It happens every year, as sure as the changing of the seasons. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces their slate of nominations, and much to the good-natured chagrin of writer Michael Schulman, the irresolvable debate over whether the Oscars still matter is reignited. “I think the Oscars are a lot of fun!” the New Yorker staffer tells the Guardian. “It’s funny to me how people keep questioning the purpose of the Academy Awards; you never hear anyone doing that with the Super Bowl, you know? No one ever asks whether the Super Bowl is ‘important’. It’s enough to just be something people like that keeps happening!”
His new book Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears makes the case for Hollywood’s biggest night as more than a self-evident good time, however. In an exhaustively detailed history oriented around a dozen or so pivotal ceremonies, his astute analyses reveal these glam-a-paloozas to be telling case studies integral to understanding the past and gaining perspective on the present. In each telecast, campaign, snub and upset, students of show business can seemingly learn about everything: America’s shifting social mores, upper-echelon economics of the industry, the influence of new technologies. Touched by war, the red scare, counterculture, and the constant tug-of-war between liberalism and conservatism, the evolution of the Academy and its glitzy annual blowout doubles as a potted history of 20th-century politics.
