The Oscars is facing backlash for its “No Zoom” policy at this year’s ceremony, a decision it reportedly announced in a letter recently to the more than 200 nominees spanning the globe.
The 93rd Academy Awards, which is set to be held in late April, will be an “intimate, in-person event” to be conducted without Zoom and limited to the nominees, presenters and guests invited to attend the event, hosted across two separate venues in Los Angeles – Union Station and Dolby Hollywood. That’s according to the Oscars’ producers, Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacey Sher and the letter sent to nominees, which has since been shared publicly by various Hollywood publications.
“Regarding the practical aspects of the show, our plan is to stage an intimate, in-person event at Union Station in Los Angeles, with additional show elements live from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood,” stated the letter.
“Of course, your first thought is CAN THAT BE DONE SAFELY? The answer is YES, IT CAN. We are going to great lengths to provide a safe and enjoyable evening for all of you in person, as well as for all the millions of film fans around the world, and we feel the virtual thing will diminish those efforts,” the letter further promised.
Confident that the show to hand out the highest honours in the film industry can be provided safely under the extraordinary conditions during the on-going global pandemic, variants be damned, the letters further states, “We are treating the event as an active movie set, with specially designed testing cadences to ensure up-to-the-minute results, including an on-site COVID safety team with PCR testing capability.”
However, most controversially, those international nominees and/or those not based in Los Angeles are out of luck, as the letter states unequivocally no facility for virtual participation will be afforded.
“For those of you unable to attend because of scheduling or continued uneasiness about traveling, we want you to know there will not be an option to Zoom in for the show,“ stated the letter matter-of-factly.
To say that this puts many in an impossible bind is the understatement to end all understatements. According to Deadline and Variety, publicists and studio executives have already lodged their complaints, arguing their internationally-based clients and representatives will face untold logistical nightmares, costs and imposition in order to attend the event in Los Angeles.
For instance, at least nine nominees reside in Britain, where from next week the government is imposing draconian travel restrictions that include a £5000 fine for all non-essential travel. Emerald Fennell, director of Promising Young Woman, is one of the bets to spot in best director honours according to multiple betting sites , while best actress nominee Carey Mulligan is another.
In other European countries, such as Italy, France and Germany, restrictions are increasing with continental Europe bracing itself for a worrying third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The tightening of restrictions in Europe will likely affect representatives of films submitted from Romania, Turkey, Denmark and Bosnia too.
California currently requires travellers to quarantine for 10 days upon arrival. That in itself presents additional challenges from a practical standpoint, including taking extended leave. In many cases, it’ll mean taking the better part of the month of April off to accommodate California’s covid-19 regulations, not to mention the exorbitant hotel costs that this would entail, which could “bankrupt” the entire budget of some nominees.
As it currently stands, it doesn’t appear likely that the Oscars will amend this decision, which could mean attendance will be even less than allowed for by the event’s organisers.
In the wake of the Golden Globes, which experienced various technical issues and dodgy zoom feeds, it’s perhaps somewhat understandable why the Oscars would prefer to maintain the old ways, the tried and tested, pre-Covid era way of holding an awards show. Of course, the razzle and dazzle of an in-person event is unbeatable. However, this year is unlike any other year in the history of the Oscars.
To mandate in-person attendance could be seen as the Oscars being totally tone deaf and utterly insensitive to the individual realities that face many countries around the world. And it could come at the expense of unfairly excluding many nominees, who have dreamed of the prestige and status of being nominated and/or winning an Oscar throughout their careers, only to be denied some semblance of their rightful participation due to institutional inflexibility during an unprecedented time in the history of mankind.
