Do you pay attention to the Oscars? Do you request the day off of work just so you can sit in front of the TV and watch the red carpet roll out? Do you care about who wins best picture? Whether or not you love cinema as much as sexy gypsy does, the Oscars don’t appeal to everyone. Some people don’t watch the Superbowl. Some people don’t read. But whatever your taste, you can’t deny that cinema, along with sports, politics, music, and literature, molds our society.

When I was younger, my parents showed me a printout they got right after I was born. It was essentially everything that happened in society the year I was born. In 1984, Ronald Reagan was President. The Apple Macintosh came out as the first computer to use a mouse. The Detroit Tigers took the World Series, and the LA Raiders took the Superbowl (my, how things change). Prince’s When Doves Cry was at the top of the charts. And Amadeus won best picture at the Oscars.

But what happens when these defining moments are erroneous? In 2006, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Superbowl. Despite being biased (Sea-Town for life, bitches!), most of us can agree that shitty reffing shafted the ‘hawks. We all remember Presidential elections that were…questionable. And we all remember when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry were given large, gold, naked man-shaped reparations.

If you didn’t know, 2010 is a milestone year for the Oscars. Not because there’s so many good movies out; just the opposite actually. This year has been pretty shitty for mainstream movies, and the Academy couldn’t have picked a worse year to nominate 10 instead of the usual 5 films for Best Picture. So, for the first time in memorable history, dumb-dick movies like Precious and The Blind Side are in contention against real films like Inglourious Basterds and The Hurt Locker.

But it’s also a milestone year of bullshit. A producer from The Hurt Locker decides to drink and type, dramatically diminishing his film’s chances. Borat gets cut from the presenter rotation because James Cameron has feelings (in full length 3-D no less). And now, they’ve changed the way the Best Picture Winner is calculated.

I only learned about this yesterday, and I’m pretty pissed about it. It goes like this: in the past, the 5 nominees for best picture show up on the voting ballot, and the one with more than 50% of the votes is the winner. Simple, right? Not this year. This year, rather than simply voting for one film, the academy voters were asked to rank all 10 nominees in order of preference. This would make sense if they were using any kind of point system. Instead, they are using a runoff system. This means the ballots will be separated based on their number-one selections. After the first round, the film with the least number-one spots gets eliminated, and those ballots will be thrown back into the mix based on the number two film. This will continue until a clear winner is identified.

So what does this mean for the history-making 2010 Oscars? It means that liberal guilt, indifference, and family values will push Precious, Up, The Blind SIde, and The Hurt Locker to the top, while the more esoteric nominees (Inglourious Basterds, A Serious Man, District 9) will get pushed to the bottom. Now, I don’t want Avatar to win any awards this year any more than you do. But the fact that disgruntled voters angry about Avatar’s “hidden political messages” or usurping of Gone With the Wind as the top-grossing film of all time will turn an over-saturated list into a political landslide. Uncool. Not only that, but after certain “emails” begging voters to give it to The Hurt Locker, many voters actually asked for their ballots back. I doubt any of them got it, but you can see what this could mean for the future.

Here at sexy gypsy, we’ve been “iffy” about the Oscars for several years now. But with this new system, and all the bullshit surrounding the nominees, this could very well be the last year we cover these awards. Tune in later today for our live Oscar blog, and enjoy the ceremonies. But for the record, we’re calling “shenanigans” on the Academy.

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