Yesterday I was looking around the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website and found the link to their Nominations Press Kit. Ostensibly the Academy's full guide to everything related to this year's nominations, it contains production notes for all of the Best Picture and Best Animated Feature nominees, bios of everyone nominated in the so-called top eight categories (actors, actresses, directors, screenwriters), a short list of the ten categories anounced live on television on nominations morning, a fact sheet which gives more information on the ten categories announced live on telvision (these are of the "This is her fifth nomination and the third in this category" variety), something called nominations sidebars, which is more like a page of trivia (sample bit - "This is the first time since the Animated Feature category was inaugurated in 2001 that none of the nominees was produced primarily by CGI techniques"), a full cast and crew list of each of the foreign language film nominees and a press release headlined "OSCAR.COM’S MAN OF STYLE, TOM JULIAN, RETURNS AS COMMENTATOR FOR OSCAR.COM'S 78TH ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS® FASHION COVERAGE".
And in all of that, not a single mention of the documentary feature nominees.
You would think that the trivia, I mean sidebars, section might have included the fact that one of the documentary feature nominees has outgrossed every nominee in the Best Picture, Best Animated Feature and Best Foreign Language Film categories, but this would probably not fit in with the Academy's narrative. Besides who needs talk of Murderball, when you've got Tom Julian standing by to talk fashion.
In seriousness, while I can vaguely understand where the Academy is coming from in terms of time restraints and what they perceive to be audience awareness (or lack thereof) related to the documentary nominees, this "Nominations Press Kit" illustrates that the Academy practices an institutional exclusion of the nonfiction categories. Having detailed information about all the other feature categories has nothing to do with network time or bored housewives in Topeka. But more than anything else thus far, this simple page from the Academy's publicity department clearly illustrates that nonfiction films are an after thought, if they are thought of at all.
Comments