The Nobel Prize has been riddled with controversies in the past, but when they presented Barrack Obama with a peace prize, I stopped caring about who receives the prize, and who doesn’t. The Nobel Prize lost all value for me. I knew that it was no longer that same estimable award that Serbian writer Ivo Andrić received for his novel “The Bridge on the Drina”, even though these are different categories we are talking about. Simply put, the Nobel Prize no longer upholds the criteria of quality, truth and value that drive the whole world to be and do better. Relativism, corruption and media manipulation have prevailed on the scales.
Now that the Academy has adopted a set of new “presentation and inclusion standards” for films to be eligible for the Oscars, to be implemented as of 2024, I’m starting to apply the same rule to films that I choose to watch. I don’t care about the Oscar nominees, or the winners. What’s more, an Oscar nomination will be a reason enough for me to give a wide berth to those films.
What has happened? Following in the unfortunate footsteps of the British Film Institute, which announced its diversity standards in 2019, the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the most famous and prestigious awards – popularly known as the Oscars – in various categories of artistic and technical merit in the film industry, has introduced four new inclusion standards, and each production house has to make sure that two out of four of these standards have been met for a film to be deemed eligible.
Standard A: at least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors must belong to an underrepresented racial or ethnic group in the USA, or alterantively at least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles must be women, racial or ethnic minorities, or LGBTQ+. Another possibility is that the main theme or narrative of the film is centered on one of these underrepresented racial or ethnic groups, or LGBTQ+ topics.
Standard B1: When filming, one of the leadership positions must belong to a woman, or a person from an underrepresented racial or ethnical group, or LGBT, or a person with cognitive or physical disabilities.
Standard B2: Even technical positions in the film crew must meet the same criteria: at least 30% of the film’s crew must be women, or persons from an underrepresented racial or ethnical group, or LGBT, or persons with cognitive or physical disabilities.
Standard C: The same conditions as in Standard B2 must apply to persons employed in the distribution, marketing and public relations jobs associated with the film.
It is obvious that the level of ideological colonisation of mankind is increasing on a daily basis. Those who aim to turn man into something that he is not are obivously in a hurry to achieve that.
Still, there are always alternatives. For as long as there are free people who think and value the gift of freedom they were endowed with at birth, there will be films that do not rein in human creativity and gifts. Quite the opposite, there will be films that people can benefit and learn from, films that are a contemporary expression of the desire to achieve eternal values that mankind has always aspired to.
I have no doubts that even after 2024 we will still be able to watch good films, that won’t be nominated for the Oscars, such as the Unplanned Movie.