The Academy Awards

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[SPEAKER_02]: This is Unsung History, the podcast where we discuss people and events in American history that haven't always received a lot of attention.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Kelly Theresa Pollock.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I'll start each episode with a brief introduction to the topic and then talk to someone who knows a lot more than I do.

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[SPEAKER_02]: On May 4, 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was incorporated as a non-profit organization in California.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Actor Douglas Fairbank's senior was its first president.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Fairbank's wife, actress Mary Pickford, was one of only three women to make up the group of 36 founding members.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The other two were writers, best marideth, and geniemic first son.

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[SPEAKER_02]: producers, actors, directors, writers, and technicians.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Among the Academy's stated goals was to recognize excellence in the field.

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[SPEAKER_02]: They wrote in a founding pamphlet that the Academy wrote, will encourage the improvement and advancement of the arts and sciences of the profession, by the interchange of constructive ideas and by awards of merit for distinctive achievements, unquote.

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[SPEAKER_02]: To accomplish this goal, the Academy began an annual awards presentation.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The first Academy Awards honoring achievements in film for the 1927 to 1928 period was held at a private dinner for around 270 people in the blossom room of the Hollywood Roosevelt's hotel on Thursday, May 16, 1929.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Unlike today's suspense-filled moments, as the presenter opens the sealed envelope, at the first ceremony, the winners were announced in the media for publication in advance.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Throughout the 1930s, newspapers received the winners in advance, but were instructed to wait until 11 p.m. the night of the ceremony to publish.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1940, though, the Los Angeles Times revealed the winners before the ceremony even began.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1934, Betty Davis starred in an RKO film of Human Bondage.

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[SPEAKER_02]: life magazine later described Davis's acting turn as, quote, probably the best performance ever recorded on the screen by a US actress, unquote.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But she was not nominated for an Academy Award, leading to rumors that the producers had interfered with the vote.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Davis had been on

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[SPEAKER_02]: which wasn't thrilled to have its star shine for another studio.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Whether or not there had been any interference, the uproar led to the Academy bringing in price waterhouse, now called PWC, to count the votes each year.

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[SPEAKER_02]: After the 1940 LA Times League, the presenters were handed sealed envelopes with the winners listed within.

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[SPEAKER_02]: From that first-to-word ceremony, winners of major awards have received a statueette of a night standing on a real-a-film holding a crusader's sword.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The statueette was designed by art director, Cedric Gibbons, who would himself go on to win the Academy Award for best art design 11 times.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley brought Gibbons' vision into three dimensions.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Officially, that statueette is named the Academy Award of Merit, though today most people call it the Oscar.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The nickname wasn't formally adopted by the Academy until 1939, but it wasn't used by the mid-1930s.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Legend has it that Academy Librarian Margaret Herrick, who had later become the executive director.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Upon seeing the Statue at for the first time, quipped that it looked like her uncle Oscar.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Today, the Oscar Statue at is 13 and a half inches tall, and weighs eight and a half pounds.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The hefty weight comes from the metal.

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[SPEAKER_02]: During World War II, metal shortages meant that for three years, the Oscars were made of painted plaster.

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[SPEAKER_02]: After the war winners were allowed to come back and trade in their plaster Oscar for a metal one.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In 1953, the 25th Academy Awards was televised with Bob Hope as presenter.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Previously, the award show had been broadcast over radio, and there was some resistance among people in the film industry to broadcasting on TV for fear that it would legitimize the small screen.

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[SPEAKER_02]: As Bob Hope joked during the ceremony, quote, TV, that's where movies go when they die, unquote.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Reviewers at the New York Times and Billboard found the telecast boring.

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[SPEAKER_02]: With Billboard complaining about the, quote, long stretch of and we inducing programming on quote.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But audiences tuned in.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Trendx estimated the award show to have had 50 million viewers.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The Academy may have been hesitant to televised their ceremony, but television has accepted it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: With the annual Academy Awards telecast, winning over 60 Emmys, especially in technical and creative arts categories.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Today, the Academy Awards has 24 competitive categories.

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[SPEAKER_02]: At the first ceremony in 1929, there were 12 competitive categories.

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[SPEAKER_02]: actor, actress, art direction, cinematography, directing of a comedy picture, directing of a traumatic picture, engineering effects, outstanding picture, unique and artistic picture, writing adaptation, writing original story, and writing title writing.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was the only time that tidal card writing was recognized since the silent era was on its way atlet.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Joseph Pharnam won the award, they're not for a specific film.

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[SPEAKER_02]: In the acting categories at that first award show, the winners could be recognized for more than one film during the stated time period.

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[SPEAKER_02]: For instance, the best actress winner, Jeanette Gainer, won for three performances in 1927 and 1928.

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[SPEAKER_02]: 7.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Heaven, Street, Angel, and Sunrise.

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[SPEAKER_02]: At the 9th Academy Awards presented in 1937, the categories of actor and a supporting role and actress in a supporting role were introduced.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It's up to the voters to determine whether a role is lead or supporting.

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[SPEAKER_02]: At the 17th Academy Awards, actor Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for both best actor and best supporting actor for the same role, Father Fitzgibbon.

