With the 83rd Academy Awards coming up next Sunday, the film community at Penn is already abuzz.
Students and faculty gathered for a panel titled “And the Oscar Goes To …” in Houston Hall on Wednesday to discuss this year’s nominees.
The panel featured lecturer in cinema studies Meta Mazaj, associate professor of English and cinema studies Peter Decherney and professor of English and cinema studies Timothy Corrigan.
“We never quite know what to think about the Oscars as film scholars,” said Decherney, prompting a discussion about the Oscars’ origins, controversies and awarding process. The conversation’s spotlight quickly shifted to the heart of the event — the Oscars as a profit-driven enterprise supported by industry. “The Oscars is about money, about industry,” said Corrigan, the panel’s self-referential “Mr. Cynical.”
“Everything’s about a buzz,” he added. “Producers don’t just sit back and cross their fingers. There’s a lot of money behind [the marketing].”
Mazaj elaborated: “It’s exposure. The Oscars create exposure.”
After a brief question and answer session, the panel weighed in on their bets for this year’s winners. Decherney claimed Toy Story 3 as Best Picture, while Mazaj voted for The King’s Speech and Corrigan guessed The Social Network. The panel was quick to say that their guesses did not strictly follow their personal preferences. “You don’t have to see films to know what’s going to win,” Corrigan said.
Decherney elaborated, “The greatest compliment you can get is to be nominated but not win.”
While the event hosted movie scholars and addicts alike, the event also gathered the casual moviegoers of Penn’s community. As second-year School of Arts and Sciences graduate student Thomas Lamkin said, “I’m not a huge movie buff, but it was very interesting and informative.”
Students were quick to apply the discussion to their own courses, like Liberal and Professional Studies senior Sarah Davis, who is studying the state of film criticism in a communication class. “It was an enlightening experience.”
The panel was one of a series titled “Knowledge by the Slice,” sponsored by SAS. The series aims to “get people from the Penn community to hear from the faculty who wouldn’t normally have the chance,” SAS spokeswoman Loraine Terrell said. The next of the series will be hosted in March.
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