I’ve been writing about the Oscars for over 26 years. I got online in 1994, had a baby in 1998, and built a website, Oscarwatch.com, in 1999. I was the first “Oscar blogger” online. Over the next few decades, an industry would bloom around me. We’ve already lived through the rise and fall of Oscar blogs. They were great while they lasted, but eventually, the entire game was consumed by corporate monopolies. Jay Penske bought Indiewire, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Gold Derby, and Deadline.
Last year, after Rebecca Keegan’s hit piece about me in the Hollywood Reporter, wherein she went to everyone in the awards community and asked them what they thought about me and what I’d been saying online, Pete Hammond wrote to Tom O’Neil, or so the story goes, and asked what to do about me, this accused and condemned witch they’d known for many years. The answer? They would “bench” me for the season.
When I was the only pundits to predict Sean Baker to win the DGA, I was sort of vindicated. That’s what happens when you get rid of people like me. You lose that 1% of dissent, which is necessary to be able to see the bigger picture.
To their credit, the Critics Choice did not kick me out, as they’d done to Jeffrey Wells after he posted something the hive mind deemed “unacceptable.” He deleted it but it didn’t matter. Team Fragility felt too “unsafe” and so Jeff had to go. His politics align with theirs, but no matter. The Hive Mind has spoken.
So what you do when you cancel or purge or exile people like us, you create a monoculture, which mandates conformity and silences dissent, aka, fascism. Ironic, ain’t it? I was so disgusted by what Gold Derby did to me I decided never to go back. I’ve not been thrilled with how most of them have been behaving at this moment of polarization and division that has hit Hollywood hard.
But just because a lot of writers worked for this site should not have meant they had to go start their own site to salvage their reputations. This should not be happening in Hollywood — which is supposedly the central hub for free thought and tolerance. Oh, my dudes, it’s anything but.
The truth is, I should have quit. I should have said, This isn’t a good use of my time anymore. However, I continue to run this site because I still have readers who value it, and because the two writers on the site, Scott Kernen and Jeremy Jentzen, appreciate the opportunity to write and promote their work. I also hope to use my voice to shake the tree because it desperately needs shaking.
Things have changed so much that all of the fun has been taken out of it. It wasn’t the studios, publicists, or film festivals that have mostly wrecked what used to be a thriving ecosystem of free thought. No, it’s the groupthink and the hive mind that have devolved into a fascist-like mandate that have crippled open-minded debate and free thought.
Fascism is a system where everyone is bound together in a common purpose. It can be nationalistic, for the state, but it can also lead to groupthink and a monoculture that treats anyone who thinks differently, votes differently, or holds a different opinion on movies and culture. That is strictly verboten inside the hive mind that now dominates award season.
There are so many pundits on Gold Derby, and yet, very few who are there because they know the Oscars well enough to be called “experts.” The rest of them are just there. Why? If they are all a monoculture, if all of them think exactly the same way, why would that be helpful to anyone for any reason? Building a consensus is different from predicting a consensus, which is why all of them — 100% did not predict Sean Baker would win the DGA.
If dissent is not allowed, if there is no such thing as tolerance, then how can ideas flourish? How can there even be a creative process? Why would anyone want to read something that is under the thumb of the thought police?
The Awards Expert App is one I’ve been promoting on this site every Friday, as I believe it offers a good alternative to Gold Derby. And while I still think it’s a well-designed app that is useful for several reasons, namely that it lists all the contenders in one easy-to-access place, which is helpful. However, an incident involving Jeremy Jentzen has occurred that I find disturbing.
They have a new feature that allows users to post and comment. I would never do that because it’s like Oscar Race in Reddit. I already know that they know me and that I am, to them, an accused and condemned witch, so I could just write “Hi everyone,” and they would run screaming for the hills. But Jeremy thought he would participate in the Awards Expert app, so he wrote the following comment:
That is what one might call a “hot take,” and it runs counter to the groupthink and mandated approval and love for One Battle After Another. The film is very popular, with an A Cinemascore, a very high RT score, and a decent audience rating. But is not one dissenting opinion allowed? Apparently not, his post was “censored.”
When he asked the Awards Expert designer, it’s “Brother Bro” Justin Jaeger, he told him that the algorithm responds if more people report the post than like it, and in that case, it’s “censored.” He told him if he wanted to post things that might “upset” Lord of the Flies, then he could post on X. He didn’t say Lord of the Flies, of course, but you get the drift.
