In 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held, and it took a speedy 15 minutes, honouring the film industry\u2019s brightest stars as quickly as they could, presumably so that everyone could spend the rest of the evening partying.<\/p>\n
The Academy Awards are such a staple part of the pop cultural landscape that it practically forces itself on you; you\u2019ll never escape the buzz of Oscars season and find yourself sucked into its inevitable scandals every year, like the whole La La Land and Moonlight \u2018Best Picture\u2019 fiasco, or the Will Smith Chris Rock slap that was truly a snapshot from some Renaissance painting.<\/p>\n
At its core, while the Oscars came about as one great chance to gather the most beloved and talented figures in the industry and highlight their excellence, it surpassed the idea of just being a bit of fun years ago, and now feels like it\u2019s actively hurting cinema by inspiring formulaic Oscar bait and championing certain undeserving figures while overlooking others.<\/p>\n
In terms of other alterations, the Oscars have reformatted quite a bit. The ceremony actually began as a radio broadcast, and it existed this way until 1953, when it finally made it onto television screens as the medium became more widespread. Since then, it has continued to be broadcast on screens to where you can now livestream the event and the red carpet action, while the endless social media coverage is fit to make you feel like a VIP from the comfort of your living room.<\/p>\n
Besides the evolution of the ceremony\u2019s broadcasting, there have also been changes to the categories, with several now standing as defunct relics of a film industry that is ever-changing.<\/p>\n
How many Oscar categories have been axed?
\nThere are 12 categories that no longer exist, and it\u2019s fascinating to consider why they were abolished. Take the obvious \u2018Best Title Writing\u2019 for example, which, with the introduction of sound at the end of the 1920s, only lasted a year as it didn\u2019t take long for cinema to pretty much do away with title cards altogether, and Joseph Farnham took home the unique prize.<\/p>\n
There was also an \u2018Academy Juvenile Award\u2019, which was handed out to 12 children between 1934 and 1960. Winners of course included Shirley Temple and Judy Garland, but it wasn\u2019t long before the Academy saw that the title was a little outdated. While there was a worry that children shouldn\u2019t have to compete against adult actors in normal acting categories, many young stars proved that they were more than capable, some even winning, like Tatum O\u2019Neal, who was ten years old when she took home an Oscar for Paper Moon.<\/p>\n
Another understandably retired category was the short-lived \u2018Best Dance Direction\u2019, because Hollywood sadly just doesn\u2019t deliver the amount of dance-themed movies it used to. We no longer have light-on-their-feet actors like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers, and while musicals are still a thing and the occasional dance number a treat in tow, the landscape has inevitably changed, with the title existing for only two years from 1935 to 1937.<\/p>\n
\u2018Best Unique and Artistic Picture\u2019 is another of the short lifespan variety, also only seeing one winner overall. It was made to celebrate a more artsy pick, while the other, \u2018Best Outstanding Picture\u2019, was to be awarded to more accessible and popular movies. Thus, the latter was occupied by Wings while Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans was crowned the more \u201cunique\u201d film.<\/p>\n
The 12 Oscars categories that no longer exist:
\n\u2018Best Engineering Effects\u2019
\n\u2018Best Title Writing\u2019
\n\u2018Best Unique and Artistic Picture\u2019
\n\u2018Best Musical or Comedy Score\u2019
\n\u2018Best Director, Comedy and Best Director, Drama\u2019
\n\u2018Best Dance Direction\u2019
\n\u2018Best Original Story\u2019
\n\u2018Academy Juvenile Award\u2019
\n\u2018Best Short Subject \u2013 Comedy, Novelty, One Reel, Two Reel, and Colour\u2019
\n\u2018Best Assistant Director\u2019
\n\u2018Best Sound Editing\u2019 and \u2018Best Sound Mixing\u2019 (merged into \u2018Best Sound\u2019)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held, and it took a speedy 15 minutes, honouring the film industry\u2019s brightest stars as quickly as … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n