Not the best of all worlds

The Oscars and BAFTAs claim to be diverse. Are they?

A study shows that actors vying for the Oscars are more likely to win if they are American and portray themes that resonate with American culture. The same holds true for the BAFTA awards and British actors. These awards thus fall short of their claim to reward the best movies in the world, irrespective of where they are made.

Niklas K. Steffens, from the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland, and his colleagues analysed the distribution of awards since 1968 for Best Actor/ Actress in a leading role by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) and the same by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs).

They analysed 908 prize winners, comprising 97 winners and 383 nominees for the Oscars and 97 winners and 331 nominees for the BAFTAs.

The results published on February 5 in the

British Journal of Psychology showed that American actors dominated the awards, winning more than 50% of all prizes across both the awards. Actors, they found, were also more likely to win if they belonged to the same social group as the judges. This meant that American actors won 52% of all BAFTAs but 69% of all Oscars, while British actors won 18% of all Oscars but 34% of all BAFTAs.

“These results show that whether we see a given performance as extraordinary is not just a function of the objective quality of that performance,” Dr. Steffens said in a press statement. “For perceivers are much more likely to recognise a performance as truly brilliant when perceivers and performers share membership in a social group.”

The data also showed that a person’s nationality made a difference. For the Oscars, American actors received 67% of all nominations but 78% of all awards. At the BAFTAs, British actors won 31% of all nominations but 42% of all awards. Moreover, Dr. Steffens said, belonging to the same social group as the judges dramatically boosted actors’ chances of being rated as “outstanding” as opposed to merely “excellent”.

Another important determinant of success was the subject matter of the film. At the Oscars, American artists accounted for 26% of award winners who acted in films about non-American culture but for 88% of award winners whose performance was in films about American culture.

Apart from problematic notions of how to define American themes, it could very well be that the study’s results are skewed by many more American and British films being considered for nomination than international ones.