The nominees for the 95th Academy Awards were recently
announced this past Tuesday and I (and many ONTDers) was surprised when white Michelle Williams was nominated in the "Lead Actress" category for her role in The Fablemans. In The Fablemans, Michelle plays the main characters mom and has 52 minutes of screentime total. The entire movie is 152 minutes. Some film people are arguing because her character is so integral to the plot, she should be counted as a lead, and putting her in the supporting category would be the real "category fraud".
I wasn't convinced but it lead me to research more about "category fraud" and how it has been running rampant at Oscars for decades now. I stumbled on this great vanity fair
article which really highlights how inconsistent the nominations for the acting categories are. The source from the vanity fair article eventually wrote up all the inconsistencies he found in a tweet thread (highly recommend reading this thread):
I’ve officially compiled a list of every Oscar-nominated performance that I believe to be a case of category fraud.
As it stands, there are 122 (out of the 1661 performances nominated since the introduction of the supporting categories). I’ll be posting 1 per day in this thread. pic.twitter.com/kqOYmJyrE3
— Matthew Stewart (@MatthewAStewart) August 23, 2020
Less screen time doesn't necessarily mean a role is supporting or vice versa, but there have been some very questionable nominations over the years. I compiled some more examples from the thread for ONTDs viewing pleasure:
Anthony Hopkins: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)Won Best Actor, some argue he should've been supporting
Screentime: 24:52
Despite his limited screen time, I actually think he was put in the right category. Although I'm having trouble articulating why right now lol
Frances McDormand & William H. Macy: Fargo (1996) “The first one I timed was Fargo,” Stewart said. He found that Frances McDormand, who won best actress for the film, appeared in 27.01% of the Joel and Ethan Coen classic. William H. Macy, who ran in the best-supporting-actor category and lost, appeared in 27.66% of the same film.Jake Gyllenhall: Brokeback Mountain (2005)nominated for supporting, should've been lead
Screen time: 58:09 / 43.29%
One of the more blatant "category fraud" examples in recent years. He was the co-star in the movie lol, this was obviously a play to have a better shot at winning.
Meryl Streep: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)Nominated for Best Actress, DEFINITELY should've been supporting
Screen time: 28:39 / 26.22%
She's not the main character and has less than 30 minutes of screen time, why tf was she nominated in the lead category lmfao
Christoph Waltz: Django Unchained (2012)Won Best Supporting Actor, technically should've been in the "lead" actor category
Screen time: 40.12%
I’ve seen this argument used too liberally, but it needs to be said about Schultz: There is no story without him, mainly because he leads a great deal more of the action than Django himself.Emma Stone: The Favourite (2018)“The biggest ones are Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz too, in The Favourite,” he said. “I think Emma Stone is inexcusable. It’s not explainable at all; she’s just the lead.”
For what it’s worth, the numbers back that up: Stone, who was a supporting-actress nominee for The Favourite, appeared in 48.03% of the Yorgos Lanthimos costume comedy, far ahead of fellow supporting-actress nominee Weisz (35.9%) as well as eventual best-actress winner Olivia Colman (41.72%). Beyond that, Stewart argued, the film is centered on Stone’s character’s perspective: she is the audience’s entry point into the story, and her descent is where the film concludes.TLDR: The Academy needs to actually define what criteria constitutes a "lead role" instead of allowing people to slide into categories where they feel like they have a better chance of winning or being nominated. Read the tweet thread and visit his website for more info:
https://www.screentimecentral.com/leading-actress-oscar-nomineesSOURCEONTD, can you think of other examples of Oscar "category fraud"? What do you think categorizes a performance as lead vs. supporting? https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/125177085.html