Who are the Oscars? The Identity Crisis of Awards Shows
- Isabella Lake
- Nov 12, 2024
- 3 min read
After 2025 Grammy Award nominations were released last Friday, commentators remarked on a female-dominated “Album of the Year” category—with top contenders being Beyonce, Billie Eilish, and Charlie XCX. Though perhaps arbitrary in isolation, denoting diversity in awards shows has gained increasing momentum ever since the widespread #OscarsSoWhite movement popularized critical perspectives on racial representation in the Academy. In 2018, when former Recording Academy president Neil Portnow infamously said that women needed to “step up” after only one woman took home a solo award, that movement was extended on social media to critique female representation.
Like its peers, the Grammys are nominated by a large Academy of around 11,000 individuals who work in some capacity for the music industry. To get the prestigious “EGOT”—an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony—one would have to appeal to an overlapping set of four Academy body-politics, composed of thousands of voters.
Pro-democratic and pro-representational discourse on social media, especially on the 21st-century subcultural terrain known as “Black Twitter,” has raised concerns that the exclusive nature of “the Academy” structurally precludes true diversity. Given the availability and unpopularity of alternative awards shows—the People’s Choice Awards, MTV Music Awards, and BET Awards—which place greater emphasis on democracy, should we keep trying to increase representation in Academy-based awards shows? What weight do these shows, and their representation, hold for culture, and should we work to empower or disempower them?
“Not Like Us”
In the midst of a historic rap feud with Drake, Kendrick Lamar released “Not Like Us,” a chart-topping diss track which broke Drake’s previous record of most streamed Spotify rap song in a day. The growing popularity of rap in mainstream (and predominantly-white) media raised a slew of concerns echoing what we’ve heard for decades; namely, that white profiteers (so-called “culture vultures”) continually co-opt music and media made by Black people, for Black people. The solution, according to Mark P. Braboy of The TRiiBE, is best put in his own words:
Among the many important takeaways from the Drake and Kendrick Lamar rap battle is that Black people shouldn’t be afraid to gatekeep hip-hop culture from outsiders and that it’s up to us to hold fringe entities accountable for exploiting the most disadvantaged for profit, while not properly crediting or nourishing the communities that shape the imperfect but beautiful culture that is Black America. Let Kendrick Lamar’s refrain “they not like us!” live on.
Snubbing Season
While authoritative Black voices in the music industry have advocated a shift away from awards shows, many women seem to be more interested in rehabilitating them.
Perceived “snubs” of female achievements in film and music, such as those of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie at the Oscars and Beyonce at the Grammys, spark outrage among social media feminists each year.
Yet the feeling that has crystallized among many women speaking about the issue has been one of frustration, but also optimism. Instead of arguing against Awards Shows as a mistaken panacea to resolve diversity issues, many female columnists point to the increasing representation of women in them. The same year that Gerwig was “snubbed” for Best Director, for instance, she lost to French director Justine Triet (a woman). This raises yet another question—is explicitly “feminist” representation the only feminist representation that counts?
And, returning to the question that leads us through this tangle of perspectives: Should we continue to take Awards Shows as cultural barometers of diversity and representation?
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