When Oscar goes black (“There Will Be Blood,” “No Country For Old Men”) or young (“Juno”) people are cool with it, but when Oscar fails to recognize super heroes, genre films and or old people remember to vote again this year, well hell, the shit hits the fan. Especially with the uber-popular ‘Dark Knight’ and its obsessive and scary fans. You’ll remember ‘TDK’ fans practically put a hit on New York Magazine’s David Edelstein for having the temerity to give the crime caper a “negative” review even though none of them had even seen the film yet (funny that). Well, now they’ve pretty much flipped their wig again.
The Dark Campaign takes major umbrage with the Oscar nom outcome and they’re so upset by ‘Dark Knight’ not scoring a Best Picture (or director) nomination they claim they “won’t be watching the Oscars this year.” Sid Ganis could not be reached for comment.
“Maybe fans should have seen it coming,” they sadly wrote. ” ‘The Dark Knight,’ after all, does not have a happy ending.” Ah yes, and the uplifting ‘Reader’ is such a ray of light in its conclusion too (or ‘Button’ – main character dies, “nothing lasts forever” theme bashed over your head one more time – or “Milk” – main character assassinated by a hate monger). Apparently a $billion-plus in receipts is not award enough.
Genre-friendly sites like Cinematical, and Film School Rejects are also up in arms. FSR calls this year’s Oscar nominations, “the most boring ever!” and “predictable” for snubbing the Batman flick (actually wasn’t that a surprise to pretty much everyone?). Cinematical wrote a rather, ahem, “funny” take on “The Wrestler” lyrics to convey their sadness over the Academy’s “failure” to nominate Darren Aronofsky’s film, ‘Dark Knight’ and many others. AICN cause the slighting, “an absolute travesty.”
Comicbookmovie.com eloquently says the Academy, “prove themselves out of touch with the masses by fanatically promoting gay films and boring crap nobody ever sees.” Wait, so we normally want the most popular mainstream films to be rewarded? Gotcha.
Even non-geeks/award fetishists were upset. InContention posted a “sham” Oscar picture in protest of the ‘Dark Knight’s snub which led their Oscar nom predictions to be wildly off this year. “The Horror, the horror,” they cried.
However, even some within the geek community were semi-OK with the snub. “Yes, millions of nerds bitterly wept and gnashed their teeth because there will be no Oscar-nominated Batman movie. While I do take some joy in this since I don’t think ‘The Dark Knight’ is Best Picture material, I would much rather see it contending than the film that replaced it, ‘The Reader,’ wrote Collider.
Some commenters on the Dark Campaign do have one thing right. The lack of ‘TDK’ (all though 8 nominations is a lot!) in the two primary categories could cost Oscar ratings, but then again, once the kids get over their initial anger, they’ll probably tune in to at least see how Nolan’s film fares, no? And this is just day one, presumably it’s only going to get louder and worse from here. Do we smell an Oscar watching boycott campaign in the works?
In staunch protest, Dark Campaigners are probably going to see ‘Dark Knight’ twice more when it’s re-released in theaters tomorrow. Take that Academy!
All we’re saying is you can’t have it both ways. The Oscars aren’t cool when they nominate your movies and lame when they don’t. The Oscars are a weird popularity contest of another sort. One that doesn’t necessarily honor and award the most popular and mainstream film of the year like “The Dark Knight.” Don’t forget, the film will get its rightful due at the MTV Movie Awards. There’s always the Kids Choice Awards, right? Really guys, Why so serious?
