The 2023 award season is near its end, and the 95th Oscars ceremony just aired. This was also the first ceremony since the infamous Will Smith slap. However, while that was the moment that made the rounds on Twitter, that was probably the only moment people want to remember from that broadcast, and it sets a bad precedent for future ceremonies.

The first sign of trouble was when they announced that some awards would not be in the live broadcast to shorten the runtime. However, it was on the longer side compared to other broadcasts, with not a single award given out for the first 30 minutes.

The awards that had been cut from the main program were edited back enduring post-production, which is ironic given one of the awards they had to edit was the best editing, which was done incredibly blatantly. This practice implies that the categories that have to be edited back in are of lesser importance than the others, even though without sections like editing, which a movie can’t be made without. It is a disservice to all the people working in already underappreciated categories.

Another bad trend that should stop is the disrespect for animation. Now, this wasn’t exclusive to the 2022 broadcast, but it was especially evident there.

The first display of disrespect was how they presented the Best Animated Feature award. The presenters for the award were Halle Bailey, Lily James, and Naomi Scott, who all played, or are going to play, the live-action remake versions of Ariel, Cinderella, and Jasmine respectively. The movie that ended up winning was “Ecanto,” a highly popular Disney animated movie.

What really got people mad was the speech before the award was given out. The three actresses gave an opening speech that basically boiled down to them saying animated movies are for kids to rewatch endlessly and for parents to get tired of, even though one of the nominees that year was a part of “Flee,” an adult animated documentary about refugees. 

This notion devalues animation as an art form and labels it as kids’ movies. If you’re going to label every animated movie for kids only, you might as well nominate “Paw Patrol: The Movie.”

Luckily, these problems were rectified this year. There was a whole speech dedicated to how animation is cinema and there were no cut entries, which was a nice surprise. Let’s just hope that these aren’t temporary fixes.