Earlier this year, while in Beijing promoting the latest in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, Vin Diesel proclaimed in an interview with the Associated Press that, the then unreleased, Furious 7 was worthy of an Oscar for Best Picture. It is easy to scoff at such a statement. After all this is a series whose resurgence has been predicated on its uncanny ability to continually reinvent itself to be everything from a cops and robbers heist flick to a superhero style action romp over the course of seven loosely connected films.
While the numerous laws of physics defying stunts found in the Furious series would make even Albert Einstein scratch his head in puzzlement, Diesel’s words are not without some level of merit. When you step back and look at it in a greater context, he raises some interesting questions regarding the practices of the Academy Awards. Specifically in regards to the discrepancy between the films that financially sustain the industry and the ones that ultimately receive the prestigious acclaim. Regardless of how well action films do at the box office – it should be noted that Furious 7 is on its way to becoming the fourth highest grossing film worldwide when you adjust for inflation – action films are not considered high art by academy standards.
As Diesel noted “we all know that there’s a little stigma towards action films, we know it, we’ve heard people complain about it, we’ve heard Marvel complain about it, we’ve heard DC complain about it,…Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Batman has never gotten a shot at that.” Truthfully, it is hard to argue with his views that the Oscars are guilty of succumbing to genre bias.
The Academy Awards has had a long history of primarily showering praise on dramatic fare. Though there have been a handful of films to break the mold and win Best Picture, take Lawrence of Arabia and Around the World in the 80 Days for example, it is been a rather barren road up to the podium for action films. Unless the explosions and edge of your seat excitement is wrapped within a war film packaging, a genre that is almost guaranteed to secure one nomination each year, most action movies are on the outside looking in come award season. The fantasy genre is the only one to have had a worse fate. Unable to get out of the prolonged quicksand it constantly finds itself in, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the only fantasy film to win Best Picture.
Things get even grimmer for the action genre when one considers the number of iconic films that were nominated for Best Picture, but walked away empty handed. I am not talking about the likes of The Towering Inferno which did not stand a chance in 1975 against heavy hitters such as Chinatown, The Conversation, and Best Picture winner The Godfather Part II. No, I am referring to films like Jaws, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark whose legacies and impact still reverberates many generations later. All three films lost to the likes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Annie Hall, and Chariots of Fire respectively.
It can be argued that few films have reshaped the cultural landscape the way Steven Spielberg and George Lucas managed to do with their films. Jaws made people all over the world afraid of going into the water for fear of encountering sharks. Star Wars not only captured the imaginations of many, but showed audiences that the sky was the limit when it came to creativity and innovation. Raiders of the Lost Ark managed to breathe new life into 1930’s style adventure. Furthermore, it made an archaeologist as cool as, if not more so, than James Bond and Superman.
To dismiss these films as mere populist fare would be a grave mistake. For an industry that survives mainly on the box office revenue brought in by blockbusters, it is foolish to assume that these same moneymakers do not carry the artistic merit or emotional depth that is commonly associated with Best Picture winners. In fact there have been several films that would have easily been contenders for the top prize had the playing field been fairly constructed.
One only needs to look towards Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight as an example of this. The film was not only a massive commercial and critical success, but its lack of a Best Picture nomination in 2008 was a point of controversy. The perceived snub created such an uproar amongst fans that the Academy eventually changed their policy, expanding the number of films that could be nominated in the Best Picture category from five to ten. Unfortunately, very few action films been able to walk through the seemingly wider door that the change brought.
The Dark Knight is a mere drop in the sea of beloved action films that the Oscars did not even bat an eye at. As if forced to sit at the back of the bus, it seems that the genre has been relegated to only the technical categories when it comes to the Academy Awards. While many film lovers were stunned that legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins – who, despite working on films such as Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption, and No Country for Old Men, has never won any of his twelve Oscar nominations, the fact that he came up empty-handed for his vibrant work on the James Bond film Skyfall was even more mystifying. Heralded as one of the best Bond movies ever made, Skyfall could not even nab the tenth spot in a year when only nine films were nominated.
Keep in mind this is also the same Academy that refuses to give films like Aliens, Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, Die Hard, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Incredibles any love either.
It will be interesting to see how Mad Max: Fury Road will do once award season rolls around this fall. The film has received an astounding 98% on the Rotten Tomatometer, which culminates its rankings based on critical reception, and has been praised as a breakthrough for the action genre. Already being championed as a truly female positive action film – for its unflinching portrayal of strong female characters who are equals to their male counterparts – Fury Road is unlike anything cinema has seen before. Its jaw-dropping stunts and sheer visual storytelling has left both critics and audiences squealing in delight. The question is will the Oscars take notice?
Courtney Small appears courtesy of Cinema Axis. This article was originally published in Issue 11 of Comix Asylum Magazine (August 2015).
