Sarah Marrs, deputy editor at LaineyGossip, joins Cheddar News to discuss the annual Academy Awards.

Between Bells

Oscars' Category Cut Decision Met With Backlash

Welcome back to Between Battles. Everyone on March 27th, Hollywood's biggest stars will once again walk the red carpet at the 94th annual Academy Awards, but the award show is under fire once again, this time it's for cutting certain awards from the live telecast in an effort to shorten the show's run time, joining us now to talk more about it. Sarah mars, deputy editor for lainey gossip. Welcome to the show. So a few of the awards, not to be telecast live include live action Shore, best editing and documentary short. Just to name a few of those. First of all these awards deserve the proper recognition. But there are people who are watching the show for the awards. Do you think that they are watching to see their favorite stars over some of these? I think also mentioned in this category was maybe like hair and makeup and costume design, Yes. Hair and makeup and production design and original score, which the category this year includes Nicholas Bartell, who in a corner of the internet is a darling because he's done the succession music and also jonny Greenwood who is a famous rock star. Um so that's the name that, you know, you could certainly tell jonny Greenwood has a really good shot at winning an Oscar and they're not going to show it live. Um but yes, it's these categories and I think people watch for, there's definitely the glamour factor. People are watching for their favorite actors. They want to see the dresses, they want to see the clothes, they want the glamour of the night. Um but I also think the audience that remains for the Oscars because it has dwindled over the last several years are the people who love the Oscars, they are cinephiles. There are people who love film, they know who's being nominated, they want to see them recognized. And I think it's a it's a huge slap in the face to not only those fans who have stuck with the Oscars, but also the people who actually make the movies. Um you know, editing all of these categories are important and deserve to have their moment live. But editing is really one of the top tier categories because you don't have a film without an editor. So I mean, Best picture nominations do not happen without good editing. Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned that point and I think it's a really valid one, especially when we talk about the viewership and how it's been dwindling over the course of the past few years. But when we talk about this strategy, it's overall an effort to cut the time down um and shorten the broadcast and we've all seen it before when they play people off the stage has always been a really big issue. Do you think that this strategy would actually help to shorten the broadcast? No, because they are still going to show the nominee reads and they're still going to show the speeches. So they're basically doing what the baftas do in Britain, which is their pre taping and then they're editing it down to kind of cut out the winners walk the trophy hand off. You know, maybe make sure that those on offs are a lot faster than they are when people are kind of like, which way do I go on the stage? You get rid of all that stuff. Um, but the baftas still run 2.5 hours and you're taking eight categories. I mean if they even saved 10 whole minutes, I would be surprised especially because this announcement came with the statement that they intend to dedicate more time to live bits, musical performances and montage packages, sort of celebrating the art of film. But it's like well, but giving these people Oscars is celebrating the art of film. Like I don't, we don't need more bits, We don't need more montage packages. We just want to see the people who are crafting the movies be recognized for their work. Especially because these categories, these are the people who don't get recognized. They, they're not famous. They're not a listers. People don't know their names and this is the one time we get to recognize, hey, these people did exceptional work. They made the movies. You love, Let's give them a minute to just enjoy that. And I don't think it's going to be a huge time saver and it's again, it's just a huge insult to the people who make the movies. Yeah, we're totally on the same wavelength today. I was thinking about the montages and in the era of streaming, you don't really need them in the same way that you did in previous years. But I also want to talk about the strategy and that could the Oscars potentially have prerecorded the entire broadcast and just put something out that was edited and why hasn't that been visited as a possibility? I think the live broadcast has value. I mean you look at like envelope gate when they named the wrong best picture winner and and the huge shockwave that that sent and that was a low rated year of the live broadcast. But that moment online, massive on social media, huge on Youtube, all over facebook, like the shares that got in the days after was really big. So even saying that the audience for the Oscars is gone, they might be gone on the live broadcast, but people are still paying attention. They're still getting up the next morning and checking the highlights and seeing who won and watching their favorites, give their speeches. So I think if you end the live broadcast entirely, you lose the magic of anything can happen. If you can have an Adele Dazeem moment where you have like a cultural kind of flash point of everyone in on the same joke for a second. But you don't really get those from the baftas Sarah mars deputy editor for lainey gossip. Really good insight. There were definitely looking forward to seeing what the Academy Awards does with this new iteration, even with dwindling numbers and viewership.