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[SPEAKER_02]: He won for supporting actor.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And after that, the Academy changed the rules to prevent such a situation from occurring

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[SPEAKER_02]: At the 12th Academy Awards presented in 1940, had a McDaniel one best supporting actress for her portrayal as Mamie in Gone With The Wind.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was the first win by an African-American, and McDaniel was relegated to a segregated table at the ceremony.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Sydney Poetier, when the first lead acting role by an African-American, for his portrayal of Homer Smith in Lillies of the Field in 1964.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It wouldn't be until 2002 at the 74th Academy Awards that a black woman would win a best actress award.

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[SPEAKER_02]: When Halle Berry won for her role as Latisha Musgrove in Monsters Ball.

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[SPEAKER_02]: At the 98th Academy Awards in 2026, a new category will be introduced for the first time in 25 years.

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[SPEAKER_02]: That of achievement in casting.

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[SPEAKER_02]: The most recent category introduced before that was best animated feature in 2001.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Joining me in this episode is Dr. Monica Sandler, a film and media historian at Ball State University, whose forthcoming book is the Oscar industry, creative labor, cultural production, and the award system in media industry.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Faas was awfully busy, happy,

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[SPEAKER_01]: from them till noon in a big balloon.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He's followed by a terrifying anero plane.

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[SPEAKER_01]: From one till three needs an old oak tree, they hang him to the bow.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But if he's alive, he'll be home with five.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He's working in the moon, he's now.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Hi Monica.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for joining me today.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You keep popping, man.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Excited to be here.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I would love to hear how you first got interested in the Oscars and decided to write first a dissertation and then a book on the topic.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So if you asked me in high school some day you're going to write a book, what is going to be about?

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[SPEAKER_03]: I know it would have said they had me awards.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I've been like weirdly into them since I was quite young.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I can at least start off that front like this has been a

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[SPEAKER_03]: The big thing was just growing up, my parents hadn't entertainment weekly subscription, and they had like a words, punditury, and that was kind of my entry point into yours.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I could read a bunch of punditury and statistics, and I could be everyone in terms of predicting who was going to win, even when it was like at that point some of the films I was too young to have seen, but I was like, no, no, no, this was going to work.

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[SPEAKER_03]: What are you talking about?

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[SPEAKER_03]: You haven't seen this movie.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It does it matter.

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's what's going to win.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that was really what kind of drew me into that.

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[SPEAKER_03]: What brought me to doing the wider project overall was I worked in the film industry for a while and was considering going back.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And I always been just deeply interested in the Oscars.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And I just started reviewing what body of literature existed around Academy of Work

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[SPEAKER_03]: dozens, an uncountable number of non-academic texts that exist on the Oscars.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And there is very, very little body of literature in academic work.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And my kind of response with that was, you, I can write this up, I can do what?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh!

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[SPEAKER_03]: And that was sort of what you'll be going back for my PhD was like I've always been interested but I wanted to have a project or like a reason for why I was doing it and I found it in the thing I'd most loved for as long as I could remember at that point.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that was really like how how I became the Oscar lady.

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[SPEAKER_03]: What have I not been as kind of the vibe?

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[SPEAKER_02]: What is the research in this look like?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like what are the kinds of archives and sources that you can draw into understand more about the history of the Oscars?

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[SPEAKER_03]: As the big thing, they came about for this project and with my dissertation when I did my PhD at UCLA.

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[SPEAKER_03]: While I was there, I spent most of my time at the Academy here at Clybury, and I was actually able to secure internal documents where two or three previously classified and got the opportunity to look at all of them.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm looking at it, this abundance and wealth of research where I'm not only seeing what happened, but why, what were the actual conversations in the room,

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[SPEAKER_03]: that are according to the meeting routes that, like, led to this policy that is really, really important and really impactful.

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[SPEAKER_03]: But was really wonderful about it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: This was a year, basically, year of my life when I was doing my doctorate, was I lived down the street from the Heracles Library in Los Angeles.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I was going there almost every day.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And I had what I referred to as my magic box, which was that I gave the archivist sort of a list of things.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And most of them had not ever gone through any of these materials either.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So they were looking for folds and files that looked like on par with what I had.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So the magic box was basically they would fill it with folders that they found that were on a subject that seemed related to what I was doing.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They stuff of what I given them.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And then when I get low, I just sort of mention it and then they would refill it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I had no idea what was going to be in it at that point.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I also like the scope of the project is decades.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm looking at something from 1937 and the next thing is 1953.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And it just sort of, I don't know what I'm working on right now.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I'll just find out what's in the box basically.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the best years of my life are just like,

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[SPEAKER_02]: Let's talk then about how the Oscars begin and the Academy Awards begin pretty quickly after the Academy itself began.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So what does that look like at the beginning?

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[SPEAKER_02]: What's the purpose?

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[SPEAKER_02]: What are they actually trying to do?

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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure it looks very very different than it did now.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So the Academy Awards start in 1999.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The founding of the Academy is in 1927.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The idea for the Academy Awards are present like in the when the brainstorming of the idea for the organization and they sort of have just kind of logistical challenges for a little period of time of like

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[SPEAKER_03]: these people joined a committee and like what are their scheduling conflicts and oh no one seems to be around right now they're filming something so it is always kind of present but people are doing other things and sort of distracted that they get really serious about it in 1928 and

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[SPEAKER_03]: And like that's when they finally kind of hunker down and create the the first awards but there's still a sort of two year low between the founding and the Oscars.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And the first Oscars are celebrating work from 1927 and 1928 in 1929, which feels really really dated.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Actually as it's happening, I'm notably 1927 versus 1929 in Hollywood.

