The Oscars: Timeless Institution or Dusty Relic?

Fast forward to now, and it seems like nothing has really changed. Especially in recent years, the Academy Awards, otherwise known as The Oscars, served as an egregious rebuke of the virtue of humility; few events in the entertainment calendar induce as many eye-rolls.

As a result, the Oscars have become a frightful affair; a torturously long night, full of overwrought speeches, moral grandstanding and—on occasion but still all too rare— a slap more earthshaking than a cluster of Hans Zimmer bass notes.

As ratings plummet and audiences grow weary of Hollywood’s moral posturing, one has to ask: do the Oscars still matter, or are they just an expensive soirée where the industry pats itself on the back for providing us mere mortals with ‘true art’ and, especially since the advent of Trump, for ‘being on the right side of history’?

Responding to Trump’s America

While last night’s Oscars were more low-key concerning the latter in comparison with previous years, Adrien Brody, who won Best Actor for his role in The Brutalist, said in his acceptance speech: “If the past can teach us anything, it's a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”—a perhaps not so veiled reference to America under a Trump presidency.

Bleeding Viewership

Once, the Oscars indeed carried significant cultural weight. Winning that golden statuette could turn an unknown actor into royalty and future moneymaker, a director worthy of entering the cinematic pantheon, or an indie film into a must-watch.

The ceremony itself was unmissable—an annual ritual where audiences tuned in not just to see awards being handed to glammed up celebrities faking surprise, but to feel as if they themselves were part of all that pomp and circumstance.

Now, that romantic thrill is well and truly gone. Raw data tell the tale: in 1998, when that immortal audience-pleaser Titanic swept the awards, the broadcast pulled in a staggering 55 million viewers in the U.S. alone. While some Oscars ceremonies have done better than others after that year, the general trend is one of figures sinking—an ironic re-enactment of what happened to the actual Titanic.

Indeed, at last year’s Oscars, only 19.5 million Americans cared to tune in. While some argue shorter attention spans might be the culprit, there is more to it than that; the industry itself is out of step with audiences, having alienated many who otherwise would have caught the Oscars.

The Great Wokening

Identity politics have transformed the Oscars from what should be a celebration of cinema into a moral and political battleground. While the Oscars have long preferred self-important dramas (which have come to be known as ‘Oscar bait’) over the kinds of films people actually pay to see, identity politics has made that fact even more grating.

It was the #OscarsSoWhite backlash in 2015 and 2016 which left the Academy scrambling for relevance, resulting in a flurry of diversity initiatives and new membership rules. And, more than likely wrongly, the Academy felt that a popular Twitter hashtag surely represents the sentiment of a great mass of people, while this is often not the case.

In subsequent years, as a result the awards felt more like a box-ticking exercise than a genuine recognition of cinematic excellence.

That identity politics is still very much part of the Oscars, was demonstrated by actress and The View host Whoopi Goldberg who, in last night’s tribute to deceased record producer and composer Quincy Jones, last night said: “When we talk about black excellence, we're talking about Quincy,” highlighting the man’s race.

The Road to Renewal

Despite declining viewership and an industry-wide identity crisis, the Oscars persist. Why? Because, for all its flaws, the golden statuette still carries clout. For filmmakers, an Oscar win is still a career-defining moment—Even now, the Academy Awards still bestow a quantum of prestige.

If the Oscars want to claw their back into cultural relevance, the Academy needs a serious rethink. That means finding a way to balance artistic integrity with mainstream appeal, and—perhaps most crucially—learning to laugh at themselves a little. The endless speeches about the industry’s moral superiority only serve to alienate viewers who would rather see their favorite films celebrated than endure a three-hour sermon.

The Oscars may never recapture the cultural dominance they once had, but they aren’t going away either—after all, the show must go on. Whether audiences will still care is another story altogether. Perhaps the Academy’s greatest challenge isn’t choosing the right winners—it’s convincing the world that the whole charade still matters.

Statement

Hollywood’s Oscars have become a demonstration of the industry’s self-importance rather than a reflection of popular taste and sentiment. Once a global event uniting audiences and industry, the Academy Awards now pander to niche sensibilities. Viewership has plummeted, and as Hollywood drowns in identity politics and moral grandstanding, it alienates audiences even further. The industry’s detachment has rendered the Oscars culturally marginal—an exclusive club where the elite award each other while the rest of the world watches something else. Prestige might remain, but its relevance is in doubt.

Weekly