Oscar Voters Didn't Watch 12 Years A Slave But Still Voted For It

Not too long ago I wrote a little piece about songs for Academy Awards nominations. There were thousands of songs that had to be culled down to 100 or something like that which would then be culled to give you the songs you see nominated on Oscar night. Do you really think that voters are going to listen to a thousand songs to determine which is best? No. They look at the biggest names or biggest movies and go from that. Let me know when some great song from an indie film no one watched wins an Oscar. It isn't going to happen. Do you think voters watch all the films that are made each year to come up with the nominated ones? Nope. They watch the same number of movies you or I watch. Maybe a few more or a few less to even it all out. Why do you think there are so many ad dollars spent on trying to buy votes? Because the studios know that no one is watching the movies. How many people vote for a politician based on their record or their ads? Really? So you paid attention to that hotly contested school board race of sanitation district run-off or you saw an ad or heard a name. It is the same thing for Oscar voting. It shouldn't come as a surprise that voters didn't watch 12 Years A Slave even though they voted it for Best Picture. I think what is surprising is they are admitting it. They are using the excuse that the subject was too much for them to handle or too violent and they knew it was the kind of film that should win. How many people do you think watched Dallas Buyers Club? How many do you think knew that Matthew M got scary skinny for the role so he must have been good and voted based on that.