Perhaps TikTok employs the same algorithm to prevent certain posts from being shared, as it tends to showcase content that users prefer to see. Okay, fine. That’s TikTok with millions of users. The Awards App has approximately 5,000 users and is likely growing. TikTok is entertainment. The Awards Expert App is theoretically how you figure out what will win Best Picture. At the moment, they’ve concluded the race over.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe the race can be called in September. I think it’s the frontrunner, and that puts a target on its back, but how would you ever know that if the only opinions you allow in are ones that back up what you already believe? Had any of them read my site last year, they would know why Anora was the one. I explained why every time I wrote my predictions piece.
We saw this last year with The Brutalist when it was verboten to criticize it for whatever reason. You would be ostracized and screamed at, or called out on X with a sneering, condescending tweet. And yet, if you could not talk about the problems of that movie, you would never know why people would not finish watching it or not vote for it. So, people kept predicting it, and I thought, ‘No way, man.’
Oscar voters don’t like being forced to vote for a movie by critics, by bloggers, or by fans. The more you pressure them to do what you want them to do, the less likely they are to do it. Take it from me, I’ve been trying to force them into voting a certain way for years. It has never worked.
The reason Anora won, by the way, was that it wasn’t a film about right now. It was a film that existed in its own world, and anyone was invited in to follow these characters on this adventure. It did not exclude anyone with specific beliefs (unless you dislike films with profanity and sex). It told a universal story that anyone could sit down in front of and they would get it, if not, love it.
This was true of every Best Picture winner I can think of, with the possible exception of Everything, Everywhere All At Once. However, even that movie existed in its own universe with its own set of rules. The methods of storytelling were off-putting for some, but the idea of Michelle Yeoh’s character on an adventure as the person she might have been (I think that’s the story) was universal in its own way.
One Battle After Another is not universal. It is partisan. It might be a good movie, a well-made one, but it is very political and one-sided in its approach to politics. It is a “weapon” against half the country. I’ve seen people say in reviews, “It was okay, but it pisses off the right people, so I’m happy.” And that says it all. One assumes the industry is as unified and partisan as Film Twitter. Maybe it is. However, you must be open to dissenting views, or it will be difficult to see clearly.
What makes the film Hamnet my own prediction right now is that it exists in its own world and tells a universal story that anyone can sit down in front of and understand, if not love. Do I know for sure it will win in September? Absolutely not. Even after the Golden Globes hand out their winner, we won’t know. We have to see what the Producers Guild will do. And by the way, that’s why the budget matters in this case. Producers typically prefer movies that don’t require a large budget to produce.
But you’ll never be able to untangle the race or predict it if you do not allow people to tell the truth. You will be lost in fascist groupthink where a contrary opinion is “censored” because the users want to dominate the conversation and force one opinion. You’ll tell yourselves what you want to be true, and you’ll suppress the truth.
Here are two people discussing the movie from the perspective of the real world – how people talk when they aren’t being policed – maybe you agree, maybe you don’t.
You can discuss the movie on its own merits. It is not God. It is not a weapon against the Trump administration, no matter how much you’d like it to be. It is theoretically art, no? However, either way, predicting the Oscars requires examining both the flaws and the strengths.
I’ve been running a comment section or forums for years. It’s never been easy. People are always hostile, especially now. I’ve always had to ban and delete. Most of the time, I take a hands-off approach and only pay attention if someone alerts me that things are really bad. Over and over again throughout the years, the users have attempted to take over this site. I have stubbornly refused to hand it over to them. You can’t lead by following.
Jeremy has kindly taken over loose moderator duties for the moment and is actually quite tolerant — far more than I would be if I wanted to take the time to police the comments. Ryan Adams used to do it, but he, like everyone else, has fled the site. And so it goes. And so here we still sit. We try to keep the forum mostly open, but we don’t tolerate abuse.
I’m guessing the Awards App will eventually be sold to some corporate monopoly, and it’s good for the Jaeger bros to have made good on their love of the Oscar race. But just don’t be 1984.
Don’t allow your sites to become a monoculture, not just because it’s boring, but because it will lead to a place where everyone gets it wrong, as everyone must follow the rules to be allowed in.
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By: Sasha Stone
Title: Fascism and Groupthink in the Awards Community
Sourced From: www.awardsdaily.com/2025/09/27/fascism-and-groupthink-in-the-awards-community/
Published Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2025 15:13:03 +0000
