As we reach the end of the calendar year, popular culture begins to buzz about two major events: the holidays and awards season. Since some entertainment award ceremonies take place during the first few months of the new year, that means film studios push all their award-hopeful movies to November and December releases to be fresh in the minds of voters. They will often release these movies in limited markets in the last few weeks of the year before they open nationally in order to technically meet the requirement of having a film in theaters before December 31st. They do this because having your film (or cast, or script, etc.) nominated doesn’t only garner industry respect, but it can sometimes lead to elevating the notoriety of marginalized actors and also translate into increased box office for smaller films that may not fare all that well otherwise.
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However, if you have more than a passing interest in who does and doesn’t get nominated for things like the Golden Globes or the Oscars, you’ve probably encountered the term “category fraud.” In the wake of highly-contested election results in the United States, such a nefarious term could naturally lead one to assume that some serious dirty dealings are going on behind the scenes. Well, the truth is much less controversial than that and in anticipation of the 2023 award season, we intend to break it all down below.
Confusing Categories
Universal Pictures
Have you ever been watching the Golden Globes and thought, “Exactly how did this movie (like Get Out and The Martian) get nominated for best musical or comedy?” Or perhaps you were watching the Oscars in 2016 and realized, “Wait, Rooney Mara is obviously playing the main character in Carol. So, why is she nominated for supporting actress and Cate Blanchett is nominated for lead actress?” Those are examples of what people are referring to when they say category fraud. Essentially, the term is used to describe creative nomination choices that make absolutely no sense until you remember the cache that comes with winning an award and how important it is to individuals in the entertainment industry to secure whatever win they can get.
Getting Nominated
518 Media/Absurda
In case you didn’t already know: Things like the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards are annual ceremonies held to honor the best in entertainment. They are run by committees in the entertainment industry with various branches that decide what does and doesn’t get nominated before the official voting is carried out by its members. For instance, the Golden Globes are run by the Hollywood Foreign Press, and the Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. While the former is a non-profit organization made up of journalists around the world, the latter consists of thousands of working professionals in the film industry. If you’re a film distributor, and you want your film to be an awards contender, you need to campaign for the honor and go through the proper channels to wind up on the final ballot.
The Buzz
A24
As previously mentioned, winning one of these awards (or even getting nominated) can be a big deal for the nominees and the film as a whole. For smaller movies that don’t have the financial backing to support giant billboards in Times Square or a thousand ads all over the internet, this kind of attention can bring much-needed awareness to the project. The same is true for actors from marginalized groups. Not only does awards buzz lead to these actors suddenly being considered for bigger and better roles than ever before, but it can also result in greater representation for communities that have been ignored by Hollywood for decades. Then, there are the film executives (like the criminal Harvey Weinstein who used to be referred to as “the Oscar Whisperer”) who build their reputations on their ability to develop projects that go on to win major awards. All of these reasons (and probably more) are why the term category fraud exists.
A Misnomer
Number 9 Films
“Fraud” is a very strong word. It sounds like someone is messing with the ballots behind the scenes or awards are being given out in categories that don’t exist. In actuality, what happens is executives and distributors seek nominations in incongruous categories. Take the example from above: Rooney Mara, the star of Carol was nominated for supporting actress when she was clearly the lead. The reason for this is that the distributors felt that she had a better chance of winning in that category while Cate Blanchett (a supporting character) was a stronger contender for the lead actress because she’s a bigger, more recognizable name. As it turns out, the film didn’t take away any Globes or Oscars. In that industry, the importance of these awards cannot be understated. So, people are willing to do whatever it takes to win whatever they can, even if that means fudging the truth a little bit.
Everything is Subjective
The Bedford Falls Company
Although it has led to a lot of public discourse in the last few years, the reason category fraud continues to happen is that there are no set rules for how things are categorized. The argument put forward when Blanchett was nominated for lead actress was that she played the title character. While most people would consider the point of view character to be the lead, it is difficult to argue with that logic. There are resources out there like Screen Time Central that log the amount of time every single nominated actor appears on-screen for their role, which goes a long way in defending the idea that a lead actor would be in the film more than the supporting actor, but it’s far from definitive. This is because art (like it or not) is subjective. Movies that win Best Picture are often forgotten by the public in a few years while some of the other nominees are remembered as classics for decades. The real deciding factor on a piece of art’s worth is how the public views it long after the dust has settled, not what a committee says at the moment.
