Awarding Bodies Don’t Just Need to Be More Diverse, Their Voting Systems Need to Change Altogether
Adele winning over Beyonce for Album, Record, and Song of the Year. Taylor Swift’s “1989” winning Album of the Year to Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly.” The Oscars and BAFTAs nominating only white actors and male directors. The Golden Globes awarding ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Best Motion Picture - Drama. These are just a few of the many examples of industry awards that divided audiences and caused controversies. These problems are not new. With many of the most prestigious institutions having been established as far back as the 1920s, these kinds of results are to be expected. We’re used to seeing populist choices win over more creative or challenging nominees. While the criticisms against the voting bodies that gave us these results are certainly warranted, I’ve always felt uncomfortable at what we tend to criticize.
No one will disagree that the voting bodies for The Grammys or The Academy Awards need to be more diverse. They’re still heavily white and male dominated. It will take years, if not generations, to fix the representational inequalities in these industries. Fortunately, some of these organizations are taking steps to avoid such issues from repeating in the future. But what I think we should also pay more attention to is how these organizations determine the nominees and winners.
The Golden Globes
Out of all the major awards I’ve mentioned, The Golden Globes has the most simplified process by far. Nominees and winners are determined by the 87 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). To be a member, you have to “be based in Southern California, be an accredited correspondent for a foreign publication in which you have published at least four articles in the year preceding, and pay a $500 initiation fee.” (Gold Derby)
The top five vote-getters from each category are nominated first-past-the-post style. The winners are determined through the same process, with the HFPA members voting and the film with the most votes winning.
The Academy Awards (Oscars)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is composed of over 7,000 members, all of whom are from the film industry. Membership is by invitation only, of which The Academy invites several hundred each year. Oscar winners are automatically invited. The third way to become a member is to be sponsored by current members. There are 17 branches in The Academy, with members divided into one of the 17 (members can’t be a part of more than one branch). The Academy Awards features 24 categories.
Nominees from each category are determined by the voting branch that best fits that category (i.e members of the Acting Branch will nominate Acting nominees). Best Picture is the sole category in which all members get to nominate. The Academy utilizes a ranked-choice voting system tabulated by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). To determine the nominees, voting members must submit a ballot with a list of their favorite nominees ranked in order of preference (1 being their top choice, 2 being their second choice, and so on). Each candidate is organized by their number of first-place ranking. There is a “magic number” that is required to be nominated, determined by dividing the total number of ballots by total number of possible nominees, plus one. After a nominee is determined by the first round of sorting, ballots are re-tabulated by removing the candidate with the least first-choice votes, with the second-choice now becoming that ballot’s new first-choice choice. For example, if the magic number for the Best Director category is 500 and Bong Joon-ho receives 501 first-choice votes, he becomes a nominee. Let’s say Todd Phillips received the least number of first-choice votes (one can dream, right?), then he is removed from consideration and those ballots that had him as first-choice will now have the second-choice candidate become their new first-choice candidate. This process continues until there are five nominees in each category (or up to ten for Best Picture).
After all of the nominees are determined, new ballots are sent to all voting members, but this time the members can vote for every category, not just the ones that fit their branch. Ranked-choice voting is again applied to the ballots to determine the winners of reach category.
The Grammys
If you thought The Oscars had a complicated voting method, just wait until you see how The Grammys does things. It’s insane.
The Grammys is run by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), which consists of over 21,000 members who are artists and industry professionals. There are over 80 categories and 30 fields recognized.
The first wild aspect of The Grammys nominating process is the fact that their eligibility year is out of whack. The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards will take place later this month, but it’s not honoring just music from 2019, it’s also recognizing works from 2018. The eligibility year for this year’s Grammys is October 1, 2018 to August 31, 2019. Why? I honestly can’t tell you. But it’s hella annoying.
Once entries are submitted to be considered for nomination, review sessions are held. These review sessions, which includes over 150 experts from the recording industry, are not to dictate the quality of the works but to ensure they’re eligible, as well as considered for the proper category.
Once the review sessions are completed, eligible entries are sent to voting members to determine the nominees for each category. Each voting member can vote to nominate in the general fields (Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist) as well as up to nine of the other 30 fields. The five entries with the most votes per category become the nominees.
After the nominations phase, final ballots are sent to voting members, who are again able to vote in the four general fields and in no more than 9 out of the 30 other fields. Though highly encouraged, yet not required or enforced, members are encouraged to vote only in their fields of expertise. These ballots are tabulated by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, with the nominees that simply gain the most votes winning. But wait, there’s more! The Grammys has a secret committee that can alter nominations.
This is a worst-kept secret about The Grammys, which isn’t highlighted on its website, but one that has been well-documented. After the nomination phase, there is an additional step for the big four categories: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. This secret committee consists of anonymous members who receive the top 20 choices for each category, who then determine the final nominees per category. This committee listens to the choices and debate the merits of each entry before casting their final ballots to determine the nominees.
What’s the Best Voting System?