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[SPEAKER_03]: There was the transition to sound.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So they're celebrating a bunch of silent films, whatever.

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[SPEAKER_03]: was watching talkies.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So there's definitely like this is their cultural relevance early on and that takes a little bit of time to actually come into play.

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[SPEAKER_03]: within, you know, what's actually happening at the ceremony.

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[SPEAKER_03]: But the first ceremony looked rather different from what we had.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They had two best picture categories, which was a best artistic film and then best picture, which is sort of what we think about today.

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[SPEAKER_03]: They also kind of divided film up into different, like what qualifies is artistic versus what qualifies is just a regular best picture.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I think some of this is like we think of like

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[SPEAKER_03]: fall a little bit more into the best picture category a film called Wings, which has these really incredibly all aerial shots that kind of revolutionized filming.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It's about sort of air pilots during World War I.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And so you have these great, like, action sequences in it.

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[SPEAKER_03]: that no one had ever done before.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that is, you know, Hollywood doing what Hollywood does best.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And then on the other side, you had a sunrise when Beth's picture, which is generally thought of, I would say from that period, the FW room now movie, and in the grand silent era,

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[SPEAKER_03]: films.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It's usually on that list fairly high.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So for looking back on a cannon, like the artistic film maybe has stood the test of time and history a little bit more, but not necessarily what's actually happened there.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that was what the stage of the first awards, and certainly there's, you know, why did they think this was a useful organization for that?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, on top of everything else.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And who was the academy?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, who was actually deciding to do this coming together who was voting on the awards?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so the academy is developed as an idea it has this mythic and like most of Hollywood.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It has a mythology that it started at a dinner at Louis B.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Mayor's house where he was talking to Fred Niblow

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[SPEAKER_03]: Conrad Nagel, who were an actor and director that he worked with regularly and said, you know, we've had all these problems in the industry and what we really need to do is to sit down in a room and we should have like a leg of nations or the industry.

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[SPEAKER_03]: That's how it was pitched.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Particularly in this context, Mayor really meant this in the context of like, what if we had this where we just sat and negotiated things in a room instead of unionizing?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Was what he's really referring to.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The first iteration of the academy was kind of best seen as a fake union, where there were branches, most of the lower-division work for successfully unionized into IATC in 1926.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And then in 1927 is when the academy is founded and they're particularly serving actors, writers, and directors who have not successfully organized into a union at this point, though there are groups like actors' equity that are around and sort of

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[SPEAKER_03]: lurking and would really like to organize people together and help them secure bargaining rights for themselves.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So the Academy sort of pitched as an alternative, but there are a lot of very inherent contradictions.

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[SPEAKER_03]: You've asked about who is in the Academy like today they were an honorary organization.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So it was by invitation only membership.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So you have this so-called bastom using quotation marks to say that.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So that you have the best of the industry that are invited, you have to have other members invite you into the organization and they're who ultimately vote on the Oscars, but they're also in the context of this is a fake union.

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[SPEAKER_03]: There are labor division fails by 1933, which is when the screen actor's killed on the writer's go to organize, and you can kind of see some of the issues that they have already been at play almost immediately.

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[SPEAKER_03]: With that continues on with what we think about the Oscars too.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I assume that if you have to be invited by a current member that it basically just keeps replicating itself then, at least for a while, but like the type of people

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, definitely.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think a really good example of this early on was that it tended to be at the Big Five Studios and Frank Capra in particular who was ended up being president from 1935 to 1939.

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[SPEAKER_03]: He talks about like adamantly petitioning because he was at Columbia and that he, that the academy didn't have it basically any members that were from their production company.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So he had to go through a petition process basically complaining about this.

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[SPEAKER_03]: you literally have, you know, people at a very specific just even set of companies early on that are dominating.

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[SPEAKER_02]: What effect then does that have on things like race and sex and even, you mentioned studio, but like studio versus independence?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, what does that actually look like in the early years?

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[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, how do they get sort of out of that, at least to a little bit of an extent?

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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, terms of representation for like people of color, it's basically non-existent in the earliest version of the Academy.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The first person of color nominated for an Oscar was Merrill Obron, who was passing as white.

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[SPEAKER_03]: She was of Indian descent.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And that was in 1935.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The first person of color invited to the membership was James Wang Howe, who was a cinematographer.

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[SPEAKER_03]: The Academy always say replicates or is a further extension of an industry, so an incredibly exclusionary industry, and then you have a snippet of a small group of people within the context of that, which makes it even more extreme.

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[SPEAKER_03]: But I think in terms of women, you have this kind of

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[SPEAKER_03]: across the different branches, pretty much the only place where you're seeing women are in the actors branch and a little bit in the screenwriters branch.

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[SPEAKER_03]: There are a couple of women who are who are successful in screenwriting at that time, but in terms of opportunity, it's incredibly limited.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And we also see this in something that if the guilds were when the director's goblest downed it, there's one woman in the director's guild, at their first person of color wasn't until the 1960s, if that gives context and he was an assistant director.

22:24.884 --> 22:33.477
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think these systemic exclusion starts with the founding and the realities of what's going on in the industry at that time.

22:34.178 --> 22:37.042
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we're still like things are obviously better.

22:37.062 --> 22:45.234
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but there's still challenges right in the current academy and certainly in the who has won over time.

