With the Academy Awards just around the corner, it is evident animated films do not get the same recognition that live action ones do. Apart from their own category, animated movies rarely get the credit they deserve.
Only three animated films, “Beauty and the Beast” in 1992, “Up” in 2010 and “Toy Story 3” in 2011, have been nominated for Best Picture and none of them were awarded. This year, the animated films “Flow” and “The Wild Robot” got nominations in the Best International Feature Film, Best Original Score and Best Sound categories. This indicates some improvement in the recognition of animated films as the Academy is now considering them alongside live action films, but the recognition is still lacking in bigger categories like Best Picture, Best Directing and Best Screenplay. So, why is this happening?
Before the creation of the Best Animated Feature Film award, animated films would rarely get any recognition. So, the Oscars created the category specifically for animated films, which ensured these films would get recognized. It is speculated that the Oscars may have created this category for the 74th Academy Awards to avoid nominating “Shrek” for Best Picture. By creating this separate category, they could still recognize the movie without nominating it in the same category as the other Best Picture nominees.
The award was also intended to uplift the art of animation the same way the Best Picture award was meant to promote and recognize all different types of filmmaking. While the creation of the Best Animated Feature Film award seemed like it would be a good thing, it has actually ended up doing the opposite of what it intended.
Yes, this award ensures that an animated movie gets at least one award each year, but by giving these films their own category, it has belittled animation as an art form. This category created a separation between the worth of animated movies and live action movies. It unintentionally instilled the belief that animated movies are only made for children and are not deserving of the same accolades as the films recognized in the Best Picture category.
I’ve heard of many people who don’t even try watching animated movies at all because they claim they’re all for children. This is simply not true. Even many animated movies that are family friendly have deeper meanings and explore difficult themes. For example, Pixar’s “Elemental” follows the struggles of immigrant families, Disney’s “Encanto” shows the violence of the Thousand Days' War in early 20th century Colombia and Dreamwork’s “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” included a scene where the main character has a panic attack. These subjects give the films a mature element that allows everyone, adults included, to connect with them.
The truth is that animated movies aren’t a genre or a category. They are movies, just like their live-action counterparts. They just use a different art form for their storytelling. Movies like 2023’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and “The Boy and the Heron” and 2024’s “The Wild Robot” and “Flow” deserve to be recognized alongside the year’s best films, not just set aside because of the medium used to create them.
Additionally, if the intention of the Best Animated Feature Film award is to recognize animation as an artform and uplift it, more categories targeted toward animation should be added to holistically give recognition to all facets of animation. For example, there should be a specific category for voice acting, something integral to animated, and even some live action, films.
Voice actors have never been recognized in the Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Leading Role or Best Actress in a Supporting Role category, which honestly makes sense as voice acting is a very different skill to on-screen acting. However, it is still an impressive skill that deserves to be recognized alongside live action actors. Lupita Nyong'o was so immersed and dedicated to her voice acting role in “The Wild Robot” that she injured her voice doing the job. But this dedication paid off as the audience can not only see her robot character’s evolution throughout the film but hear it in how her voice becomes more and more human as she spends more time as a mother.
This level of work and talent should be recognized alongside actors actually seen on screen. In addition to this, if the Best Animated Feature Film award is intended to champion animation as an artform, there should also be a category celebrating achievement in the animation itself.
Animators’ jobs are very difficult, and they face many other challenges like extended hours, reduced pay and the threat of Artificial Intelligence. Considering these challenges and how much time and effort it takes animators to animate these gorgeous films, don’t they deserve the same recognition as live action films? Shouldn’t we be celebrating the people who actually built, drew and designed the look of the movie itself, just as we do cinematographers?
While there’s been improvement, the Oscars need to step up and start giving more recognition to these amazing films so that we can break the stigma that animated movies are less worthy than their live action counterparts.
