On the plain meaning of rules

This evening, Peter Jackson's film "The Return of the King" won the Oscar for best picture, as had been widely predicted. SC has lost track of the number of articles he has read over the past two years arguing that of course each movie is/would be deserving of serious best picture consideration, but that since it would be unprecedented/unfair to give the prize to one of the earlier films and one of the later films, that Return of the King would win a sort of cumulative-achievement prize.

Nothing in the instructions for voting on the best picture award could really be construed to prohibit voters from taking that approach (the Academy is far more concerned with making sure that they can buy the statues back for a buck).

Contrast this with the vigorous debates in baseball on what the appropriate criteria are for voting for the rookie of the year (here's a good article about the controversy over J-League veterans) or most valuable player (which started out this way, and has also been the subject of a lot of controversy). The MVP award in particular has long been debated on account of whether it means "best overall statistics" or "valuable in the context of a team" (SC's favorite baseball writer had a good column last year on how this debate has kept the execrable but deserving Alex Rodriguez from winning; it was written before Mr. Rodriguez, in fact, won).

Despite all the links to the Internet Movie Database, the home-theater obsession, and the occasional comments about the writing style of Variety, SC is not actually all that tuned-in to what has been written by movie critics about the philosophy of the best picture award. Given that comedies just about never win, the rule seems to be something like "movie which is at least vaguely serious and is a good example of the technical craft of moviemaking, so long as it doesn't feature an embarrassingly bad script or wooden acting although we'll make an exception for those last two as long as it brings in $1 billion".

Now, SC's considered opinion on the subject is that if he could only give the best picture award to one of the three films, it would be Fellowship of the Ring. This year's nominees were perhaps weaker than the competitors of the last two years, but: 1) nobody could have known/thought that at the time, and 2) if the phrase "best picture released during the year of 2003" is to be assumed to refer to that movie which is in fact the movie believed by the voters to be the best movie released in 2003, then implicitly making the vote a referendum on past years dilutes the credibility of the award.

Of course, debating over how seriously to take the Oscars or the baseball MVP awards is something of a frivolity. However, SC thinks that there is something to be said for making the premises of "best X" or "X of the year" clear and open to public scrutiny. Some baseball writers won't vote for pitchers as MVP candidates, on the grounds that they're not everyday players, and to their credit, publicly acknowledge that they are imposing their own rules which are not part of the official definition. Others may do the same thing, but not acknowledge it. Over time, partisans of losing candidates then have recourse to the argument that their guy/movie didn't win, not because someone else was more deserving, but because the rules were really being misinterpreted. How many entertainers and critics are thinking tonight, "Well, I don't think they should have won, but this year's award carries an asterisk?" The critics knew better than to give Godfather III a best-picture nod just because it was sequel to two deserving films (at least they got it right once); why shouldn't the Lord of the Rings movies be paid the same compliment of being taken seriously?

Comments

[language hat]

Of course, debating over how seriously to take the Oscars or the baseball MVP awards is something of a frivolity.

Now, wait a minute, pal, them's fightin' words. The Oscars are purely and simply an excuse for a big industry party and a reward for people who spend big bucks and go along with the system (aside from the minor awards like Best Foreign-Language Film, and if you want to see a set of arcane and stupid rules, check those out sometime); to take the "Best Picture" award as having anything to do with real-world meanings of the word "best" is folly. The MVP, on the other hand, is serious, and aside from actual stats is one of the better ways to get a handle on the qualities of players before our time. Those voters know and care about the quality of baseball players, regardless of how they may weight for playing on contending teams. And now we get to my real question, which is: What do you mean by calling Rodriguez "execrable"? Like everyone else, I was appalled by his move to Texas and hoped he'd live to regret it, but it's hardly his fault that the owner waved huge bundles of cash in his face; would you have chosen differently? And like every non-Yankee fan, I'm appalled by his move to New York, but that was pretty much foreordained once Boston (alas, poor Boston) failed to get the deal done, and again, it's not his fault. I've heard nothing to indicate that he's a rotten human being. So, nu?

[language hat]

(I take as a given that he's the best hitter in the game, and has been for some time.)

[Semantic Compositions]

It's been a while since A-Rod's original move to Texas, so I don't claim to remember the exact terms he turned down to re-sign with Seattle, but my recollection is that the contract they offered would have made him #1 or #2 in pay anyways, which is hardly a sign of disrespect (and nobody had any idea at the time that Ken Griffey Jr. was about to completely tank his career).

At the time, though, A-Rod made a big show of claiming that it wasn't just about the money, and that somehow he'd also have a chance to win in Texas. That's ridiculous. Every time athletes say "it's not about the money", we know that's all it's about, which is hardly an observation original to me. A-Rod had to know, though, that by taking such a large contract, he was greatly restricting the ability of the Rangers to make improvements at any other position, and we've seen that they haven't been contenders since (although they did blow a lot of money on bad pitching before deciding the budget was unsustainable). To me, this indicates an attitude of gross selfishness towards his teammates (never mind the owners, they offered it).

But I wouldn't feel the way I do about A-Rod if he hadn't gotten whiny about it. Months ago, he started making noise about how maybe trading him would be best for the team, and that he was frustrated with losing. I think it's wrong to be sympathetic with him on the latter point, because he knowingly and freely chose losing in exchange for that contract. The whole "it would be best for the team" thing struck me as merely the good-cop half of a negotiating ploy; his agent must have been calling Tom Hicks every day and making suggestions about dogging it a la Roger Clemens' last season in Boston.

I wholly believe in free markets, and the right of the players to demand whatever salaries they want. However, if a player won't settle for less than taking up 1/4~1/3 of a team's payroll, then they ought to recognize that complaints from them about not being competitive are undignified. As another example, out in L.A., Shaq is demanding a contract extension so high that even if Kobe leaves, the Lakers won't have any salary cap space available to pursue other free agents. This doesn't bother me much, since I'm not a Lakers fan, but I would think that Shaq would at least recognize that his priorities include making his team less competitive -- and that then he would also shut up and stop complaining about the fact that the Lakers aren't as good this season as they have been in the past.

It's not that I've heard any stories about A-Rod kicking puppies, or taking lollipops from little kids. And I don't think he's ever been implicated in any of the usual athlete scandals involving drugs, alcohol, women or fast cars. But whining about a situation which was entirely predictable when you freely chose to do something is pathetic. With 7 years left on his contract, demanding to be traded struck me as an act of bad faith -- if he didn't want to lose for so long, he shouldn't have signed up for it, and that's why A-Rod doesn't impress me much as a person.

I do agree with your comment that he's the best hitter in the game, which is why I called him "execrable but deserving".

[language hat]

I agree with the tenor of your comments, but I would argue that the applicable adjective is "human" rather than "execrable." Unless you're absolutely sure you'd have turned down a hundred million bucks (or whatever the relevant excessive figure is), you should be careful with your condemnations -- and if you are sure, you're a better man than I. (Remember, he wasn't demanding anything -- the Texas owner chose to offer far more than was on the table elsewhere.) And although it certainly is graceless to whine about being on a losing team after you've eaten up all the available cash, again I judge that to be a normal human failing in an athlete who cares desperately about winning. I try to reserve adjectives like "execrable" for the likes of Pete Rose and Bud Selig.