The meaning of The Green Book win

[edhopper]

It means that slightly more of the 8000 people who vote for the Academy Award liked The Green Book more than they liked the other movies.
We don't know how many votes it got and how much it won by.
It's a plurality, not a majority. Of the 8 films it might have gotten 1001 votes and most of the other 7000 voters thought it should not in the running.
Why they voted and if they had similar feelings about the movie is completely unknown.
So "The Academy" was not saying anything except a plurality voted for it.

[bigbrother05]

1. Of the 8 pictures nominated, 4 had a primary minority character or theme

Green Book, Black Panther, Black KKKlansman, and Roma all had multiple nominations and multiple wins.

Not sure what that says about "The Academy" except Oscar not quite so white this year.

[edhopper]

2. That is a good thing

I do think that Academy PTB have tried to make it more inclusive.

But there is no greater "meaning" to the winners than they got more votes.



PS: You are right about the nominee count, I need to edit my OP.

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. 5 if you count Bohemian Rhapsody

Freddie Mercury's really name was Farrohk Bulsara. He was a Parsi Indian born in Zanzibar. He was also gay, so I guess that's a step forward in hetero-normative Hollywood.

[bigbrother05]

18. Debated that one, Queen crosses most boundaries and Rami is 1st Egyptian American Oscar

[superpatriotman]

24. Omar Sharif?

I believe he was nominated for Lawrence of Arabia and was born in Egypt

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

30. Just heard this on a podcast interview the other day. Apparently

he was Lebanese but lived in Egypt for a while so everyone thought he was Egyptian.

[tymorial]

3. You mean there wasn't some sinister intent behind picking Green Book?

You wouldn't think so based upon DU today.

[miyazaki]

14. ya controversy based from people who never even saw it.

Now it's controversial for not being cinematic enough.
JFC.

[Bucky]

40. Hollywood is secretly conspiring to make money on its films

...and they don't care who they have to screw to get it done.
It's all about the screwing with those Hollywood types.

[tymorial]

42. Right...

[Takket]

5. what are you looking for the Academy to say?

[edhopper]

6. I don't think the Academy Awards should say anything

I am commenting on how people are looking for some meaning behind The Green Book win.
Or that the Academy has a message behind the win.

It doesn't mean anything execpt a few more people who voted liked it more than the other movies.

[frazzled]

7. That's not how it works

It's not just which picture got the most votes, whether majority or plurality: since 2009 it has been a preferential (ranked) voting system. Here's how it works:

Members are asked to rank all of the best picture nominees from best to worst — and then the rest is handled by PwC, the Academy's longtime accountants. PwC begins by sorting through the best picture ballots and creating piles for each film listed in the top spot on a ballot. This year, for example, there will be one pile in which Roma is listed as top film, another for Green Book, etc.

Unless a single film dominates by appearing in the No. 1 spot of more than 50 percent of all ballots — which can be difficult to do in a field of eight nominees, like there is this year — PwC then removes the film that has the smallest pile of No. 1 votes. But to ensure that that film's supporters still have some influence on the outcome, PwC redistributes the ballots in that pile according to which film each ballot lists as its No. 2 choice. So if a ballot from that pile lists A Star Is Born as its No. 2 choice — that ballot is added to the A Star Is Born pile.

This process can continue for several rounds — the film with the smallest pile of ballots is eliminated and its ballots are redistributed according to its second-place choice, or its third-place choice, if the second-choice film has already been eliminated, and so on. That continues until one film's pile accounts for more than 50 percent of all ballots.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/how-oscar-s-preferential-ballot-works-could-produce-a-best-picture-shocker-1189677

So, in theory, if the top voter getter, with a plurality of votes doesn't reach the 50% threshold, the movie that got the most 2nd or 3rd place votes could end up the winner after several rounds. In other words, the picture that most people thought was "pretty good" or "okay" rather than the one that most people thought was "best" could win. There's no way of knowing whether this happened or not, since the Academy doesn't release vote totals, but (according to the above article) it seems like that might be the case, since the number of splits between best director and best picture has skyrocketed since this system was put in place: all the other categories (including best director) are made on a popular-count basis; only the best picture is chosen by this ranking system.

