 where the Oscars ride around the corner on March 27th, we're going to be seeing films win and seeing films not win and seeing actors win and actors lose. And through the entire process, we're probably all just wondering how the Oscars even work. This is a common thing I see so many people talking about. People love to fight over who should win and who shouldn't win in a debate on who deserved that win and who didn't deserve that win. But at the end of the day, no one really knows how the voting system even works or how it even originated. Today, we're going to be talking about how it began, how it evolved and how it works. The Oscars were founded by Lewis B. Mayer. He was the studio chief of MGM in 1927 with 36 attendees from all corners of the industry. They all dined together to hear a proposal for the international motion picture of arts and sciences. About three years later in 1929, May 16th, we finally got the very first ever Oscars. And if that year seems all too familiar to you, that's because a little later in that year, the Great Depression began. There was 270 attendees and many wins, such as Wings for Best Picture, Janet Gaynor for Best Actress, and Frank Borzages for Best Director of a Dramatic Picture. After their first attempt in 1929, the Oscars began evolving and adding new categories every year. So from the 30s to 50s, we got a big shift in what was being celebrated at the Oscars. 1935, we have film editing, music scoring, and best song. 1937, best supporting actor and actress finally joined the crew. 1939, special effects was added. Remember, I am Oscar the ultimate glory in Hollywood success. 1941, documentaries take a seat at the table. 1949, costume design is there. 1956, foreign language finally steps up. By the 2000s, we finally added screenwriting, added in 1986. And in 2002, we finally added animated feature films. Thank you members of the Academy for inviting us to the party by creating this category to begin with. We have other evolutions in the sidelines of these categories being added. In 1966, the Oscars are now alive and in color. And in 1967, the Oscars are broadcasting internationally. When I say how the Oscars work, we're gonna be talking about the voting process. We're going to be talking about how films get nominated, how the voting process works, what it takes to get into the Academy and what it takes to actually win best picture or best actor. The Academy is just film industry people working in the industry currently or have a pretty good rep within the industry. The Academy by definition is film artists working in the production of theatrically released motion picture films. In other words, it's bitches who have connections. If you have connections, you can get into the Academy. To become a member of the actors branch, which it all kind of differs, I'm assuming there's a slight differentiation between each branch, but I'm pretty sure it's a similar concept for all. You have to apply in writing and you have to have two current members of that specific branch sign it to even qualify. Actors need three film credits and one of those films has to be released within the past five years. And that's all it really takes to qualify to be a part of the actors branch. And the only exception to this rule or so they say is if you're a nominee. So if you get nominated, you're basically an instant acceptance into the Academy. So I'm sure when Timothy Chalamet got nominated in for coming by your name, he didn't have to apply in writing or have it signed by two branch members to get accepted in the Academy. You just get an instant acceptance. And with the Academy that has almost 10,000 members, it's still lacking a lot of diversity with the 90% or more of every branch being white. Except the actors and writers branch, which is only 80% white. And to add on to that, men compose over 90% of five branches, including cinematography and visual effects. Now, although this is no surprise, it's just important to hear it in percentages because I think it makes it a lot more clear to people how white it is and how much of a lack of diversity the Oscars actually have, especially because they disguise it as the Academy. So no one really knows, or at least I didn't really know who the Academy was until recently. A lot of people think it's this like board of like members, like this like old like group of white men that like these five white men that just say, I like Green Book. I like Green Book. But it's really a lot of members but even with that many members, it's still lacking a lot of diversity. I personally think I would be less offended if it was like five members, but it's 10,000 members and it's still so white. These statistics are from a few years ago, but I can't imagine with only a couple hundred people being invited every year that it's changed that much. Okay, now that we talked about how the Academy works and what it takes to get into the Academy and how horrible the diversity is in the Academy, let's get into the nominations. So nominations are pretty simple. You have paper and online ballots, actors vote for actors, film editors vote for film editors and all members are eligible to vote for Best Picture. But when it comes to the final ballots, the final ballots of who to win, all members are eligible to vote for every category. So it's not actors voting for actors or film editors voting for film editors. Everyone votes on every single category. With Oscar wins such as Crash in 2008 over Brokeback Mountain or Green Book in 2019 over Roma, A Star's Born and Black Clansman, it begs the question if the Oscars are really fair, if these votes are really equal, as they say they are. I have a lot of questions for how the Oscars work and how these votes work, how did the votes get processed? Do they have a certain hierarchy within the Academy of certain votes counting more? Does it depend on how rich you are? Does it depend how old you are? What is their hierarchy? Are there votes that count more? I'm gonna try to explain how the Oscars work as simple as I can, like explaining Oscars for dummies because it took me a few reads to understand it, but that might just be because I'm dumb and not because you guys are dumb. A lot of the information that I found the Oscar stuff on is through either articles, which I will link in the description or just through the Oscar site. They actually have on the Oscar site the rules and regulations for the Oscars and that's more vital if you're going to apply, if you're gonna try to submit a film for the Oscars, but it has the simple rules of like, this is when you need to submit your film by, this