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The New Yorker
Best
Picture
March 25, 2002
By
Hendrik Hertzberg In 1989, the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, wishing to minimize the wounded feelings that can
accompany being tagged a loser, changed the formula by which the
envelope-rippers announce the recipients of the Oscars. The federal
bureaucracy, always a bit behind the Hollywood curve, took more than
a decade to catch up: not until the 2000 election did Washington get
around to ditching the old, hurtful custom of having the voters say
"And the winner is . . ." and replacing it with a more sensitive
practice, whereby a group of chosen judges, wearing gowns that a
Price Waterhouse accountant would die for, consult themselves and
then announce, "And the Presidency goes to . . ." For the movie
industry, it's been a rough political season. Campaign spending is
through the roof. According to one estimate, by the time the polls
close on Tuesday, the studios will have shelled out a record sixty
million dollars for full-page newspaper ads, billboards, videotape
and DVD mailings, and other promotional goodies. That may not sound
like much-Michael Bloomberg paid more last fall for a four-year
lease on City Hall-but it's thirty times the production budget for
"In the Bedroom," one of the contenders for Best Picture. And the
Oscar electorate is a lot smaller than the mayoral one: fewer than
six thousand people have the franchise. At these per-vote prices, a
Presidential campaign would cost a trillion dollars. And that's
just the "hard money." Hollywood has "soft money," too. Academy
rules ban filmmakers from giving parties for Academy members and
forbid studios to hold screenings that "feature the live
participation of the film's artists before or after the screening"
or include "receptions, buffets or other refreshments"-even a lousy
bag of popcorn. But if somebody else throws the party, or if
non-Academy riffraff are also invited to the screening, then bring
on the caviar and the stars. In other words, "independent
expenditures" are O.K. So is negative campaigning. This year, "A
Beautiful Mind," a front-runner in the big categories, has been the
main target. The critics long ago pointed out that the film pretties
up the facts about the real-life mathematician on whom the Russell
Crowe character is based. Lately, though, anonymous leaks to the
Drudge Report and other outlets of dubious respectability have
"revealed" some nasty things which the mathematician (who, at the
time, was in the grip of schizophrenic delusions that also had him
convinced he was the emperor of Antarctica) did and said, and which
are omitted from the film. Crowe himself has been slammed for
loutish behavior at an earlier awards ceremony. The "character
issue" is big this year, both for source material and for actors, if
not for what's actually on the screen. Meanwhile, the celebrity
endorsements are flowing in, with Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson
throwing their support behind Denzel Washington against Crowe. And
three of the movie colony's most prominent ethnic groups-Brits,
African-American superstars, and hobbits-have been jostling for
position. Oscar politics ain't beanbag. Hollywood, it may seem, has
learned all there is to learn from the world of "real" politics.
And, God knows, vice versa. But maybe not. Take the wonky, but
actually quite important, question of voting systems. To pick Oscar
winners, the Academy uses what we call plurality voting and the
British call "first past the post." The Oscar "goes to" whichever
nominee-there are usually five-gets more votes than any one of the
others. This is why mediocre, bombastic movies that are obviously
disliked by the majority of Academy members and other discerning
filmgoers are so often rewarded with golden statuettes. The
nominees, however, are chosen differently. Academy members still get
one vote each, but they can list up to five favorites in order of
preference. Any film or actor that gets a fifth of the first-place
votes is nominated automatically, and the rest are chosen by
considering alternative preferences. As a result, meritorious work
frequently makes it to the finals. Something analogous is beginning
to happen, in a small way, outside the zone of glitz. On March 7th,
voters in San Francisco decided to adopt "instant runoff voting" for
mayor and other officials elected citywide. That same day, clear
across the country in bucolic Vermont, fifty-one town meetings
passed resolutions asking the state legislature to adopt the same
system for gubernatorial and other statewide races. Under I.R.V.,
voters can list their choices in order of preference. If no
candidate tops fifty per cent, the losers are dropped from the count
one by one and the votes are retallied, with each voter's vote going
to his or her favorite still in the race, until someone has a
majority. (Computers do the math in a flash.) The system is an
exotic novelty here, but it is used routinely in Australia, Ireland,
and England, and, of course, in the nominating process of the
Academy. San Francisco and Vermont are special cases. San Francisco
previously staged separate runoff elections between the top two
finishers, which costs money and rewards zero-sum negative
campaigning. In Vermont, if no candidate gets an absolute majority
the legislature picks whoever it wants to be governor. That's
already happened twenty-one times, and it's likely to happen again
this year, because four plausible candidates will be on the ballot.
But there are similar movements afoot in places-Alaska and New
Mexico, for example-that, like almost all of America, currently use
plain old plurality voting. If the system begins to take hold, the
impact on America's political culture could be profound. It would
encourage civility, discourage fratricidal negative campaigning,
prevent the election of candidates strongly opposed by majorities,
and broaden the range of candidates while eliminating the
third-party spoiler phenomenon. The two big parties would retain
their primacy, but no one can say which would benefit. The only sure
winners would be the voters. Remember them? The people who, on the
whole, would rather be watching the Oscars? -Hendrik
Hertzberg |
