Show notes
Two films would compete all year for Best Picture: A film by Richard Linklater called Boyhood, in which a boy comes of age in real time over a 12-year period, going up against a film called Birdman, supposedly shot entirely in one take, about an aging actor who doesn’t want to be a superhero anymore and just wants to make art. I was Team Boyhood that year, though looking back, I don’t think either Boyhood or Birdman was a worthy winner. Instead, the movie that would stand the test of time and the movie I was obsessed with that year wasn’t even nominated. The year was 2014, and that movie was Gone Girl.2014 was a time of great change; only very few of us realized it then. We were still climbing a mountain, and by the time we reached the top, there was nowhere to go but down. It was the beginning of both the Great Feminization and the Great Awokening that sought to reorder society to elevate marginalized groups and smash the white male patriarchy. It was also the beginning of the two Hollywoods at a crossroads: making lots of money with superhero movies and IPs, and making art that almost no one saw or even knew about. The Oscars were caught there, too, though they chose the road less traveled, and that would eventually lead to a decline in ratings and the necessary jump to streaming, for movies and, for the Oscars, which have just announced they will be moving to YouTube in 2029.I was ahead of the curve, you might say, back in 2014. I’m not sure exactly when my site went from being just an awards site to an activist one. Everybody had a loud microphone on social media, Black Twitter, Trans Tumblr, and a growing activist movement that meant we all had to look at how this new frontier was settling, who had power and who didn’t, who mattered and who didn’t. Who was to be protected and who was to be destroyed?In the years I was advocating, I counted among my successes ushering in the first Black actress to win in 2001, Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball. She is still the only Black actress to win in the category.I patted myself on the back for having overseen the first woman to win the Picture and Director awards, Kathryn Bigelow, and The Hurt Locker in 2009. Then, the first film directed by a Black director, 12 Years a Slave, released in 2013. But still, no Black director has won — even now as Oscar heads into its 98th year. After all of their attempts to add new members, diversify, and install inclusivity mandates, the song remains the same. Power hasn’t really shifted so much as people of color were used as shields to protect the people at the top from the simmering unrest on social media.2009 was the first year of the Obama administration, which had a significant impact on Hollywood, especially the Oscars. Obama is counted as among the new Left’s ruling class, joining Hollywood every year as he puts out his top ten lists and currently has a production deal with Netflix, which in turn donates generously to the Democratic Party. It’s all one happy, insular, perfect little paradise that has mostly forgotten that they still need audiences to show up if they want their films to be successful.If you went back earlier than, say, 2009 and backwards in time, you’d see more powerful American directors helming big studio movies, like Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Robert Zemeckis. It was less about where they were born and more about the studios and their choices to put their trust in the best and most successful directors. It isn’t like that now, obviously, because the Oscars became disconnected from the economics of Hollywood.What began to matter more was identity: how do those who win best represent the Hollywood elite? Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire was the last movie to win because it penetrated American culture. That was 2008, before the Obama era. By 2009, The Hurt Locker would win without grossing more than $15 million, and almost no one had heard of it. It didn’t matter if audiences had seen it or not. What mattered was that Kathryn Bigelow was making history. In 2010 and 2011, we saw prominent American directors who made big studio movies lose to international directors making smaller films. David Fincher’s The Social Network lost to Tom Hooper’s The King’s Speech in 2010, and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo lost to Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist in 2011. Ben Affleck made Argo but missed a Best Director nomination, which then meant he dominated the season and won everything. By 2013, however, we were about to enter what we called the “Three Amigos” phase. It went something like this. 2013—Alfonso Cuaron would win Best Director for Gravity.2014—Alejandro G. Iñárritu would win Picture and Director for Birdman2015—Alejandro G. Iñárritu would win Best Director for The Revenant, and Spotlight would win Best PictureThe one exception would be:2016—Damien Chazelle, who would win Best Director for La La Land, and Moonlight would win Best Picture.2017—Guillermo Del Toro would win Best Director and Picture for The Shape of Water.2018—Alfonso Cuaron would win his second Best Director Oscar for ROMA, and Green Book would win Best Picture. That Boyhood was the frontrunner in 2014 was an oddity, given that it only made $25 million. I was called upon to be an early advocate for the movie. I