wtf does black panther have to do w this?
it was good but by far was not the best.
How will they determine the "most popular" box office ratings or what?
Because Black Panther is the most recent, prominent example, but the underlining idea has been around for a while. The Dark Knight in particular is mentioned in this case as it wasn't nominated for Best Picture in 2009, but was nominated for numerous others while winning severel. It comes down to that when it concerns the Best Picture award, many movies get omitted despite them having obtained huge critical and box office success, while it's possible you're going to say of the eventual winner "did that movie even exist?".
I doubt they created this category specifically for Black Panther, but it probably did gave the final push to something they already had been planning as the wedge between the Academy Awards and mainstream movie audiences has steadily grown wider the past two decades. It's kind of embarrassing to pose as being prestigious, but no one gives a damn anymore.
Are you kidding. It’s equal to The Dark Knight in my opinion. Heck, lord of the rings.
I don't want to start a polemic about this, but no it isn't.
I agree. There have been so many snubs from movies who clearly deserved the award for (insert category) only to have some no deserving film get the win. The awards aren’t a guideline to what is good as movies are art and therefore subjective. While some may be accepted by a majority others can be completely polarizing and lately politicized.
And it’s true. This new category is put there because of Black Panther. Don’t get me wrong, it was good...REALLY GOOD but there wasn’t a need to create an entirely new category because of it. Just nominate it for best whatever.
Awards like these are by definition subjective to a certain degree. I doubt it's any different for things like the Golden Globes, the Grammy's etc. I think you also very well realize that saying it isn't a guideline and that's it's subjective is in itself also a subjective notion. Meaning the 'it's subjective'-notion gets so much pulled out of proportion that any award series is pointless, so they should be removed, which honestly would be a bore.
Yes there have many been times questionable decisions were made, but I think all in all it's still very well a decent reference point when it comes to decide which movies excel in particular aspects of what makes a movie. I can understand why many people are negative about this, but honestly from an objective point of view it makes quite a lot of sense, no matter the reason as why they are doing it, and to me it feels that the critics are intentionally only giving a pessimistic interpretation about this. "Best" and "Popular" are not the same thing. They are not mutually exclusive, but the difference is quite important.
In fact making a difference between these two is nothing new, it's something that has been present for a long time now in many TV-competitions where you have on one side a jury, but on the other side televoting. This has been especially prominent in Eurovision the past few years where they decided to separately give the points of the jury and the audience, which resulted in the standings being flipped upside down for many contestants. Why? Because the reasons why many people vote for a particular contestant are even more subjective, shallow and often not relevant than that of a professional jury.
It's not uncommon in singing contests that someone who is funny, beautiful or sympathetic is chosen over someone who is not despite being better. Overall seen Black Panther is a decent movie, only there is little that elevates it beyond that. The primary reason as why it became such a success, was the cultural importance of having an almost all-black cast and a black director. Only that has no relevance when it concerns possible "Best Movie". It does however becomes relevant when it concerns "Popular Movie". So saying that they just should nominate the movie, isn't any better as there is really no shortage each year of popular movies that do not get nominated.
So honestly, from a rational perspective this makes a lot of sense as it provides some recognition and takes into account the mainstream audience. But as this backlash is so severe, this category runs the risk of being eternally seen as a pity-prize, like the Confederations Cup of the Academy Awards. Now if this category gets removed again because of this backlash, nothing changes. Even though not always explicitly said, it's strongly implied that they want more box office successes to be nominated instead. It varies from movie to movie, but honestly I find that a bit hypocritical as they expect that any sense of integrity that is still left has to be sold just to satisfy the whims of people that complain for often selfish and shallow reasons and that would really be something typical for the modern day society.
