Oscars 2022: Nominations for the 94th Academy Awards, or the Oscars, were revealed last week, and now, merely days later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that another category is set to be added for the Oscars this year. And this one is likely to be of interest to the general public in the run-up to the coveted film awards. The category that is going to be added is called the fan-favourite film. The voting for this category would be thrown open to the audiences and not just remain limited to the members of the Academy, as is true for other categories.
With this, audiences and fans will be able to vote for their favourite movies. The votes for the same can be cast either by the use of the hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite and #Sweepstakes on Twitter or by going to a special website created for the purpose and voting for their favourite film there. While audiences can vote till March 3, the title that wins would be revealed only during the 2022 Oscars ceremony on March 27.
However, as checked by financialexpress.com, the feature to vote on the website is not available in India, which means that only people in certain geographical areas are targeted for this. According to the official rules shared for this category on the Oscars Fan Favourite website, the voting, at least via the website, is limited to legal residents of the fifty states of the US and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands. Only those who are at least 18 years old or reached the age of majority in the particular area of jurisdiction (if older than 18 years) at time of entry can vote.
In fact, the votes from users residing at places where the voting is prohibited or restricted by law would be considered void. It is not yet clear how this would be carried out for Twitter, though.
Usually, the decision of winners of the Academy Awards is restricted to the around 9,000 members of the Academy, and the audience does not play any role in this matter. However, this year, there has been a lot of vocal response over the fact that many populist movies and titles, like Spider-Man: No Way Home, have been excluded from the nominations. Hence, the inclusion of a new category might have been The Academy’s way of including the audience in the process, while also trying to gain some more eyeballs for the ceremony by involving fan favourites in the process. The viewership of the apex film awards has been declining over the past few years, with the 2021 Oscars ceremony having been the least-watched one since the beginning of official calculation of metrics.
