This year, cinemas around the world were filled with Barbie pink, film bros watching “Oppenheimer,” multiple concert films and “The Hunger Games” franchise fans. But, one question goes without answering: how far would the people in and behind the scenes of the year’s biggest movies go for Hollywood’s most prestigious gold statue, the Oscar? Well, I can guarantee one thing: they will go pretty far.
The actor’s key to trying to secure an Oscar is all in the campaign. Trying to yoke out personable traits to become likable and quite frankly, oversaturated within the viewers’ eyes.
The rise of the Oscar campaign goes back to Miramax, a Hollywood studio, co-founder Harvey Weinstein. He modernized the art of this campaign through cold-calling, lavish events promoting films and whisper campaigning. Weinstein truly revolutionized the art of spending millions of dollars on ensuring that one remembers how obnoxious many celebrities truly are.
Weinstein also takes responsibility for what I like to call “The Rig of the Century” when Gwyneth Paltrow won the Oscar for “Best Actress” in 1999. “Shakespeare in Love” had an estimated five million dollars spent on the campaign by Miramax, through hosting parties where they invited Academy members. There is not an ounce of me that believes that Paltrow truly deserved that award; money talks. That year, I believe that any other of the four nominees were more deserving than Paltrow.
Recently, Bradley Cooper has accomplished arguably the biggest Oscar campaign flop of the century. In his new movie, “Maestro,” he plays the role of famed Leonard Bernstein and also directed the piece. This movie has been in the works for over six years, Cooper stated he has loved Bernstein and the art of conducting since he was a young child, pretending to be conducting in front of the television. In a recent interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Cooper was interviewed alongside Bernstein’s children, and he stated that Bernstein’s energy “found its way into me and that I really do feel like I know him.” Cooper, maybe that did happen, but truly the only thing I saw behind your eyes during that interview was the golden statue that everyone dreams of.
Well, as award season comes to an end and Cooper is left empty-handed, it just shows that all this absurdity and sob story marketing might not work in the long run. The two front runners for this year’s Oscar for “Best Actor” are not Cooper, but Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti, whose roles were not as over-extravagant as Cooper’s was.
This same Cooper story happens almost every year, looking just back two years, the year of the infamous slap, the movie “House of Gucci” had come out and Lady Gaga started her campaign. Just like Cooper, she lived like Patrizia Reggiani for over a year and talked in a full Italian accent for nine of the months. Gaga did not even get nominated for an Oscar that year.
Trying to impress the audiences, the method acting side of the campaign might be prevalent but true marketing might be the key.
As the biggest movie of the year, “Barbie” made a marketing budget of around 150 million dollars. One can not deny that the marketing team pulled it off like a charm because “Barbie” has been inescapable since its release last July. Are all the “Barbie” pink carpets and versions of “I’m Just Ken” truly just for the fun of it or is it for the Oscar? We can only wait until March 10, the night of the Oscars.
At the end of the day, as someone who indulges in everything film-related, the real answer to how far one will go to get an Oscar is if they just signed on to a biographical picture about some random celebrity. So, please check if your favorite celebrity has and remember they too could end up like Bradley Cooper.
