The Academy Awards are widely considered to be the most prestigious accolades in the world of cinema, but this year the Academy has been under fire due to their nominees for the 87th annual ceremony.
Legions of film critics and fans claim 2015 to be the year with the most obvious award snubs. This occurs when a work or person is denied recognition (often presumed maliciously) that it appears to deserve.
One recurring problem is the near exclusive nomination of so-called “Oscar Bait”, most commonly biopics and movies about people with special needs that appear to have been made specifically to win Academy Awards.
“I’d say there should be more variety; some movies are created FOR the Academy Awards and that’s obvious seeing how many times they’re nominated,” jun

ior Michelle Swart said.
Similarly, the Oscars are heavily criticized for their lack of diversity. All Best Picture nominees with the exception of ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ and ‘Selma’ are about and star white men while women are hard to find in any category.
“Not a single woman nominated… in the directing category. Not the director of ‘Selma’, not Angelina Jolie for ‘Unbroken’…” film critic Chris Stuckmann said in his response to the nominations.
The most prevalent gripe was of ‘The Lego Movie’ not being nominated for Best Animated Feature. Fans and critics not only predicted that the movie would be nominated, but that it would win due to its popularity and creativity.
“The Lego Movie’, the one that caught my attention, was probably one of the ones that disappointed me the most. It was easily better than the other nominees,” senior Ben Huffer said.
The near universal scorn of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is louder than it has been in years.
To see the list of this year’s nominees, go here.