At the 2020 Oscars Award Show, Janelle Monae opened the Oscars with a song highlighting the movies that year, as many award shows unoriginally do to wake up the 60-year-old crowd tuning in to CBS every night. In this performance, Monae had backup dancers dressed as “Midsommar” characters in white robes and floral crowns from the A24 horror movie that came out in 2019. This would be a great homage to this movie even if it was part of an obnoxious viewership scheme, but it goes deeper than that. “Midsommar” was snubbed with zero nominations and zero wins.
With this snub, many felt the addition of this movie in a goofy way was cheap, especially with all the critical acclaim it received from both critics and audiences. This is not the first time horror movies have been snubbed. From the same director of “Midsommar,” Ari Aster, another new classic in the genre, “Hereditary”, was given the same treatment the year before. Other newly critically acclaimed movies from this era and genre from director Robert Eggers such as “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” have gotten the same snubs with only one nomination for cinematography in the Academy.
The Oscars continuously snub one of the most producing and popular genres of film, making people wonder why this continues to happen, especially since many gems of the horror genre don’t use cheap jumpscares or plot holes throughout. Why does the Academy forget about horror movies?
While I want to say my funny response, which is that half of the Academy is scaredy cats who cover their eyes the whole time while watching horror movies, I unfortunately have to give those old white people more credit. I think it does have something to do with content and theme.
I can understand the exclusion of blockbuster, jumpscare heavy movies that have only been a cultural phenomenon rather than critically acclaimed. In Paranormal Activity or other Blumhouse productions, there’s not a lot of substance there to analyze. These movies can fall under the radar without many people getting upset.
However, the problem comes when films like “Midsommar” which have thematic elements to it, and gorgeous directing and cinematography come out and are given the same treatment as the regular month of October releases that are nothing more than a Halloween buyout. These new classics that A24 have worked hard to bring into the genre are more or less forgotten due to the genre having a bad reputation of not having much that the Academy can work with.
One of the movies that have actually broken out of this pattern is Jordan Peele’s debut film “Get Out.” This movie won Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Daniel Kaluuya, Best Director for Peele, and the Best Picture of 2018. While I do think this movie does follow all the elements of a regular horror movie, I think it expands on the genre. I think the reason this broke the pattern was because the movie talks about race and code switching in a genre that you wouldn’t see that. While it has jarring moments of jumpscares and creepy depictions in the story, it also sheds light on social issues, proving that it’s more than just a horror movie. I think that this award was absolutely deserved for this movie as Peele is one of the best working directors today, but it led me to wonder why these other stories don’t get the same hype.
I think that “Hereditary” and “The Lighthouse” work with other very deep thematic ideas that aren’t seen anywhere else. “Hereditary” works with grief and how it affects a family. “The Lighthouse” works with mental health and isolationism. However, these did not get the same recognition because the Academy has just learned in the past couple years to only be able to analyze and act comfortably with one thematic element: race.
I think that the Academy is probably a lot of old democrats and establishment liberals who want to highlight race relations movies more than anything. While this is very important especially after so many years of hiding these movies in the shadows, it seems like the Academy has gotten stuck in only paying attention to movies with these themes, leaving out others that tackle other taboo or unexplored topics. While movies like “Get Out” are important to that thematic topic, I think that there are other movies that are left untouched by the Academy because they are too scared to tackle it or think that the general public won’t understand their vision, which has become increasingly important to them as viewership falls for the Oscars. However, I implore them to check out other topics that may fit into a different box than others even if racial movies are important to highlight.
They have done this in the past with movies outside of the horror genre such as the first foreign film to win Best Picture, “Parasite.” This movie tackled poverty and crime in such a fantastic way with a new perspective and I was happily surprised to see it celebrated so heavily. However, since I think the Academy is still not comfortable with even adding horror into the critically acclaimed list, this will be a longer fight to get those out of the box ideas into the mainstream.
One of the horror movies this year that I would love to see get Oscar attention is “Bodies Bodies Bodies.” This is a horror movie that so intelligently explored the mind of the Gen Z, using tension within superficial friend groups and social awareness to make a great story that happened to use horror elements in it. Do I believe they will break their pattern for this movie? Maybe not. I will probably just end up hoping on a pipe dream that one of my favorite genres can be featured in a meaningful way.
To sum it up: the Academy needs some fresh faces and ideas to break it out of its shell of dramas being given affection leaving horror fans wanting more.