India in Oscars & Everything Else You Know Should About Oscars

The Oscars are the most popular film awards worldwide. But did you know that the name "Oscars" wasn't always used? And it is a mystery in itself how they came to be known as the Oscars. But an even more interesting story is that the concept of these awards was to save the diminishing reputation of Hollywood. And nowadays, these are so popular that filmmakers and directors from all over the world want to win an Oscar. One of their greatest dreams and ambitions is to win an Oscar.

History Of Oscar :

The Oscars were first presented in 1929. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed to oversee these awards. Today we know them as “The Academy” in short. This is why the awards were named The Academy Awards.

During the era of 1992, Hollywood was facing one scandal after another. Drug overdoses, murders, and because of that, the production houses making the film were dealing with labor shortages. They were afraid that the people working in the film industry would form unions and demand higher salaries.

The Great Depression began in 1929. The American stock market fell precipitously. The economy crashed, and unemployment was rising. In the middle of all this, there was a production company called MGM. They wanted to form an academy to negotiate the employment of those who worked as writers, actors, and directors in the film industry. In exchange for their cooperation, the Academy would give them awards.

Mayer, the owner of MGM, famously said "I FOUND THAT THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE FILMMAKERS WAS TO HANG MEDALS ALL OVER THEM". So the initial awards were not given to honor the awardee. Instead, they were given to induce the filmmakers, directors, and actors.

But over the years, their popularity kept increasing. They were respected, and it was considered an honor to receive these awards. The category of Best Foreign Language Film was introduced in 1956. Until then, the awards were mostly given to American and a few European films.

The word ‘Oscar’ was used for the first time during the 1934 award ceremony by Walt Disney. But the real origin of this word is much debated.

The first time the award ceremony was broadcast on American television was in 1953. And in 1969, they were internationally broadcast for the first time. Since then, the ceremony has gained enormous popularity and now attracts millions of viewers. 

India in the Oscars :

If we talk about India's performance at the Oscars, it's a fascinating story.

Bhanu Athaiya made history in 1983 when she became the first Indian to win an Oscar. She received an Oscar for Best Costume Design for the movie Gandhi. Later, she received two National Awards for Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan in 2001 and Gulzar's Lekin in 1990.

Satyajit Ray received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement in Filmmaking at the 64th Academy Awards in 1992. He is the only Indian to have received such honors.

In addition, if we talk about more recent times, everyone is familiar with A. R. Rahman. He received two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire. The song Jai Ho received an award for Best Original Song. He shared the award with Gulzar and was also given the award for the highest score.

The same year, another Indian was a part of the winning Sound Design Team. Resul Pookutty was given the award for Best Sound Mixing. But look at the most unfortunate thing about this in the Hindustan Times article from 2020, where he claims that after the Oscar win, no one gave him work in the Hindi Film Industry.

The 2023 Oscar is quite special for India because this time, the country received three nominations. The song from RRR, Naatu Naatu, has been nominated for Best Music Original.

The second nomination is for All That Breathes, for Best Documentary Feature.

The Elephant Whispers, a third entry, was nominated for Best Documentary Short Film.

Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga's Short Film got an Oscar at the 95th Oscar Awards. And Naatu Naatu from RRR has also received an award for Best Musical Original.

The official submission to the Oscars this year from India was "Chhello Show," which means "Last Film Show". This is a Gujarati drama film that was shortlisted for an Oscar nomination but did not make the final list.

Prestigious Category:

Since 1956, this category of the Best Foreign Film has been the most prestigious category for filmmakers and directors all over the world. Most of the winners in this category have been from European countries. Italian films have won this award 14 times. India has yet to win an award in this category. But three Indian films have been nominated under this category: Mother India in 1957, Salam Bombay in 1988, and Lagaan in 2001. This may have been the closest we have ever come to winning this honor.