Unfortunately, there is no perfect voting system. I think out of all the voting systems, the ranked-choice voting that The Academy uses is the most fair (it’s the system I wished our country used for elections). It allows for nominees with the broadest support (i.e. films with the most first and, potentially, second or third place votes) to win, thus ensuring the most liked nominee winning as opposed to fringe or polarizing ones. That’s why we often see likable, though not passionately beloved, films winning Best Picture (‘The King’s Speech’, ‘Argo’, ‘Green Book’). But hey, at least this system has allowed us to avoid ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ (yeah, remember that film?) from winning Best Picture. That last part about The Grammys is what interests me the most. While the idea of a small committee that can throw away the votes of the general voting body and determine its own nominees may be unpopular, I find some merit in it.
We Should Consider Selection Committees
Something I keep saying is the problem with so many awarding bodies is that the nominations and winners are determined mostly by popularity instead of merit. When you have hundreds to thousands of voting members, it’s impossible to have critical discussions with everyone before nominating and voting. It’s impossible to listen to all of the musical nominees or to watch every film released within a single year. Not every artist or filmmaker or studio has the financial capabilities to campaign for their works. Thus, the ones most likely to be nominated and win are the ones with the most name recognition. There’s no solution to these problems because there’s just not enough time in the year to address them. However, a selection committee can help address other concerns.
When you look at The BAFTA’s double nominations for Scarlett Johansson and Margot Robbie in lieu of any nominees of color, or The Oscar’s all-male director category, it’s easy to accuse both organizations of being tone-deaf and purposely ignoring qualified filmmakers who are women, Black, people of color, queer, etc. I think the argument is a bit disingenuous. Yes, the industry as a whole needs to be fixed (by elevating more minority filmmakers and actors; having voting bodies with more ethnic/gender/etc. parity), and that will take time. However, these organizations are not sitting there twirling their mustaches and purposely excluding these minority groups. Pretty much all voting bodies for The Oscars, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Grammys are white-male dominated. I don’t have scientific data to back this up, but I feel confident in saying white people are going to see more films featuring white people, and men are going to see more films traditionally geared towards men. I bet Black people are more likely to see films by, for, and featuring Black people, and the same goes for women. So the obvious solution is to include more members from such underrepresented groups. We must blame the racist and sexist institutions of these voting bodies as opposed to simply the individual.
When it comes to determining the nominees or winners, I think a select committee would garner more interesting and qualified results as opposed to the standard popularity contest. Being able to debate the qualities of a work of art and its merits among other industry leaders and professionals can be worthwhile. Though everyone will go in with their own personal favorites, debates have a chance to sway opinions, and people may leave these meetings with different views on the potential nominees/winners.
2019 Cannes Film Festival Jury.
Having a committee that oversees the final nominees can be beneficial to ensure actors aren’t nominated twice in favor of actors of color in film awards. It may also offer an opportunity for more than one non-white actor to be nominated in the same category (there’s usually a token minority in a sea of white actors per category). Having a committee select winners can prevent certain films from sweeping if undeserved (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’), ensure there’s a balance of awards given out to various films instead of one film sweeping, or can justify other films totally sweeping when deserved (‘Mad Max: Fury Road’).
I believe this is much better than having thousands of members simply voting for their favorites without any discussions. I know what you may be thinking: “But Kent, how do we determine which handful of people get to decide the nominees/winners? How do you properly represent thousands of members?” To which I reply, “I don’t know.” But I do know prestigious festivals like Cannes already have voting bodies (called “juries”) that consists of prominent film industry members who dictate the festival’s various awards each year. Last year’s jury included: Academy Award-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu; French director Enki Bilal; French filmmaker Robin Campillo; French Actress Maimouna M’Diaye; American actress Elle Fanning; Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos; Academy Award-winning Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawilkowski; American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt; and Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. The films often recognized are certainly more interesting and probably more worthy of receiving such praise than many of the ones at The Oscars or Golden Globes. ‘Parasite’, ‘Shoplifters’, ‘The Tree of Life’, and ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ are some of the Palme d’Or winners, the highest prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Seeing any of these films win Best Picture at The Oscars or Golden Globes is pretty much unheard of.
When Adele and Beyonce competed at the 59th Grammy Awards, it was expected Adele would win despite the star-power of both artists. The truth is, Beyonce’s “Lemonade” was a powerful and political work of art that empowered Black women. Adele’s “25” is music made for everyone, and the sales back this up (Adele’s 22 million album sales for “25” vs. Beyonce’s 2.5 million album sales for “Lemonade”). No one can deny that Beyonce's album was more challenging and the better work of art. But Adele has broad appeal. If there was a select committee to determine the winner and given the chance to discuss the brilliance of Beyonce’s album, I believe “Lemonade” would’ve had a better chance of winning Album of the Year. Heck, even Adele knew Beyonce should’ve won!
In Conclusion
To sum this all up, I repeat - there is no perfect voting system. But we must try to reach that perfection. My ideas to have better, more qualified nominees and winners include a mix of the following ideas:
Have true parity within the membership, including ethnic, gender, and cultural diversity.
Only allow experts of specific fields be able to nominated and determine the winners for each category.
Have a selection committee that is able to debate the qualities and merits of nominees.
Use ranked-choice voting in every step that involves tabulating ballots. First-past-the-post system suuuuucks and can result in vote-splitting.
