Can Anything Stop <em>Oppenheimer</em> at the Oscars?
Many recent winners have lacked mainstream appeal—but this year, that changes.
For years, the panicked question around the Academy Awards has been the same as the one bedeviling every other pop-cultural awards show: Does anyone even care anymore? With the broadcasts recording some of their worst-ever ratings in recent years, film viewership growing more diffuse in the streaming era, and the monoculture supposedly slipping away, the ramp-up to the Oscars is typically preceded by months of industry agita over how to appeal to a broader audience. After all, we’re only a few years removed from the absurd suggestion of an “Outstanding Popular category, multiple controversies over cutting from the broadcast, and something called the all anxiety-ridden nonsense in search of network TV’s mythic average Joes.