Oscar Face values $1 :

Today, the Oscars are so valuable that the Academy has made a rule that winners cannot sell their Oscars. Neither can they auction them. According to the rules, anyone who wants to sell their Oscars must first sell them back to the Academy for $1. But this rule didn't exist before 1950, so the awards bestowed before that are often auctioned for a lot of money. In December 2011, the Oscar received by Orson Welles in 1941 for his screenplay was put up for auction. His family auctioned it, and the Academy filed a case against it, claiming that it wasn't allowed. In 2004, the court issued a judgment in favor of the family, stating that there was no prior agreement that the award could not be sold. This is why, when this award was auctioned in 2011, it sold for more than $800,000, or about ₹45 million. So the historical Oscar trophies are valued at millions of dollars. But they only have a $1 face value.

Eligibility, Categories, Criteria, and More :

Overall, there are 24 categories in the Oscars Awards. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay are the five most important categories in Hollywood. They are collectively known as the big five.

Here you'd certainly be wondering how the list of nominations is decided actually? Who decides the winners of these awards? And can these awards be won by lobbying? How unbiased are these awards?

If a film has to win one of these awards, it needs to fulfill the eligibility criteria. The eligibility criteria require that the film be played in commercial theaters at least for a week at any of the following places: Los Angeles County, The City Of New York, The Bay Area, Chicago City in Illinois, Miami City of Florida, or Atlanta City in Georgia.

The film must play in at least one of these locations for at least a week between the 1st of January and the 31st of December of that year. The criteria aren't very difficult to fulfill because most of the popular films nowadays play for a week or longer at these locations.

There have been exceptions for some award categories, such as the awards for documentaries and short films. They have different requirements. They need to be officially submitted by the film's producers. And the category of Foreign Language Films requires that the country from where the film is shot, submit the film under this category. And each country can only submit one film.

Here, you might be confused about the difference between nominations and being shortlisted. That's a valid question. And this confusion deepens further when you see film directors like Vivek Agnihotri tweet that their film, The Kashmir Files, has been shortlisted.

Every year, the Academy makes a reminder list for the films that fulfill the eligibility criteria. There were 301 films on this year's Reminder List. These 301 films included several Indian films. Such as RRR, Kantara, Gangu Bai, Rocketry, Last Film Show, and Kashmir Files was also one of these films.

With this list being published, Vivek Agnihotri tweeted that the film was shortlisted for the Oscars in 2023. In another tweet, he claimed that the actors in his movie, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, and Pallavi Joshi, had been shortlisted for the category of Best Actor.

The reminder list is a long list of all the eligible films. That means films that meet the eligibility criteria. And what were the eligibility criteria? To be played in the theaters of famous American cities for at least a week. So any Bollywood or Indian film that performed well and had a good run is named on the list.

There is a major difference between being eligible and being shortlisted. If we consider "Best International Feature Film," this category was renamed in 2020. It was previously known as the Best Foreign Language Film. In this category, there were 301 eligible films. But of these eligible films, about 15 were shortlisted. The list of the 14 shortlisted films in this category this year is on the screen.

One of the film was from India. The last film, is the Gujarati film. Of these short list these 5 included All Quite on the Western Front, a German Film, Argentina,1985, an Argentina Film, EO, a Polish Film, The Quite Girl, a Irish Film and Close, a Belgium Film. The names of these 5 nominated movies would be mentioned at the award ceremony. And one of them would be the winner. Eligibility, then being shortlisted, being a nominee, and eventually being a winner.

Selection Process :

Another question that arises is, how are these winners selected? And the answer is through voting. The Oscars are voted on by around 10,000 people. They are industry professionals. Such as directors, film actors, and writers. Many of them have received Oscar nominations or wins in the past. These voters are divided into 17 groups, such as branches of directors, casting directors, producers, executives, etc. And only people from that branch vote on the category of the award.