This might be a good object lesson for us when people propose that we switch to a ranked-choice voting system in our elections. We could end up with someone who simply has the most second or third choices. Try doing the math yourself, with a hypothetical pizza party in which 30 guests rank votes for the pizza they want: it's possible that you'll order the pizza that nobody wanted most.

[dsc]

9. yep I teach voting systems in my discrete class

But it also prevents a choice hated by most people from being the winner as well. Hence it disfavors polarizing films and favors non polarizing ones. For candidates, I think that is a benefit, for films not so much. I think great films are often polarizing. Blackkklansman is polarizing for example. I would imagine that Roma might be as well.

[frazzled]

12. Green Book was probably the MOST polarizing of the films

so I'm not sure that's correct. There was huge controversy surrounding its "white savior" mentality, it's purported exaggeration of the friendship depicted, for its reliance on for the family of the white character for its storyline, for one of the actor's racist tweet, for its director's sexual harassment allegations, etc. It was also controversial for not being, in the end, that great of a film, cinematically speaking.

It was the most controversial of any of the eight films. And it won.

[edhopper]

10. Thanks

I did not know the complexity of the vote.
This could have been most people's second or third choice with their first eliminated.

But it does reinforce my point that however the movie wind the best Oscar, it doesn't have a greater message from the Academy.

[MH1]

31. Re: ranked choice voting: I am perfectly fine with that outcome; but apparently not good at math.

If the ultimate winner was no one's favorite, that means they were a consensus compromise candidate. I'm very much okay with that.

I can't remember the last candidate that I ever loved with all my heart and couldn't find a single thing wrong with. EVERY candidate is a "compromise" choice to some extent: we have to prioritize which issues and factors mean the most before settling on our "first choice" candidate. In a world of rational voters (yeah, I know), everyone is making those decisions and the scenario you describe would be a case where there was a lot of difference of opinion on the priority issues. But the consensus candidate by ranked choice would be the one where there was the most overlap on issues/factors overall. I'm okay with that. (Of course, the issues most important to me have NEVER been most important to the Democratic party, and lately even so-called progressives ... but the republicans are much worse on those issues, and evil on top of it. So here I am. )

All that said - how the hell could "the pizza that nobody wanted most" end up winning? It would be eliminated in the first round. Do you mean that the fewest people wanted most?

Still don't see a problem.

It would be A HELLUVA LOT BETTER than someone "winning" an 8 candidate field with 18% of the vote.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. The Academy Awards have always been a feel good way

for people in Hollywood to pat themselves on the back and pretend that what they do matters. Or at least that it matters beyond mere entertaining.

[edhopper]

11. That is the point

you have no way of knowing how this movie won or what the people who voted for it thought.

You are assigning a message about Hollywood wanting a "feel good" movie to win.

There is no message.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

15. That's like saying the fact that all but one president of the US have been white means nothing.

Of course it means something. It means something that people of color have fewer roles and win fewer awards.

[TexasBushwhacker]

19. But it changing slowly

Why do women make up 50% of the population but only get 25% of the speaking parts in films?

[Bucky]

41. I didn't realize it was as high as 25%

The eye opener is "Million Dollar Baby" about a female boxer with a female star. Yet less than 20% of the lines are spoken by women in the movie.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXeensjU0AAG5uH?format=jpg&name=900x900

[exboyfil]

13. Black Panther is the only one that I saw

I enjoyed it very much, but I don't think it was Oscar worthy. I saw issues with pacing, and it did struggle to break from the MCU origin formula. The world building was very impressive, and I enjoyed the acting of the leads. It is not the best MCU movie though and probably not the best MCU movie of the year.

[Retrograde]

22. Somebody agrees with me re the pacing!

The middle part of Black Panther seemed to me to fall into the standard MCU formula, complete with largely unneeded second-city-getting-trashed section that I thought brought Avengers 2 grinding to a halt.

The Wakanda sets were fabulous, though, and I especially liked the costuming. And it had some roles for older women! Definitely worth seeing, but I'm not sure it was the best of the year.

