My favourite movie of 2024 is Look Back. It’s an animated film about two girls who draw comics together, discovering the strength and resilience of art along the way. It was my top movie of the year by a long shot, so I was dismayed that it got zero recognition at the 97th Academy Awards — no nominations whatsoever. I wasn’t too surprised, though. The Academy has always been an Americentric institution, which doesn’t bode well for a somewhat obscure Japanese animation. But Look Back’s snub made me wonder what other animated movies had been ignored throughout the Oscars’ lengthy history. As it turns out, the Academy has a problem with animation: one that goes deeper than an obscure movie getting snubbed here and there.
One look at the Wikipedia page for animated Oscars nominees makes it abundantly clear that the Academy doesn’t respect animation. Animated films rarely get nominated for any awards outside their designated categories of Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film (the two exceptions being Best Score and Best Original Song). While I would like to see more animations nominated for awards like Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, it’s understandable that the medium is too unique to go head-to-head with live-action films in these categories. What bugs me, though, is the complete lack of foreign animated nominations in any category. Only about 20 foreign films have been nominated in the 24-year history of the Best Animated Feature category, a clear sign of the Oscars’ Americentricism. Worse yet, only three foreign animations have ever been nominated for a non-animation category — Flee (2021) for Best International Feature and Best Documentary Feature, Flow (2024) for Best International Feature, and The Triplets of Belleville (2003) for Best Original Song.
This leads us to the Academy’s next major issue with animation: the Disney bias. Disney produces the vast majority of animated nominees for any award. 15 of the 24 Best Animated Feature winners were made by Disney. I understand that animation would not exist as it does today without Disney’s influence. However, the field has grown significantly since the days of Steamboat Willie (1928). Current animation is a diverse medium with incredible depth in its storytelling. It feels unfair that one studio, no matter how significant, should have an effectively guaranteed nomination any year they put out a film. This goes for non-Disney American animations as well. Are you really telling me that the Academy, with all its wisdom and resources, could not find a more deserving movie than Shark Tale to take a spot in the 2004 race? I understand there are far fewer animations than live-action features produced yearly, but this just feels lazy.
2017 saw the single most egregious example of Americentricism costing a foreign movie its due recognition. 2017’s Best Animated Feature nominees included the prestigious ranks of such movies as Ferdinand and, better yet, The Boss Baby. For those not in “the know” when it comes to high art, The Boss Baby is about a baby who wears a business suit and speaks with the voice of a grown man — a novel concept, to be sure — possibly even Oscar-worthy. But at the risk of falling into pretension, let me tell you about another animated film that might just surpass The Boss Baby in its cultural relevance and artistic merit.
A Silent Voice is a 2016 Japanese coming-of-age film directed by visionary filmmaker Naoko Yamada and animated by Kyoto Animation. It follows Shouya, a teenage boy who relentlessly bullied his deaf classmate, Shouko, in elementary school. Years later, Shouya himself became a victim of bullying and fell into depression as a result. In an effort to repent, he reconnects with Shouko. A Silent Voice delicately tackles topics like bullying, anxiety, and children with disabilities. It confronts harsh realities; it’s biting, yet soft. Its animation is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And, according to the Academy, it is less deserving of an award than The Boss Baby. My movie of 2024, Look Back, is another similar case (although 2024 thankfully didn’t have a Boss Baby analog in the running). Notably, only one non-Studio Ghibli Japanese animation has ever been nominated for Best Animated Feature: Mirai in 2018 — odd for a country with such a prolific animation scene.
Don’t get me wrong — I (mostly) don’t hate The Boss Baby. It’s a wonderful kids’ movie. I enjoyed it when I watched it as an 11-year-old. But therein lies the problem. In the Academy’s eyes, “animation” equals “for kids.” See anonymous 2015 Academy Voter #5’s comment:
“I only watch the ones that my kid wants to see, so I didn’t see [The] Boxtrolls… The biggest snub for me was Chris Miller and Phil Lord not getting in for [The] Lego [Movie]. When a movie is that successful and culturally hits all the right chords and does that kind of box-office — for that movie not to be in over these two obscure freakin’ Chinese fuckin’ things that nobody ever freakin’ saw? That is my biggest bitch.”
Also look to Voter #7, who put it more succinctly:
“Frankly, I didn’t see any of them.”
So, some Academy members don’t even watch every animated nomination. Some just don’t believe that foreign animations are worth seeing. This kind of attitude is why movies like A Silent Voice get snubbed, and movies like The Boss Baby are praised. This is troubling, not just because of the blatant racism, but also because The Oscars are supposed to be an authority on the best films of any given year. How can viewers put any stock in this institution when it blatantly ignores works of art that undeniably merit discourse?
There is hope, though. 2024 saw Flow, an independent Latvian film, win Best Animated Feature. It even beat out titans like Pixar and Dreamworks on the way to its award. This is a step in the right direction. Maybe one day, the Academy will wake up and give animation the respect it deserves — before another Boss Baby sneaks its way in.