22:45.295 --> 22:47.618
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they're still like getting first.

22:48.509 --> 22:56.182
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it's often times when you have a first thing how to be more like really, oh gosh, like that's where we're at right now.

22:56.282 --> 23:04.735
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so the second woman of color to win best actress was a couple years ago, was Michelle Gio to give some context of that.

23:04.755 --> 23:13.690
[SPEAKER_03]: And she was the second person of Asian descent nominated the first being Merrill Oberon who was not openly disclosing her race at that time.

23:13.670 --> 23:16.675
[SPEAKER_03]: So it gives you some context for that.

23:16.795 --> 23:25.709
[SPEAKER_03]: I think what we write now, this year marks the 10 year anniversary of Oscar So White and the kind of pushback that happened in the regarding the industry.

23:25.729 --> 23:32.239
[SPEAKER_03]: And you certainly, as I kind of indicated, the economy is a reflection of the industry.

23:32.700 --> 23:40.352
[SPEAKER_03]: And oftentimes, I think it can be a distracting point because when you're calling out a lack of representation at the ceremony, Oscar So White happened after

23:40.332 --> 23:45.841
[SPEAKER_03]: two years where there were no people of color nominated in any of the acting categories to up to years in a row.

23:46.722 --> 23:50.809
[SPEAKER_03]: And the Academy announced that we're going to overhaul its membership in expand diversity.

23:51.590 --> 24:01.767
[SPEAKER_03]: And previously, you had very much an alignment between the Academy in Hollywood and it being this reflection because it was very American cinema oriented.

24:01.747 --> 24:07.133
[SPEAKER_03]: But the Academy does not have the ability or the influence to drastically transform diversity in Hollywood.

24:07.473 --> 24:15.963
[SPEAKER_03]: Though I think the backlash has ultimately had an impact in terms of what gets programmed and has been to form for calling out the systemic exclusion.

24:16.023 --> 24:27.315
[SPEAKER_03]: However, the way the Academy dealt with it's particular issue was not by transforming representation in Hollywood but rather by drastically expanding their membership abroad.

24:27.295 --> 24:48.466
[SPEAKER_03]: So I passed a resolution to doubled the number of the amount of diversity in their membership by 2020, which I successfully did, and that was mostly by becoming a more global organization and inviting people from across the world, which was not the complaint that was being made when Oscar So White happened.

24:48.867 --> 24:53.033
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're addressing two very separate issues within that context.

24:53.013 --> 24:56.457
[SPEAKER_02]: So we talked a little bit about the studio system.

24:57.077 --> 25:01.622
[SPEAKER_02]: Could you talk us through sort of what happens in the early years of the academy?

25:01.842 --> 25:06.988
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very much the studio systems studios control everything that changes over time.

25:07.248 --> 25:11.132
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that look like in terms of a academy membership?

25:11.152 --> 25:15.677
[SPEAKER_02]: But also like what does that look like in terms of what sorts of films get to win awards?

25:15.897 --> 25:20.742
[SPEAKER_02]: And what it means to an actor who wins an acting award?

25:21.177 --> 25:37.752
[SPEAKER_03]: So certainly during the studio era where we think of the classical Hollywood system, the Oscars are kind of in their roast period where they're first being found in and you see them A lot of the production companies starting to advertise around the release of films and prestige

25:37.732 --> 25:47.849
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think one of the big turning points for what you're talking about is the follow-ups the studio system in the 1970s and this drastic shift in terms of what their value is.

25:48.410 --> 25:58.727
[SPEAKER_03]: The follow-up studio system with particularly is accelerated by the DeHavelund decision, which was the end of a seven-year standard contracts for most actors and employees.

25:58.707 --> 26:18.133
[SPEAKER_03]: and then the paramount consent decree, which is in 1948, which required the production companies in the theatrical chains to which were vertically integrated to be severed from each other, which essentially turned the entire industry into chaos because the way that they'd been financially stable is by being vertically integrated.

26:18.113 --> 26:24.044
[SPEAKER_03]: So Hollywood goes into chaos, but one of the byproducts of this is that there's this period of mass firing.

26:24.585 --> 26:30.515
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have creatives who previously had been crew members working for Paramount or RKO.

26:30.535 --> 26:35.264
[SPEAKER_03]: Now became independent contractors working job to job.

26:35.624 --> 26:42.737
[SPEAKER_03]: And so you see this transformation in terms of opportunity because you know everyone is just waiting for their next phone call to get their next.

26:42.717 --> 26:43.178
[SPEAKER_03]: position.

26:43.198 --> 26:55.372
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's when you also see the rise of kind of key guilt and trade prices, the writers and directors, gold start their awards in 1949, groups like the American cinema editor, starting in 1951.

26:55.552 --> 27:08.067
[SPEAKER_03]: And you see this sort of rapid expansion of all the different trade organizations, singling out individuals because it helps to ensure that there's going to be opportunity for people to be able to find work when you have this chaotic period.

27:08.047 --> 27:32.755
[SPEAKER_03]: It's also described as an opportunity for creative freedom that, like, so much of what you're doing, if you're just working top-to-job is, you may just be taking whatever comes out to you, but the success in getting singled out helps to enter, not only will you get your next job, but you'll get to have creative control in a way that, you know, does create, at least, use an allure of what could be possible in an independent contractor system.

