Monica Sandler

Dr. Monica R. Sandler is a film and media historian at Ball State University, specializing in the history of entertainment prizes and their influence on Hollywood. She received her doctorate in Film and Media Studies from UCLA in 2023 and is a leading scholar examining how awards shape the media industries. Her research looks at events like the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and other Guild, critics, and trade group prizes to explore the impact of these events in Hollywood. Her work considers the economic structure of the awards season, the impact of prizegiving practices on working standards in Hollywood, and the legacies of exclusionary practices at these events. Her research on awards has been published in the Media Industries Journal and Cinefile, and she has been interviewed as an awards expert by outlets like TIME Magazine, NPR, and LAist on Oscar-related topics. She has additionally written awards commentary for USA Today and the Indianapolis Star. Her forthcoming book, The Oscar Industry: Creative Labor, Cultural Production, and the Awards System in Media Industry, examines the history of the Academy Awards and the development of the movie awards season. She looks at the Oscars from their founding in 1927 through to the end of the 1960s. Starting it the origins of the event, the project traces the growth of the ceremony from a small dinner banquet to an international phenomenon, placing the Oscars in conversation with the Great Depression, World War II, civil rights movements, and major industrial changes such as the Paramount Decision. The book also has broader implications for understanding how awards function within media industries. It shows how prizegiving practices shape labor standards, economic incentives, and cultural hierarchies in Hollywood, and how symbolic barriers within the awards system helped entrench exclusionary norms that continue to echo in contemporary reckonings like #OscarsSoWhite. The Oscar Industry is the first volume of a two-part project that charts the influence of the Oscars across nearly a century, with the second volume covering the period from the 1970s to the present.