As you probably heard, the Academy Awards are dropping eight categories from the broadcast this year. I’ve been fuming over this in both the Open Threads and on my Twitter account nigh non-stop since this was announced. They’re dropping all the best Short categories, Make-Up and Hairstying, Editing, Original Score, Production Design, and Sound. Instead of being presented during the show, they’ll be given out before the show (in-front of a barely full audience, since the A-listers will be on the red carpet) and the “highlights” of the speech (fuck off with that) will be edited in latter in the broadcast. They’re doing this to “allow more time for comedy, film clips, and musical numbers.” There’s also some dubious claims that they’re doing this to shorten the show but let’s be real here; they could easily shorten the show without dropping categories. It’s just that the Academy presidents and their Disney overlords care more about going viral instead of honoring what they think the best in movies for the year was.

This is already gross and dumb but it gets even worse when you take things into context. The ostensible reason they’re doing this is because the ratings for last year were so low. They were so low because 2020 was a fucking hell year and no one felt like celebrating it, not because of those eight categories. A lot of awards shows last year suffered massive ratings drops last year, so it wasn’t just the Oscars that suffered. However, the other awards shows (aside from the Golden Globes, which has been hilariously banished from TV) have had a ratings bounce this year. The Oscars almost certainly will have a ratings bounce, which is where things get sinister.

If they do get a ratings bounce, what do you think they’ll pin it on: the fact that everyone isn’t as miserable as they were a year ago or their plan to cut categories? They’re going to claim that their plan to “shorten” the broadcast was what got people watching again and do it again next year. Fuck honoring movies, let’s have horrendous comedy bits that no one likes! That’s why they backed down quickly when they tried this a few years back but not this year. They have a chance to win this time. If they do get a rating bounce, we’ll lose more categories (ABC apparently wanted them to cut 12 categories) and get more Glenn Close twerking. Fuck everything.

The only chance of them backing down is if the major nominees refuse to show up but this shouldn’t be on them. This is their time to shine and they shouldn’t have to lose out on it just because the ones in charge are assholes.

All of these reasons are why I’m not watching this year. The Oscars don’t deserve my attention this year and they don’t deserve yours either. You could probably argue that they never did but they especially don’t this year. I hope their ratings collapse, I want it to get killed in the ratings by The Walking Dead and I hate The Walking Dead. The enemy of my enemy is my friend in this instance. If they do wind up changing the rules, I might watch them but I don’t see this happening. So fuck them.