The fading relevancy of the Oscars

Well, the Oscar nominations are out next week.  I used to get excited, taking off the morning of the nominations and the day after the broadcast, that was when I saw a lot of movies.  I still go see a lot of movies, but there's not so much excitement over the Oscar festivities and it wasn't until I read an article in the NYT a week or so back that I full understood why that is; it's all about relevancy.  Have the Oscars become irrelevant?  Sure, it's a big night for Hollywood, but when it's all said and done, does anybody really care who wins?  I don't understand why anybody would want to give an award to a film nobody sees.  Case in point:  Neil Patrick Harris ran around in 2 pairs of tighty whities last year in what was supposed to be a good humored jab at "Birdman."  Nobody got the joke because nobody saw the movie, well, that's not totally correct.  Some people paid money to go see it, there just weren't that many.  In fact, "Star Wars:  The Force Awakens" made $15 million more in it's advanced Thursday showings then "Birdman's" total domestic gross through out it's entire run.  Now, there's some irrelevancy for you.
The sad truth of the matter is that the Oscar voters are desperately attempting to prove they have artistic integrity... and nobody cares.  Artsie fartsie is fine for film festivals, in fact, that's why people go to them unfortunately the majority of the movie going public doesn't really care about artsie fartsie.  Anyway, I've been thinking that perhaps the Academy should come up with another award and give it to the best artsie fartsie film.  That way they could give an award to the Best Documentary, Best Foreign Language, Best Artsie Fartsie, and save the Best Picture Award for the Best Picture.  Who cares if you get an award for a move nobody has any desire to go see?

Now, I know there are people out there who are going to complain "hey, I saw 'Birdman' and it was great."  Yeah, you and 4 million other people, 35 million people went to see "American Sniper."  So, if "Birdman" was so good, why didn't 38 million plunk down their $10 bucks for that film?  But then "American Sniper" isn't artsie fartsie, is it?  And that's what counts.