Soul Food Deux?

It’s no secret that I don’t get much of the hate directed at The Oscars. Not because I don’t think their voting system is flawed, I do, or even because I don’t mind their behind-the-scenes politics, I do, but because their choices boil down to personal taste. I may not agree with many of their yearly picks, but whenever people get mad, the most-common argument is that “they picked X instead of Y”. It’s tiring. However, since it keeps happening, I guess that tedium won’t subside.

I mention this due to a video from The Royal Ocean Film Society that was recently posted on YouTube. I’ve covered this channel before, but since he talked about Soul, and how it should be nominated for Best Picture this year, I figured I’d cover him again. Because, in some ways, I agree. However, in other ways, I wouldn’t be upset if it wasn’t.

See, The Oscars have only ever nominated 3 animated films for Best Picture. The first time it happened was 1992, when Beauty and the Beast received the honour. The second and third times were with Up and Toy Story 3 in 2010 and 2011. Despite the latter two being legitimately amazing, there seems to be a pattern with all three films: they were released at pivotal points, their nominations were a response to a predecessor getting snubbed (The Little Mermaid for the former, WALL-E for the latter) and they were all under the same, corporate umbrella. Essentially, and this could be me surmising, I doubt they’d have been nominated had they not had Disney’s branding.

That’s a problem. Far be it to demean these movies, but they’d have had a much harder time with a different studio. This is because The Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences is incredibly biased toward Disney. You can see this in how they award Best Animated Feature annually, with the majority of trophies going to Disney or Pixar. And of the few exceptions, one of them, Spirited Away, had Disney as its distributor in the West.

Soul receiving a Best Picture nomination is hampered by it being another movie under the Disney umbrella. This isn’t to demean it, I thought it was brilliant myself, but having it there would lead to another “playing favourites” debate. Remember, if we’re talking movies that redefined the cinematic experience, all-the-while earning some of the highest accolades of their respective years, then why weren’t The LEGO Movie or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse considered for Best Picture? More-recently, why wasn’t Wolfwalkers considered? And if you want to go back further, perhaps Spirited Away should’ve received that honour too?

I know I’m sounding petty, but it’s a slippery slope argument. Animation isn’t one studio’s sole expertise. Plenty of excellent animated films from around the world are released yearly, with a few rivalling the best of Pixar/Disney. The LEGO Movie only got nominated for Best Original Song in 2015, which was disappointing, but I was more impressed that year by The Tale of the Princess Kaguya than Big Hero 6. And I liked Big Hero 6!

But even outside of quality, I don’t think winning The Oscar is an automatic symbol of greatness. Plenty of great movies haven’t, and that’s fine! You don’t need a trophy to validate how you felt about a movie. Like I said about Black Panther in 2019:

“I think The Oscars are too subjective to be that excited. So Black Panther got nominated for Best Picture? Okay, does it need the nomination to be good? And will everyone be happy? The answer to both questions is ‘no’.”

There’s the problem: subjectivity. It doesn’t matter how good a movie is to some, others will find reasons to not like it. And some of them will be valid. After all, I’m the guy who liked Avatar and thought Mad Max: Fury Road was mediocre! And Birdman came off as pretentious nonsense, so I have experience with being contrary! Even with animation, personal tastes still apply.

Yes, animation has an unfair stigma. And nominating Soul for Best Picture could help with fixing that. But I doubt it’ll happen, though I’m happy to be proven wrong. Because the stigma against animation won’t automatically go away, irrespective of The Oscars. It’s unfortunate and extremely frustrating, especially as an animation fan, but it’s the truth.

And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay for Soul to not be nominated for Best Picture. It’s okay for any animated movie to not be nominated for Best Picture, honestly! Because as long as at least one person finds them meaningful, that’s all that matters. That’s all that’s needed for them to be effective experiences. Is it unfortunate? Yes, but that’s how this works sometimes.

Then again, I’ve seen stranger happen. And given that we’re in the middle of a full-out pandemic right now, and The Oscars are a bit of a wild card this year, it’s currently anyone’s game!