actors.

So what does all this have to do with The Hurt Locker? The concept of the chosen one. Brokeback became the favourite of bloggers (the places that cause so much of the online hype) and they wouldn't be shaken from this. It was nothing to do with the actual quality of the film, it was just the bandwagon film of the year. Let's flash back to last year. There was another gay film in contention. Milk, an actual gay rights film, about a gay rights hero, directed by a gay man, written by a gay man, more explicitly gay themed than Brokeback. The Brokeback fans who felt homophobia stole a win from them should have been behind this 100%, right? Because this really was a celebration of gay sexuality and a cry for equal rights. And on nomination morning, they were all excited about Milk getting so many nominations, right? Well, no. They were screaming in outrage because The Dark Knight wasn't nominated. Because The Dark Knight was last year's chosen one. Again, nothing to do with the quality of the film, it was all about it being the film that the online community loved. Now, the cynic in me is saying that part of the reason Milk didn't get the same level of support because it had Sean Penn kissing other men rather than pretty young things Ledger and Gyllenhaal kissing each other. But the point still remains, the lofty values of a gay themed win that sparked the outrage in 2006 didn't lend support to Milk last year, it turned into outrage over a comic book film not being nominated.

So what can we draw from this?

1. Online hype isn't about quality, it's about favouritism and bandwagon jumping. If it was about quality there'd be more outrage about the great little films that didn't get nominated rather than which of the big favourites gets your sweaty hugs this year.

2. Oscar followers love to be outraged.

So remembering that The Hurt Locker sparked nowhere near the same level of butterflies in tummy feelings last year when it made the Indy Spirit lists as it did this year when it became the chosen one, how does this outrage effect this year's race? Well The Hurt Locker and Bigelow have the 'OMFG!!! It must win because of teh women director!!!' factor. But the outrage is elsewhere this year, it's in the Bullock v Streep best actress race. More importantly, it's on Streep fans who can't handle the possibility of Bullock winning. Even though Streep is even further into 'what the fuck is she doing?' hammery this year than she was in Doubt. This is where we also see the great hypocrisy that's been leading to 'But Streep has more critic awards' cries that last year was getting 'fuck the critics' responses when Slumdog swept. But still, Sandy fans seem to be in strength in the Academy as The Blind Side is another best picture nominee. The Hurt Locker has rode the train of expectation and hype all the way to its front-runner status. It's a good film, but it's not there because of quality. It's the chosen one because the hype says it is. That's all. And if Bigelow loses, expect outrage, but don't expect the same kind of hype the next time a woman director is nominated. Because the next pretty young thing will have the hype-makers hearts.

Katheryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker"... potentially the favourite?

So The Hurt Locker is the favourite at the moment, it has the historical factor, the real-life importance of the Iraq war, the buzz. Most important, it doesn't take sides, the politics are so non-existent in the film that it could be argued as pro or anti war. Meaning it'll pick up votes from both sides of the political spectrum.

And Avatar? Well it's the big film of the year, but it's heartless. The lack of a single writing or acting nomination counts against the film greatly. It's a technical achievement, but it's nominations were matched by The Hurt Locker and nearly matched by Basterds, meaning it's not the powerhouse we may have thought. Avatar is also the film that may be most hurt by the 50% rule. I think it'll get a lot of first placed votes, especially from the tech guys, but I think it's going to drop off with other voters. And people who hate Avatar really hate it. A love or hate proposition like Avatar could end up at the bottom of a lot of ballots, making that magic 50 a difficult number to reach. The box-office and the 'experience' could get it a lot of votes, but I'm wondering how well the film will hold up on screeners.

What about The Blind Side? I think if the Oscar voting results were released we could be surprised by how high The Blind Side places before it's eliminated. It has the real life drama, sappy broad appeal, was a surprise box office sensation, is carried by a hugely popular actress and made a shock appearance in the lineup. While some will no doubt hate it, I think it's the kind of inoffensive film that'll appear midway on a lot of ballots. It's the easy listening choice and it's the kind of film older Academy members will take to more than things like District 9 or Avatar. It seems unlikely on the face of it, but the 50% rule means that this could actually come close to an upset. It could be 2009s Driving Miss Daisy.

And speaking of District 9, what are its chances? Absolute zero. The nomination is the film's reward and it was probably one of the lowest placed entries of the ten. The fact that it's sci-fi will alienate a lot of voters and it doesn't have the pedigree of an Avatar. But congratulations to it on the nomination.

An Education? How the mighty have fallen. This looked like a potential winner a few months ago, now it couldn't get any of the supporting nominations or a directing nomination. Even though Scherfig would have been a better choice for first woman to win director than Bigelow. It's one of the best of the ten, and the fact that it won't alienate too many voters should see it do well, but it won't win.

"An Education", 'one of the best of the ten'.

And what about the Basterds? My dislike of the Basterds should be well enough known on this site, and it didn't do as well in the nominations as many were expecting (No art direction, no actress noms for Laurent and Kruger) I also still think it's going to alienate enough voters to put it at the bottom of a lot of lists. But, I think on number one votes alone it's a top four film, and if we were still at five nominees it would have been in the list. It'll do better than I'd like, but again, a win in any category other than Supporting Actor would be a shock. As much as the fans would love it, it's not the kind of film that gets best picture.

As for Precious, it's the worst film of the year. It'll win supporting actress and it'll do quite well in the voting. It won't get anywhere near best picture though, unless we'll also see Satan making snow angels. It's this year's pity fuck nominee, nothing more.

A Serious Man is highly likely to be the first film out. Despite the fanboy acclaim, it hasn't played as well with any awards body as people expected and it wouldn't have got near best picture if there wasn't ten nominees. As good as it is, it just doesn't seem to inspire much love, and anyway, the Coens swept far too recently to win anything this year.

And the best film in the list, Up, that won't win either. But it's huge that Pixar finally got a best picture nomination and there's something in my gut that tells me if there were only five nominees then there would have been a picture/director mismatch with Up taking the place of Precious in the final five. It's gotten too much acclaim and Pixar have been ignored for far too long for it not to have been nominated. But like District 9, the nomination is the reward.

And finally, Up in the Air. Its buzz has faded a bit, and it'll probably just get adapted screenplay now. But, like The Blind Side, it's the kind of film that won't inspire much hate, so expect it to be solidly mid-list on many ballots, and it'll probably be in the final three or four films.

So my final predictions. The Hurt Locker will win, with Avatar, The Blind Side and Up in the Air making up the rest of the top four films. But as much as I'm thinking The Hurt Locker will take it, a real upset wouldn't shock me right now.