even drove out to Malibu to interview Patricia Arquette. I had no illusions about my role in this. I knew I wasn’t being asked to go to parties with them and hang out with them because I was interesting or because I loved their movie. No, I was there to help them win. Boyhood spoke to my generation, Gen X, probably more than any other movie. It’s all about ramblings on life, ruminations, and trying to find an identity. The whisper campaign at the time, likely put out by a rival publicist, was that it was “just a gimmick.” Maybe it was a gimmick but so was Birdman shot entirely in one take. More or less. Linklater filmed Boyhood over 12 years, and many of us marveled at the commitment. But I have to admit my friendship with the publicist did color my reaction to the movie. I wanted it to win because I wanted him to win. But Boyhood was pretty good.But Birdman spoke to voters in a way Boyhood never could. It wasn’t just the cinematic style of the film, all in one take; it was the subject. An aging actor choosing between selling out as a superhero for what audiences wanted and being an artist for no money.It spoke right to the heart of your average Academy voter. But the romance of the Three Amigos was in there, too. They were in love with Iñárritu by this point, so any film he made was instantly elevated.This scene was one of those most talked about for sticking it to film critics. Birdman gave them a chance to remember their glory days before Hollywood was making ungodly sums on branded content. Their fanbase had been raised since birth to be just the kinds of audiences who would turn out to see movies like they turned out to eat fast food: fewer choices, expectations met. The kind of money they were making in 2014 was shocking. $10 billion a year, with the number one film Guardians of the Galaxy, and here was the Oscars about to give their awards to Birdman, completely cut off from the rest of the country, and sucked into this insular bubble Hollywood became.Birdman was their escape. They could pretend they still cared about art, just like the main character, even if they knew they were trapped. It was kind of like the First Class section of the airplane vs. Coach. Or how McDonald’s makes money selling Big Macs but also offers salads to show they still care about your health.These two Hollywoods would run on parallel tracks but exist in completely separate worlds until 2020, when the ship would hit the iceberg and the industry, along with everything else, would collapse. But we’re not there yet.Another movie nominated for Best Picture in 2014 was Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, which blew away the competition at the box office and probably was the movie most people outside the bubble thought should have won Best Picture. Why wouldn’t it? Don’t they reward success? No, they don’t. Not anymore. The Academy probably would have wanted to omit American Sniper for obvious reasons, but how could they? Eastwood was still mostly a respected icon, even as his legacy was moving in the opposite direction. The box office couldn’t be denied. It was a phenomenon. American Sniper - $350 millionThe Imitation Game - $91 millionThe Grand Budapest Hotel - $59 millionSelma - $52 millionBirdman - $46 millionThe Theory of Everything - $35 millionBoyhood - $25 millionWhiplash - $14 millionI wasn’t much of a fan of Birdman, but it did feature one great monologue by Emma Stone that telegraphed everything about to happen to the industry and society as we barreled toward 2020.The internet and social media especially became a panopticon, which meant the people at the top, the ruling class, those who run Hollywood, were suddenly exposed. What mattered to them was being seen as good people trying to make the world a better place. They weren’t just celebrities; they were also activists with an online platform, and they had to use it to support the popular progressive causes of the day. If they didn’t, they would be called out.Cancel Culture was in its early stages back then with the Tumblr blog, Yr Fave is Problematic, which called out celebrities for perceived crimes - thought crimes, cultural appropriation, sending the wrong message. We had no idea what was coming next as we naively participated in this game of purging society of thought criminals. It was a way to purify and sanctify this brand-new frontier online. Who would be allowed to participate? Who should have a platform? The word “canceled” came from Black Twitter as a kind of joke at first. Eventually, it became the catch-all term for a toxic invader that needed to be purged. Women hadn’t yet risen to prominent positions of power, but it was just getting started. This would be what some would call the Great Feminization that would help explain how so much of American culture went woke, at least to hear Helen Andrews explain it. There’s no doubt that Hollywood became feminized, and that’s probably what helped kill it and the box office, especially. