Usually, the Golden Globes ceremony serves as a sort of aperitif before Oscar night. Not this year. Taken in a turmoil that does not does not calm down, the Golden Globes have been dropped by the NBC network, which no longer wishes to be associated, in the immediate future, with the controversial Association of the foreign press in Hollywood, host of the said ceremony. Difficult not to note, however, that the Golden Globes do not gather more people in front of the television anyway. Whether it is the Caesars in France, the Irises here or the Oscars in the United States, gala cinema shows in this case a decline that does not date from yesterday.
A glance at the ratings of recent years is enough to see a downward trend as clear as it is overall. In 2018, for its 75e ceremony, the Golden Globes gathered an audience of 20 million people: a decrease of 5% compared to the previous year. In 2019, we fell to 18.6 million. In 2020, it did not get better: 18.4 million. In 2021, we hit bottom with a starving 6.9 million.
As for the Oscars, historically more followed, the downward curve is similar. In 2018, approximately 26.5 million moviegoers around the world watched the evening. In 2019, a vintage devoid of animators, we observed an upward jump with 29.6 million people. In 2020? We tumbled to 23.6 million. Last year was a disaster, when barely 9.85 million people watched the evening directed by Steven Soderbergh. We are far from the peaks reached in 1998 when Titanic won eleven statuettes in front of 57.25 million viewers.
Ditto for the César cinema which, after a hit in 2012, with 3.9 million people listening, has continued to lose ground. In 2021, ratings dropped to 1.6 million people. With us, the Gala Québec Cinéma and its Iris awards are holding up. However, we cannot speak of a real craze. In 2018, 729,000 people attended the evening (29,000 for the Artisans Gala). In 2019, we fell to 600,000 (42,000 for the Artisans Gala). In 2020, the pandemic inspired a hybrid formula. According to Québec Cinéma, “755,000 people watched, at one time or another, one of the segments of this gala”. How many have watched it all? Mystery. Finally, in 2021, only 488,000 people attended (17,000 for the Gala Artisans) – the fault is blamed on “a decisive hockey game for the Canadians in the playoffs”.
A loss of meaning
In short, taken as a whole, the figures exonerate the pandemic as the main culprit of this public disenchantment. According to Pierre Barrette, director of the UQAM media school, the reasons are more complex.
“It is certain that the galas are flat during the pandemic, with the distance and the rooms almost empty. There is a deadly dimension. We lose the ceremonial spirit. “
What does he mean by that? “When television takes over the ceremonial, be it the man’s first steps on the moon or the soccer world cup, or the Oscars, there is a strong feeling on the part of the audience that they have to be there. as it happens; to experience the revelation aspect. That hasn’t changed much. The counterpart of that which has moved, it seems to me, and which explains in good part this observed lack of interest, is that there was a time when these galas had in part the function of regulating the visible offer. The galas had a role of curating works, whether in cinema or in music. There was this idea of going to the Oscar or Iris to see what the “specialists” are saying so that I would know what to catch up with. “
According to Pierre Barrette, the multiplication of platforms, and therefore of “the visible offer”, has undermined this august model which depends primarily on the room. “Before, we could go and compare our impressions at a gala. At the moment, there is such a scattering of works on different platforms and in theaters that we may no longer feel as though we are grasping an artistic field in the same way as we did in the past. Now, when I see the Oscars, I discover a lot of films that I haven’t seen and that I will probably not have time to see, because there is an excess of supply. We lose track, and we lack tools to discover works. In my opinion, this results in an etiolation, a loss of meaning in relation to these galas. “
It is certain that the galas are flat during the pandemic, with the distance and the rooms almost empty. There is a deadly dimension. We lose the ceremonial spirit.
Between populism and elitism
Pierre Barrette is not the only one to point out that the recognition given to certain films is sometimes inversely proportional to their popularity. However, the fact of not being familiar with several of the titles named can engender a feeling of ignorance which, in turn, will naturally encourage to look elsewhere. But nothing is easy.
Indeed, if too many popular films are named, the accusations of celebrating the box office rather than the 7e art raining down. Conversely, a selection of critics’ favorite films (which, however, do not vote in these galas) will be taxed as elitist.
“We blamed them so much [aux Oscar], for so many years, to be backward and conventional and to crown films that cast a very wide net, like Forrest Gump, against which I have nothing, but in short, films that rally a large audience … They have been criticized, and this is a legitimate criticism, a traditionalist vision of production, a cinema in short male, white and heterosexual, with few women and people of color. Now that a substantial effort is being made to include women and people of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, the mass of viewers – heterosexual white males – fond of traditionalist cinema are perhaps less interested in watching. “
In an attempt to strike a happy medium, the Oscars reduced the number of possible titles in the Best Picture category from five to ten. In vain, since ratings continue to plummet, pandemic or not. Does this mean that this type of gala is doomed to disappear?
“I’m not a diviner, but I believe that a ceremony like the Oscar ceremony is too ingrained to go away. On the other hand, I believe that the traditional formula of galas has become dusty and will have to change. The hybrid experience of the Gala Québec Cinéma suggests an avenue to be further explored.
“TV channels won’t want to broadcast little-watched galas over and over again. Will there be a migration? Netflix taking over a lot of things, imagine if the Oscar became a “Netflix event”, ”says Pierre Barrette.
It would be ironic to say the least but, in view of the state of play, not unthinkable at all