Cinema is a democratic medium, and the following three categories demonstrate the extraordinary diversity of the movies. Of course, while works in the Animated Feature, Foreign Language Film, and Documentary Feature categories accomplish their craft in decidedly different ways, they nevertheless conform with the standard filmmaking process – that is, they create moving pictures and then streamline them into a narrative. But these categories share another, more troubling similarity: They’re all a farce.
I don’t mean to denigrate the films that the Academy recognizes in these categories each year; as with most categories, the quality of the nominees tends to range from very good to mediocre. It’s the very existence of the categories that vexes me. Rewarding particular types of movies specifically because they’re made according to a certain method propagates a sort of ghetto culture, a suggestion that these pictures are somehow lesser in stature compared to “real” movies. And what’s to stop the increased proliferation of such ruthless segregation? If we have a Best Animated Feature category, why not a Best Action Film, or Best Movie Based on a True Story, or Best Picture with At Least Two Black-and-White Dream Sequences? Read More