For example, only actors vote for the award of Best Actor. The Best Director is chosen by the votes of other directors. The process of voting can be carried out via ballot paper or even online. And the interesting thing is that most of the categories of awards require a simple majority of votes. The actor or director who receives the most votes simply wins the award. This type of voting is known as simple majority voting.

However, the Ranked Choice Voting System is used for the Best Picture category. This system is also known as the "Preferential Ballot." Here, you do not need to select only one film; instead, the nominees that have been listed need to be arranged as per your preferences. Which movie, in your opinion, deserves to be at the top? Which will be the second one? You simply need to rank all the nominees.

While counting votes, it will be seen which movie is chosen as the number one by the most people. If a film gets more than 50% of the votes, it will automatically win the Best Picture award. But if the movie gets less than 50% of the votes, the second-ranked option will be considered. The movie that received the second-place vote from voters will now be added to the top spot. And once again, it will be checked if any film crosses the 50% threshold. Otherwise, the procedure is repeated. The process will keep repeating until a film crosses the 50% threshold mark.

After winning the award, the trophy is presented. We know it is an Oscar. It's a small statue made of solid bronze and plated with 24-karat gold. Interestingly, during World War II, during the metal shortages, these trophies were made of painted plaster for three years.

Public Reaction to the Oscars :

Today, in the age of social media, the Oscars are often in the midst of the same drama. Some decisions are labelled controversial. One sect of people claims that the Oscars are a liberal propaganda machine. On the other hand, there are claims that it promotes conservative ideas and that only rich, white men win most of these awards. On one hand, it can be argued that the Oscars do not need to be more inclusive. This is an American-centric award system. Similar to the BAFTA awards for the British or the Filmfare awards in India. The Oscars are for America. The rest of the world shouldn't have high expectations about winning the Oscars.

But at the same time, it can also be said that today, the importance of the Oscars has transcended American borders. In 2015, a hashtag about the Oscars became very popular: #OscarsSoWhite. An activist launched this after seeing that all 20 performers nominated for acting belonged to the white racial group. Such hashtags grew in popularity over time, and the Academy came under pressure to make the Oscars more inclusive. Since membership in the Academy is granted based on the most years of experience working in Hollywood, the number of awards won, and the most recognition.

Oscar Changes Throughout The Year :

Naturally, most of the people in the voting body were men belonging to the white race and mostly older men. According to Los Angeles Times research, the median age of Oscar voters was 65 years. Apart from this, 94% of the voting members belonged to the white race, 77% were male, and only 14% of the voters were younger than 50 years. Due to these controversies, the Academy decided that they would try to make the awards more inclusive. The outcomes are already clear.

In 2015, 25% of the Oscar voters were women, and in 2020, 32% were women. In 2020, 36% of academy members were from underrepresented racial or ethnic communities, and 49% were international members. There is no doubt that today's Oscars have become highly international. However, the academy created new eligibility criteria and new eligibility guidelines in 2020 to increase inclusivity. These will be applied in 2024. These guidelines added four new categories for eligibility. Films would need to meet at least two of the four categories to qualify. What are the categories? Films would need to meet at least two of the four categories to qualify. What are the categories? The first categories in Group A are the story and the characters of the films, the importance, and the screen time allotted to the underrepresented racial groups. Such as the Hispanic, Black, or Native American races. Or the underrepresented identity groups. Such as women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, or people with disabilities. The second category is Group B. Here they focus on the production teams creating the films, and the number of people from underrepresented groups employed by them. In Group C, the number of paid training opportunities provided to the people of the underrepresented group by the film companies. The last one is Group D, which is related to audience development. How much could the film convince the audience to buy tickets?

In the future, from next year, in fact, the Oscars will seem even more International. Perhaps, the choices for the winners will be even more controversial.

But what are your thoughts on this? Should India be affected by Oscar recognition? Or should India give more importance to the Filmfare awards by nominating foreign films to it? For example, Iranian films or Korean films Should we start nominating them in our Filmfare Awards? Your thoughts and opinions are welcome in the comments section, so please share them.