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, after all. When you want everything to be fair and not to upset anyone, you end up with bland content no one wants to watch. Even if the two Best Picture contenders were still films that revolved around a straight white male, things were changing dramatically behind the scenes.I loved the movie Gone Girl because I thought it told the truth about women in a way that almost no movies did in that era, the era of inoffensive art. Once we decided we needed to be good and to reflect goodness, the goodness of the utopia we manifested under the leadership of Barack Obama, and women were elevated because they were supposedly the future - movies were required to push that message too.Gone Girl cut through it all like a hot knife. It resonates even now and has entered the pantheon because it didn’t pander or modulate. It presented Amazing Amy as the sociopath she was. But the Academy could not make room for Gone Girl. In 2014, there were only eight nominees for Best Picture, at a time when the Academy had tried to expand its Best Picture slate to allow more than five. 2026 wants you to know it would be a huge mistake, but we’re not there yet. Gone Girl is not a film for everyone. It was what I call a “kick in the balls” movie, meaning it was an affront to men, at least heterosexual men. Those kinds of movies don’t do well with the Academy, not then, not now.Maybe it was a sign that I didn’t exactly belong in the world of Oscar blogging that, despite my singular efforts to push Gone Girl into the Oscar race, it only earned one nomination for Rosamund Pike in Best Actress. Gillian Flynn, who adapted the screenplay, had been nominated by every other group heading into the Oscar race. Because Whiplash, a decent movie that launched the career of Damien Chazelle, was deemed an original screenplay by the Writers Guild but an adapted screenplay by the Academy, Gone Girl was ultimately dropped in favor of Whiplash in the writing category.The frustration at the Academy over Gone Girl made me almost quit the Oscars. I felt they had overlooked what I knew was the zeitgeist movie, the one that penetrated culture and had become a phenomenon. The problem was I couldn’t quit. I was making more money than I’d ever seen in my life, and I was doing it from a business I’d built from the ground up, starting in 1999 with a simple HTML site. I was working from home and could comfortably support my daughter. I felt like a success in all respects. Looking back on it now, knowing what I know about the people I used to call friends, the industry I helped build, and what they would all do to me ten years later, I probably would have been better off walking away. I still think it’s embarrassing for the Academy to have left off the only movie people remember from 2014, but what I know about the Oscars is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. #OscarssowhiteThere was a transformation afoot in the Academy throughout the “Three Amigos” era, but the key to it all was a hashtag called #oscarsssowhite. Even though I was known back then as what one might call a “woke blogger,” now, I was advocating hard for women and people of color, and I believe I influenced how the race turned out, especially in the Obama era.I pushed hard to boost the career of Ava DuVernay, whose film Middle of Nowhere had won Best Director at Sundance and was coming into 2014 with Selma, a biopic of Martin Luther King, Jr. I believed I was doing useful work, that DuVernay and others could not have gotten a boost without me to scream loudly about racism in the industry and force change. DuVernay herself thanked me at a Wolf of Wall Street screening the year before. So at least she noticed.I wanted her to make history and thought she deserved it, but getting the voters to recognize Selma was a heavy lift. For whatever reason, the movie did not resonate with voters, and though it would barely squeak in under the wire as a Best Picture nominee, it would get only one other nomination, for Best Song. The Academy back then was caught between worlds. Their demographics were roughly 94% white and 77% male in 2012. That would remain unchanged until 2016, when they began adding members by the thousands, with only skin color and gender as requirements. That would have unintended consequences later, but we’re not there yet either.This wasn’t an industry that was ready to elevate Ava DuVernay as an influential filmmaker in Hollywood, at least not with Selma. There was some public dust-up over the film’s depiction of LBJ, something no writer or critic would dare to challenge today in the post-cancel culture Hollywood. It made several of them mad enough to write defensive essays. Just imagine Politico, TIME, or even a major network today putting out such stories on the eve of Oscar voting. That mostly gave voters an excuse to ignore the film, or to vote for it only for Best Picture. I had been pushing it as hard as I could that year, but in the end, that didn’t have as much impact as a Black woman and her hashtag, #OscarsSoWhite. That’s because when the Oscar nominations came out, all of the acting nominees were white.What we all believed back then, or the low-hanging fruit of the time, was that they all had to be racists. Even if deep down we knew they weren’t. They were the Good Liberals, after all, who voted for Obama. But it wasn’t enough. There had to be representation of people of color, and April Reign made it now a much bigger story, one that publicly humiliated the ruling elite who wanted to project goodness, then and now. Because social media allowed us to hurl anyone into the public square and humiliate them, we began to construct a system that…
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