is what qualifies as a feature film and this is what qualifies as a short film. It has kind of all those rules that you don't wanna read, which I read and I regret because it didn't do anything for me and it says all the things like cheating is forbidden, buying votes is forbidden, like all that kind of stuff, it says it, but I don't really believe that they regulate that at all. Like I feel like people are just paying for everything in there, like there's no way they're not. Like it's very hard to believe, but by the Oscars PDF file on their website, it says that it's strictly foreboding and that they don't cheat and no one cheats and it's a completely fair voting process, but that's what everyone says through literally every competition and every competition is flawed, so that's why you shouldn't really consider and base your value within wins or losses because pretty much every single competition out there is rigged and someone's paying to get higher than you. So here's how the Oscars work and I'm gonna be explaining it for best picture. It does vary for category to category, but I'm going to be explaining best picture because it's the one that everyone really cares about. Members are asked to rank the nominees from first to last. They take all the number one votes and they tabulate them. They calculate them and they see which films has the most amount of number one votes. Now you think that would be the end of it, right? I vote for number one. If my film gets the most amount of number one votes, then that's it. That means I win. That's a fair win, right? Well, that's not what they do. Unless a film reaches over 50% of number one votes, then they will continue to do a different process to calculate votes and we're gonna explain that. So most of the time there is not one film that reaches over 50% of number one votes. With 10 films, 10,000 members, you're not gonna get a film that reaches over 50% of number one votes. And this is just that good and this is just that good and not crazy that people just love it or whatever. So I wanna preface this before I move on with the rest of the explanation. You could have a film that has the most number one votes, but unless it's over 50%, they won't count that as a win. I know, I know, I know, I know. So if there isn't a film that has over 50% of the number one votes, they will take the film with the least amount of number one votes and remove it from the number one votes ranking. Then they take the ballots who had that film as number one, right? So the film that got removed, they're looking at the ballots that had that film as number one. And they look at their number two. And they look at their number two and their number twos become number ones. And with number two votes becoming number one votes, they also get added to the percentages of the already made ranking of the number one votes. So you could have a film that's third to last place in the best picture ranks of number one votes. If the ballots that don't have a number one film anymore and they have their number twos become number ones, if it's that third to last film, their ranking goes up because their number two votes get combined with their number one votes. And then it gets moved up in the ranking. So this means, this means this has nothing to do with what the best picture is. This has absolutely nothing to do with what the best picture is. Because if it was about what the actual best picture was, it would have just been a flat out vote and you would only resort to this voting system and this process, if it was a tie and if it was just way too close to consider it an outright win. But they only do it unless it's over 50% of number ones. It's absolutely absurd that this is their voting process and makes no sense to me because it's not even a competition. It's just to see what film is most agreed upon. It's not about who's the best at all. I would be so upset if I was the initial number one winner because you already had the percentage at the very beginning. If I do the first voting of number one votes and I have 35% and it's the most percentage and everyone's super far behind me, then I should be able to win. This whole process just favors voters agreeing with each other. It just becomes which film is the most agreeable to like and not which film is the best. This is why the Oscars don't work. This is why no one likes them and I don't know if this voting process has changed over the years. I don't know if it was a flat out just like this is how it is in the beginning. It probably was because what type of monster creates this voting system? It's absolutely flawed unless needed for a tie or a super close competition. You know what I mean? This is why it doesn't work. The Oscars don't work because it's a huge academy. It's 10,000 people in the academy. There's like no diversity within it. And then not to mention the voting process doesn't even make sense to actually have a true winner. It goes through these processes to make it like this weird like, oh right, okay, I guess this film should win. Like I guess we like narrowed it down to like this person should win. But it like doesn't even make any sense. Understanding how the voting process works and understanding even the qualifications to get into the academy, they're all, it's just messy and it just doesn't really rank on anything of credentials or talent or competition of who's the best. To get into the academy, it's like have three film credits and then like have two members of the branch that you know sign it. Today we saw how the Oscars began, how they evolved and how they work and how they don't. So this is the Oscar guides for dummies. Me the dummy, I'm the dummy. And I just taught you something which is very simple which we all could have done with a few Google searches but I did it and I'm making a video on it. And that makes me superior and that's why I should be invited to the Oscars next year. Invite me to the Oscars and let me interrogate the actors and ask if they know how the Oscars work. That's it for today guys. If you don't see me next week, that means they've gotten it. You don't hear from me soon after this video. That means they've gotten it. What if you're gonna get cheated? Subscribe if you wanna see more content from me. Leave down your favorite Oscar movie that's been nominated this year and let me know which movie from the Oscars you want me to do a movie commentary on and it better not be the one that wins because we all know that one's not the best. That's just the one that is most agreed upon. I will see you guys next time. Have a wonderful Oscar Sunday. Goodbye.