[Johonny]

16. A lot of great movies have lost best picture and a lot of Green Book's have won

It's the kind of so so movie that was a good movie, but doesn't feel like people in film school will be dissecting it shot by shot in the future.

[MicaelS]

17. Seems like anything the Academy does these days..

Is going to piss off people and cause a (seemingly) big controversy.

[tinrobot]

20. It was also ranked voting

They vote for up to four movies for best picture and rank them.

It could mean that Green Book was second or third choice on the majority of ballots and still managed to win.

Ranked voting tends to favor compromise candidates.

[edhopper]

26. Exactly

The "Academy is sending a message" stuff is foolish.

[allgood33]

21. I guess i just don't understand acting awards.

i thought every character in the Color Purple (years ago) was Oscar worthy and none in the Green Book. They were good but not Oscar worthy to me. oh, well.

[BostonBlue]

23. Meaningless nonsense

people need to stop focusing on stupid BS distractions.

[edhopper]

25. Not sure what point you are trying to make

[BostonBlue]

29. no time for culture war flash-points*

[edhopper]

32. Still not sure

my point is there is no meaning behind the Green Book Oscar except that it got more votes in a complex voting system with only 8000 people voting. People who assign a meaning are reading something into an event that isn't there.

[Moostache]

27. Meh...Forest Gump won over Pulp Fiction...Ordinary People over Raging Bull...and on and on...

"Best Picture" is hardly ever universally acclaimed and frequently completely batshit crazy....

Crash over Brokeback Mountain?
Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas?
How Green My Valley over Citizen Kane?
Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan?
Rocky (really, it WON) over All the President's Men or Network?

They get it dead wrong about 25% of the time IMO....

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

34. Dont forget Driving Miss Daisy over Do The Right thing - as noted by Spike Lee. Can certainly

understand his reaction to yet another movie about someone driving someone else! Is it progress that this time the white person is driving the black one?

[Act_of_Reparation]

38. Do The Right Thing was never in competition with Driving Miss Daisy

Do The Right Thing wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay (lost to Dead Poet's Society) and Best Supporting Actor (Danny Aiello lost to Denzel Washington in Glory).

Even more reason for Spike to be upset.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

39. Oh fer crying out loud - so what the heck was Mr Lee talking about then. So now I gotta be

fact checking information I read about movies now? Sigh.

I would do so but gosh darn it - I gotta get to work.

[redstateblues]

28. I loved it! I'm surprised some people are offended by it

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

33. Not by the movie per se, but by other more deserving (IMHO) films not getting it. I wouldnt use the

word "offended" myself - just think it wasnt the right choice given the other suberb offerings.

[ananda]

35. Green Book was my favorite also!

The message is just wonderful .. how you have to live
with people, get to know them and love them, to have
understanding and empathy between you.

That is why it's so important for children to be raised
to know and understand all cultures and all kinds of
people, including the poor.

Most sociopaths, including nearly all the Reep leaders we've
had for the past 40 years, have been and still are
empathy challenged; the are very nice to people like
them though which impairs the ability to see them for
who they really are; racist, bigoted people just full of
fear and hate for the "other" people.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

36. Roma won best foreign film, best director, and best cinemetography - as it should have

Last edited Tue Feb 26, 2019, 01:32 PM - Edit history (1)

So not entirely disappointed. Just think that out of all the others up for best picture, it should have won.

What a mind-blowingly, beautiful, complex film.

Editted to add - its still playing on Netflix ... but Id like to see it on a big screen.

[MissMillie]

37. I didn't see any of the nominated movies

In fact, being financially challenged, I haven't been to a movie theater in over 2 years.

I agree with your statement. I don't think it's fair to assign motive when it comes to how the Academy voted. People like what they like.

And I've completely given up trying to figure out people's artistic tastes. To me, it's totally inexplicable that there are 7 or 8 different versions of "The Real Housewives of...." and that "Achy Brakey Heart" sold millions of copies. I have no idea why any person gives a rat's a$$ about what the Kardashians are up to.