27:32.735 --> 27:51.790
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is also what the awards more awards becomes more of a marketing device where you see a lot of films that are now being marketed around prestige because they're not just about one world with the Oscars is the culminating moment but like getting a series of prizes and that helping to build and promote your film over a prolonged period of time.

27:51.770 --> 27:55.756
[SPEAKER_03]: which ultimately kind of redefined success for a range of films.

27:56.217 --> 28:04.310
[SPEAKER_03]: The first films they get labeled as Oscar bait are things like social problem films, which are very messy, heavy productions.

28:04.871 --> 28:14.626
[SPEAKER_03]: So that becomes a kind of sticking point for how films start to get targeted around prestige and around laurels as they're being potential.

28:15.007 --> 28:15.668
[SPEAKER_03]: That kind of thing.

28:16.171 --> 28:19.660
[SPEAKER_02]: So we, of course, now have something we all call the award season.

28:20.041 --> 28:27.221
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there was like a word show after a word show after a word show, and you're tracking it and seeing, oh, this one's like, they'd get the Oscar.

28:27.562 --> 28:29.066
[SPEAKER_02]: How did that come about?

28:29.106 --> 28:32.475
[SPEAKER_02]: You started to mention some of these guilds and...

28:32.455 --> 28:47.038
[SPEAKER_02]: different trade awards and things today, always sort of envisioned, it would culminate in the Oscar, or did any of them try to abstace, you know, the Oscars or was that sort of like, that's just going to always be the big prize.

28:47.575 --> 29:01.397
[SPEAKER_03]: When a lot of these events first started, there was definitely like, we don't see the relationship and there was a lot of media speculation being like, the directors are trying to out shine the academy or things like that.

29:02.118 --> 29:08.048
[SPEAKER_03]: But what ultimately happened was almost within the first couple of years of the event, these events.

29:08.028 --> 29:11.355
[SPEAKER_03]: They get a lot, they move before they Academy where it's gonna get a lot more attention.

29:11.415 --> 29:16.465
[SPEAKER_03]: The moment that they'd be end up before that, it's sort of the Academy, like, why did they become the ultimate award?

29:16.525 --> 29:26.104
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of, because they were first, like there's a lot of criticism that always exists around them, but they become this baseline, and so many things offshoot from them.

29:26.084 --> 29:44.464
[SPEAKER_03]: It's certainly in rather than, you know, them being competitors, it's sort of like we acknowledge that this one has become the sort of cultural symbol, but we can have success for whatever our purposes and some of the starts in particular, the directors go to work their first event, which they did in this.

29:44.444 --> 29:52.118
[SPEAKER_03]: The first iteration of the directors go which are held in 1949 are celebrating work in 1948 in the beginning of 1949.

29:52.218 --> 30:06.705
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a quarterly award that they're giving out in their like trade publication and that led to the baseline for like they're being the nominees, where whoever won each quarter, depending on like what films came out that quarter.

30:06.685 --> 30:13.763
[SPEAKER_03]: And the film that ultimately won was just a banquet's letter to three wives, which released early that year.

30:13.823 --> 30:17.672
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was in the final quarter of the quarter into 1949.

30:17.773 --> 30:23.547
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it won the award and then it went on and he won best director a year later.

30:23.527 --> 30:31.815
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the big things in the conversation was how the director's build had been really successful in predicting the ultimate Oscar winner.

30:31.856 --> 30:50.935
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that kind of impulse, something that inadvertently happened from that system, helped to kind of, they very quickly shit did off of the quarter system and started doing their words ceremony before that because they saw the potential and the impact and the amount of coverage that they got because of, they'd been successful at predicting.

30:51.455 --> 30:53.819
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's also awards in other countries.

30:53.899 --> 30:57.144
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of people are probably familiar with the BAFTAs.

30:57.524 --> 31:01.791
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a relationship between those international awards and the Oscars?

31:01.831 --> 31:02.672
[SPEAKER_02]: What does that look like?

31:03.573 --> 31:03.794
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

31:04.174 --> 31:09.703
[SPEAKER_03]: So the BAFTAs, which also started in 1949, I always say, in 1949, it was a really big year for awards.

31:10.164 --> 31:12.207
[SPEAKER_03]: The Emmys were also that year as well.

31:12.707 --> 31:17.074
[SPEAKER_03]: So the writers go director's guild, Emmy awards BAFTA awards.

31:17.763 --> 31:25.676
[SPEAKER_03]: So BAFTA is developed independently, but also working with the Academy in the United States.

31:26.077 --> 31:32.187
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're consulting with some of their administrators and the president at the time who's deemed hurtful, who's an actor.

31:32.768 --> 31:34.992
[SPEAKER_03]: So they're working directly in alignment with each other.

31:35.032 --> 31:42.785
[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, the idea is we've seen that you've done the Successful Organization as an Honorary Institution, and we've wanted to do the same thing here.

31:42.825 --> 31:43.686
[SPEAKER_03]: And we want to put out a word.

31:43.666 --> 31:45.088
[SPEAKER_03]: words from this standpoint.

31:45.168 --> 31:47.832
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do like are we on the right track with this?

31:47.912 --> 31:59.870
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're basically working with them and consulting the academy that's in Mexico that puts on the aerial awards also similarly did the same at least those are the ones I've seen the like archival evidence of the working together.

