The first thing that jumped out at me from this morning’s Oscar nominations: The Best Original Song category has only three nominees. Two of those are from Slumdog Millionaire, which seems like a bit much. And none of them are Bruce Springsteen’s brilliant, Golden Globe-winning title tune from The Wrestler, as some of you have already noted over at Annie’s Oscar snubs post. For shame, Academy!
I can’t figure out what’s going on here. I don’t think it’s an eligibility issue, since The Wrestler itself got two acting nods. And aside from being totally great on its own terms, "The Wrestler" is an emotional ballad by a mainstream boomer icon — just the kind of song you’d think would appeal to a ton of Academy members. (You can hear it below if you haven’t yet.) It’s certainly comparable to Springsteen’s masterful "Streets of Philadelphia," which took home a Best Song Oscar in 1994. Even putting aside my love of the Boss, how bizarre of the Academy not to fill out this category with a full five nominees, as it’s done in most previous years. Truthfully, the Oscars telecast needs compelling music performances far more than Bruce needs another statuette on his shelf. So the real losers here are all of us in the TV audience, wouldn’t you say?
More on the Oscars and Bruce Springsteen:
EW Gallery: The Biggest Oscar Snubs Ever
EW Gallery: Rare Springsteen Photos Unveiled
The E Street Band ranked high on EW.com readers’ Concert Bucket List
Anticipating Springsteen’s new album, Working on a Dream
Springsteen’s Magic was EW’s Album of the Year 2007
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I’m glad he did not get a Oscar nom. His music sucks and he is a stupid liberal.
Yup- that was my first reaction too. I wonder, really, if there is some sort of explanation. It just seemed a given to WIN as far as I was concerned. Really weird.
i 100% agree. not that i think the academy should choose their nominations based on popularity and raitings, but i think this decision won’t help bring people to the telecast. but i’m sure they’re not concerned since they nominated brangelina, despite the fact that one of those performances wasn’t worthy of a nomination.
Shawn, how dare you insult The Boss….the coolest man in the world doesn’t need yours or anyone else’s approval
I was shocked he didn’t get nominated. He completely deserves to be in the category, especially after winning the Golden Globe.
Wow, shawn. You have completely won me over to your point of view. That is the most well thought-out, insightful post on ew.com. No, dare I say it? On the entire internets. Well done indeed.
Wow. Shawn, your comment – how incisive and deep. No hint of personal bias whatsoever. However, it completely disregards the fact that Springsteen’s song for The Wrestler is a good song in and of itself, and fits the film perfectly.
Simon, I haven’t been a fan of Bruce’s work for many years now, but I’d like to say that since M.I.A. finally had a mainstream hit last year with the then almost a year older song, “Paper Planes”, I think the appeal is was to nominate her much like the way the Academy tried to be hip and nominated Three 6 Mafia a few years ago. Bruce is an American Music legend and has much going on in the next few weeks with his new album, greatest hits at Wal-Mart and the Super Bowl half-time performance but most of Bruce’s fans aren’t youngsters anymore, and I think part of the Academy snub for him is their allure to attract the younger generation who has since started to tune out Award shows in favor of checking out the list of winners online. I could be wrong. But also, I’m kind of a music geek and haven’t even bothered to listen to “The Wrestler” until you posted it here. That could be part of it too.
I’m sure we’re going to get some sort of convoluted explanation some time today from “the people in charge” about why it didn’t get a nomination. Probably some small print rule about eligibility. It’s certainly one of the most glaring omissions. I’d say Clint Eastwood should have been nominated as well. But I’m sure that there’s an equally strange explanation for that as well. And now that you mention it, I’m surprised that Beyonce and Miley didn’t nominations either. They’ve certainly nominated worse songs over the years. And they could use the ratings that having them sing on the show would bring.
They did the same thing last year – Enchanted had multiple songs nominated instead of making sure multiple movies are nominated.
I get tired of the same movies being nominated for all the different categories. I can buy that a movie like Benjamin Button is nominated for best picture & best screenplay, because they are somewhat related. But seriously, Button also is top 3 for best visual effects and makeup?
I’m a fairly old school fan of Springsteen (Born to Run being my first album purchase as a kid), but my opinion is that I am kind of happy there are only three song nominees. It would have been fine by me if Springsteen had gotten a nom and Slumdog only one (I’ve heard neither), but the last thing the Oscar telecast needs is musical numbers. The only show that puts on awesome musical numbers is the Tony’s, so I’m fine with no Bruce. My two cents.
When I saw that the category only had 3 nominees I thought it had to be a mistake. I mean seriously, out of all the movies that were made the entire year only three songs were good enough to make it into the category?!? That’s just ludicrous. And since this is one of my favorite categories because the songs are sung during the ceremony it’s enough to make me not want to watch. Academy, you should be embarrassed.
The academy had the opportunity to legitimise the BEST ORIGINAL SONG category this morning… instead, they just completely blew it. There were plenty of great songs eligible (a list of 49) that should’ve been nominated… isntead, it’s a pathetic joke.
It’s so ridiculous that Springsteen’s song isn’t nominated, it almost seems like straight up printing error.
It didn’t get a nomination because the new rule that started last year says you have to show a scene of the movie that the song is used in, because they aren’t just giving the award for the song, but how it also plays into the movie. Since it was shown on the closing credits, it didn’t really add to the scene.