31:59.930 --> 32:09.083
[SPEAKER_03]: Beyond that there's a whole range of global academies that exist that are essentially model off of the honorary model of the academy.

32:09.063 --> 32:12.569
[SPEAKER_03]: doing their own thing, only for their own national cinemas.

32:13.129 --> 32:27.292
[SPEAKER_03]: So the BAFJow words in particular in their first iteration, actually, 1949 was the year that a first international film, but a British film won Best Picture, which was a really big deal at the time.

32:27.352 --> 32:33.221
[SPEAKER_03]: We may think of American and British cinema being successful, at the words as kind of going in hand.

32:33.622 --> 32:36.707
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a huge deal when a British film won Best Picture.

32:36.687 --> 32:55.405
[SPEAKER_03]: It should definitely be stressed in that like the entire studio executives were livid about it because like this was our system for how like we knew that different production companies in Hollywood would be successful but now some outsider has come in and like we don't like this.

32:55.385 --> 33:04.918
[SPEAKER_03]: But needless to say, the first BAFTA Awards, they were held after the Academy Awards that your Hamlet had won Best Picture and the Red Shoes was also very successful.

33:05.338 --> 33:16.293
[SPEAKER_03]: So at the actual BAFTA's, they only gave out a couple of awards and they spent most of the night giving out Academy Awards for people who didn't go across the pond to get their trophies, basically.

33:16.333 --> 33:23.502
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was more of like a British Academy Awards than being like an actual ceremony

33:23.482 --> 33:25.424
[SPEAKER_03]: for British film making at that point.

33:26.225 --> 33:34.114
[SPEAKER_03]: So I always find really interesting because they're directly intertwined with each other at their founding to a really, really extreme degree at that point.

33:34.234 --> 33:44.926
[SPEAKER_03]: But that also is I think there was an expectation that you continue doing that and there were not as many successful British films and the years ahead so it sort of phased out over time in part because of that.

33:45.387 --> 33:50.232
[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, I'll let's best picture when caused a lot of controversy, surprisingly.

33:51.595 --> 33:55.560
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've mostly been talking about what the Academy itself is doing.

33:55.600 --> 34:01.709
[SPEAKER_02]: How does work does film change because of the awards?

34:01.749 --> 34:11.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Like are there decisions being made by filmmakers, by production companies directly related to the awards and the award system?

34:13.004 --> 34:16.168
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so I think it really becomes

34:16.402 --> 34:25.399
[SPEAKER_03]: a question of certain types of film productions, and what is going to be most marketable, and how are then you going to find audiences for our films?

34:25.960 --> 34:33.274
[SPEAKER_03]: So in particular, I always find the original distinction between, they're being an artistic category, and they're being a regular film category.

34:33.574 --> 34:39.405
[SPEAKER_03]: To go back to that is, is the type of a good distinction for just thinking about the types of films that end up getting marketed?

34:39.385 --> 34:48.562
[SPEAKER_03]: So you have one category which was ways which was already really, really financially successful, but this art picture category that does get merged in becomes a really big focal point.

34:48.582 --> 34:53.050
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of them are like sunrise is really like they have a huge campaign after success.

34:53.451 --> 35:00.904
[SPEAKER_03]: It was also successful at the photo play had their own magazine award, which was voted on by fans, but it was successful there as well.

35:00.884 --> 35:05.269
[SPEAKER_03]: But they started basically re releasing the film and promoting it around it.

35:05.310 --> 35:08.754
[SPEAKER_03]: Like this is an art picture and it was successful at awards ceremonies.

35:08.774 --> 35:28.258
[SPEAKER_03]: But this was a smaller film and what's referred to is there's a pictures with something like wings at that time in art pictures, which oftentimes were more experimental films that they weren't necessarily certain were going to find a market, but there was a passion project of a producer who really wanted to take it on.

35:28.238 --> 35:34.265
[SPEAKER_03]: And essentially, what the awards do is help to ensure that there is a market for those art pictures.

35:35.006 --> 35:37.809
[SPEAKER_03]: And that happens immediately with something like sunrise.

35:37.889 --> 35:42.735
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that also becomes really significant just for how we think about the awards going forward.

35:43.055 --> 35:46.719
[SPEAKER_03]: And what the award season does is it creates a space for marketable films.

35:47.060 --> 35:56.811
[SPEAKER_03]: I noted that like a social problem film, so really message heavy films become really a really big deal.

35:56.791 --> 36:01.739
[SPEAKER_03]: social problem films, these are films like a gentleman's agreement, which one best picture.

36:01.799 --> 36:15.080
[SPEAKER_03]: That was a film that's, it's technically lower lower budget in that it's a lot of serious actors giving performances, but it's not necessarily budget heavy, but it is talking about like key important issues.

36:15.561 --> 36:22.191
[SPEAKER_03]: And one thing that, you know, as the production companies kind of transform, they do start making lower budget movies,

36:22.171 --> 36:26.156
[SPEAKER_03]: but they want things to have kind of intellectual capital as an alternative.

36:26.457 --> 36:38.132
[SPEAKER_03]: And so something like social problem films because they're talking about important issues, they're bringing home, you know, they're raising controversial topics or something along those lines.

36:38.532 --> 36:41.016
[SPEAKER_03]: They find a market in and outlet at the ceremony.

36:41.056 --> 36:44.280
[SPEAKER_03]: And you see a balancing point between these

36:44.260 --> 36:47.506
[SPEAKER_03]: message-heavy films, which also can be a complaint point.

36:47.626 --> 36:49.530
[SPEAKER_03]: It should be no, it doesn't say that.

36:49.710 --> 36:52.676
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, these are also things that also get complained about a lot.

36:52.696 --> 36:54.279
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what did the Oscar celebrate?

36:54.679 --> 36:57.204
[SPEAKER_03]: They, you know, they do their period drama as they do.

36:57.545 --> 36:59.288
[SPEAKER_03]: We got Hamlet during that period.

36:59.308 --> 37:01.392
[SPEAKER_03]: They do their, they're pretty message films.

37:01.372 --> 37:18.553
[SPEAKER_03]: But then you do have like big Hollywood spectacles that are successful at the ceremony and they're being this balancing point for those But I think what becomes really really key is that they're being markets for fellow certain types of films that might not have the market if they didn't

37:18.533 --> 37:20.015
[SPEAKER_03]: have the first-deage branding.

37:20.415 --> 37:33.290
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that really continues today with like a film like Anora, which one last best picture last year, which was a pretty low budget film's first standards, still ended up being very, very profitable because it was successful at the ceremony.

37:33.351 --> 37:38.697
[SPEAKER_03]: So it creates an outlet for production company now, like neon to you know buy a film.

37:38.717 --> 37:39.698
[SPEAKER_03]: They bought that film

37:39.678 --> 37:48.660
[SPEAKER_03]: on after it won the Pondior, but that there is this prestige market that will help to ensure not just that it will win laurels, but there is a financial success that comes with it.

37:49.081 --> 37:57.180
[SPEAKER_03]: Me, even if it's smaller scale than, you know, our big action movie or something like that.

37:57.970 --> 37:58.331
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

37:58.711 --> 38:12.780
[SPEAKER_03]: So, hands down, it's the opening to the 1974 Academy Awards ceremony, which featured Liza Manelli singing a 10-minute ode to herself winning Best Actress the Year before.

38:12.820 --> 38:16.367
[SPEAKER_03]: It's my favorite thing, and one of my favorite things in the entire world.

38:16.347 --> 38:20.573
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so she comes out and she, she, she sings a grand song.

38:20.613 --> 38:22.656
[SPEAKER_03]: She won for Cabaret, the a priori.

38:22.676 --> 38:24.899
[SPEAKER_03]: She, like, since then, done Liza with a Z.

38:24.980 --> 38:26.502
[SPEAKER_03]: So she was all the rage.

38:27.023 --> 38:30.087
[SPEAKER_03]: And so she just sort of allies it with a Z style number.

38:30.548 --> 38:34.433
[SPEAKER_03]: But it has this, like, interlude in the middle where she's, like, sitting in her chair.

38:34.513 --> 38:35.675
[SPEAKER_03]: And she's so nervous.

38:35.755 --> 38:36.957
[SPEAKER_03]: And she doesn't think she's going to win.

38:36.997 --> 38:39.320
[SPEAKER_03]: And then she does, and she has this moment.

38:39.340 --> 38:40.742
[SPEAKER_03]: And she goes, it's me.

38:41.163 --> 38:43.907
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just the most wonderful thing in the world.

38:43.887 --> 38:47.993
[SPEAKER_03]: So that is my favorite moment of all the Oscars, right?

38:49.275 --> 38:53.081
[SPEAKER_02]: So that of course is after Oscars become televised.

38:53.101 --> 38:56.266
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that wasn't initially obviously the case in 1929.

38:57.548 --> 39:08.325
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that change fundamentally what the awards look like or what the ceremony looks like once it becomes, once television becomes a primary form of consuming it.

39:08.947 --> 39:13.234
[SPEAKER_03]: So television is, I would say there are like three stages in this process.

39:13.274 --> 39:26.156
[SPEAKER_03]: The first generation of the ceremony is that a banquet, they're having a dinner dance and like they give out awards surprisingly quickly and then people, you know, have a party and it's a lovely night.

39:26.537 --> 39:34.009
[SPEAKER_03]: But there are lots of, there's still lots of photographers there and you probably jammed the most celebrities in a room ever so it creates like an initial interest.

39:33.989 --> 39:44.602
[SPEAKER_03]: And in Team 44, they start doing the radio broadcast of the ceremony, and they move to the panty just theater in part because, essentially, they need logistically to be able to record everything.

39:44.642 --> 39:58.258
[SPEAKER_03]: And that, you know, of itself shifts the entire dynamic of the event because now you're sitting in an auditorium, and you have people going up to a stage, and it's the night is about listeners at home rather than the people in the room.

39:58.298 --> 40:01.262
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not, it's a very different type of

40:01.242 --> 40:06.649
[SPEAKER_03]: And so that becomes, you know, culminated on, of course, with the television broadcast, in 1553 work.

40:06.669 --> 40:11.336
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, you can actually see people in the flesh and you have to experience everything.

40:12.057 --> 40:24.614
[SPEAKER_03]: And notably, I think of Bob Hope in his monologue for the first ceremony, talks about how why he's reeling at their husbands to put a shirt on, because Joan Crawford's about to come on the television.

40:25.635 --> 40:29.781
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is about the sort of experience for viewers at home.

40:29.761 --> 40:36.628
[SPEAKER_03]: And it becomes how do you make this into something as an attainment in addition to honoring individuals?

40:36.688 --> 40:44.195
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it also kind of mass some of the element of like this is a ceremony giving out words to members of a workforce.

40:44.776 --> 40:47.699
[SPEAKER_03]: And it becomes a sort of big Hollywood spectacle.

40:47.779 --> 40:56.207
[SPEAKER_03]: You have on the edition of the Red Carpet in the early 1960s, so it intertwines with the fashion industry and all of these elements of image.

40:56.187 --> 41:05.615
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, all of these things lead to this evolution of, you know, the ceremony from being for people in the room to it being for people at home.

41:06.856 --> 41:11.320
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think the future of the Oscar ceremony looks like?

41:11.861 --> 41:25.873
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, you know, movies have declined a little bit in terms of how their importance and their market share.

41:26.663 --> 41:37.378
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, certainly the the future of the Oscars will be on YouTube since that's been announced that it's going to YouTube and we've been off of ABC because I've had a long time partnership with Disney.

41:37.878 --> 41:41.643
[SPEAKER_03]: So it's there definitely is an evolution element happening in there.

41:41.944 --> 41:51.557
[SPEAKER_03]: When I think the one thing that I come back to with the awards, I mean, they're still the Oscars that specifically are still very successful in

41:51.537 --> 41:58.067
[SPEAKER_03]: and making films actually financially viable, so something like a Nora made a profit ultimately.

41:58.087 --> 42:09.445
[SPEAKER_03]: The actual distribution, of course, is down, and there is that real question mark about what is the future of the actual distribution, and film becoming a more and more niche market than it ever has been for.

42:09.425 --> 42:30.707
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that also means like that having a tool like the Academy Awards helps to ensure that a certain type of film production is still made or finance because there is a viable route for it to maintain profitability and that is sort of a question about like what happens to the middle budget non prestige film because you don't have the same type of outlet where there's the

42:30.687 --> 42:37.265
[SPEAKER_03]: you must see big blockbuster films that can get people into theaters and then there's the smaller more intimate films.

42:37.606 --> 42:40.093
[SPEAKER_03]: This is also the distinction I was kind of getting it before.

42:40.414 --> 42:44.385
[SPEAKER_03]: They can find the prestige marketplace going through the award season.

42:44.446 --> 42:45.709
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think to

42:45.689 --> 43:01.687
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's that role that I think will always exist for the Oscars, but for the award season itself, when it particularly when you look at Guilden trade awards, which are doing film and television simultaneously, there are so vital in their role working with labor that I think they're always going to be a constant.

43:01.888 --> 43:12.760
[SPEAKER_03]: And so the question is, like, how are they going to be utilized given the standpoint that, like, they're very important in terms of the role of whether playing for ensuring opportunity for the workforce?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Is there anything else you wanted to make sure we talk about?

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[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there are moments at the ceremony that often get lost in history and what is the ceremony actually doing as a forum?

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I think there's always this sort of we focus on issues of like the glamour at the night, but and the there's I think a camp quality that always exists around the ceremony, but there's also just this kind of question about what it's doing as a tool for the industry and how it can oftentimes be.

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[SPEAKER_03]: It can help it place off of that, but it also can, at times, be tone deaf.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So the, the thing that I immediately think about is the Oscars because there's such a public statement, they're designed to be this cohesive image of the industry and each individual is able to.

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[SPEAKER_03]: kind of present themselves, but it does create a cohesive image of what Hollywood is ultimately all about from in terms of like there can be questions about value system that comes forward, which also can be I think itself read as a text and there are certain moments in Oscar history where you're a bit.

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[SPEAKER_03]: I want to say horrified looking back on it when remembers when Roman Planski got a standing ovation after he won Best Director for the pianist

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[SPEAKER_03]: What is happening right now and then there are also the moments of people being able to use this space as a place where they can actually speak to some wider issues where you have them using their time like the art of the acceptance speech.

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[SPEAKER_03]: And that period where you can actually have a moment on television to say whatever it is that you want to say which at the first award ceremony there was basically like a bunch of people.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Just thank you and walking off as quickly as possible and very uncomfortable with the entire situation and then there being the these really heartfelt moments where I think that is some of the allure of the awards which are such a constructed environment is that you have these really raw and it emotions.

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[SPEAKER_03]: So I think bringing that into the conversation is always really good and what those balancing points are and what that says about Hollywood as a whole I think is important.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Where can people find you online so they can know when your book comes up?

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[SPEAKER_03]: So you can find out more information about my research at Monica Sandler PhD.com or follow me on social media and Instagram, Monica, underscore, rock sand and on exit, Monica, underscore, rock sand, one.

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[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Monica, thank you so much for speaking with me.

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[SPEAKER_02]: This was really fun.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I loved learning more about Hollywood and Oscar's history.

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[SPEAKER_03]: This is a wonderful story.

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[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted something not to go to make the picture play My dad's a naughty actor, so they grabbed him right away Next week he sailed to New South Wales to some country to read For when he heard the girls were burnt, he said, I'll go to see Fathers don't sleep busy, he'll sail up on the main

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can find the sources used for this episode in a full episode transcript.

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[SPEAKER_00]: at unsunghistorypodcast.com.

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[SPEAKER_00]: To the best of our knowledge, all audio and images used by unsung history are in the public domain, or are used with permission.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Please email Kelley at unsunghistorypodcast.com.

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