Serious Business: Why The Academy Should Honor Voice Actors

This is Serious Business, the area of All Along The Wallpaper which will rely less on humor and focus more on giving a serious look to the world, mostly the entertainment world. This first article focuses on defending the often under-appreciated art of voice acting and more specifically argue as to why voice acting should be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or the people who created the Oscars.

I will begin by saying why I think the Academy (and many laypeople) feel that voice acting doesn’t deserve to be respected. I will follow this by saying why it should and what made me decide to write this. Finally, I will determine different possibilities of what should be done about it.

Voice acting isn’t as respected as live action acting for one simple reason among all others: You cannot see the actors. With live action actors, you see the complexities of emotion on their faces along with seeing them interact and noticing their chemistry. With animated actors, it’s either not there, or at the very least not as noticeable.

Similarly, until recently, animation was seen as child’s play and little more by the general public. It brought to mind the static animation and stale acting of old Filmation cartoons just as much as it reminded people of the pure joy felt while watching the fluid animation and brilliant writing of the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Most if not all of the criticisms against animation are, quite frankly, bullshit, at least generally. True, you cannot see the actors and to the untrained ear the quality of the voice acting in “Milton the Monster” may be indistinguishable than the quality of Mark Hamill’s revered turn as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. However, once you know what to look for, it’s easy to see (or rather hear) that in many ways voice acting may be even more difficult. You have to emote using only your voice. In voice acting, the famously rubbery face of Jim Carrey is useless. He has to change vocal inflections to get laughs, not just stretch his chin. Chemistry is also there in animation. To see that, you have to look no further than the average episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The whole cast of that show, especially the three leads (played by Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, and Jack DeSena) have enormous amounts of chemistry, enough to rival a close knit group of friends in a long-running sitcom.

As a sidebar, I must also note the rise of motion capture actors, especially the great, criminally underknown Andy Serkis, whom many (myself included), feel as though he was robbed by not being nominated for Academy Awards for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings or as Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Annoyingly, most arguments regarding voice acting hardly apply to motion capture, considering that the entire face is copied into computer generated images.

For those who are curious, I decided on writing this article after seeing her today. Without giving anything away, Scarlett Johansson‘s character never appears onscreen (or even exists in the traditional sense), yet she is the most emotional and fully-realized character in the film, yet I know that she will most likely not be nominated for anything. At least Joaquin Phoenix will be nominated.

There was a lot of controversy when the Academy introduced the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature because they felt that it was basically just a consolation because animated features being nominated for Best Pictures is rare at best. Personally, I feel like it’s better than nothing and is a step in the right direction. I feel that the Academy should consider a similar award for voice actors if nothing else. At least it would be a start.

In Siskel and Ebert’s review of Aladdin (above), Gene Siskel says that he felt that Robin Williams would most likely be the first animated actor to be nominated for an Oscar due to his great performance as the Genie. Sadly, he was wrong, but it’s good to know that someone in a high place agreed that they deserve honor.

Before signing off, enjoy this honor to voice acting:

Next time in Serious Business:

Defending Affleck as Batman.

 

My New Favorite Movie

After having wanted to see Ed Wood for years (largely thanks to Doug Walker), but for many reason, I haven’t. Until now, thanks to the magic of Youtube.

And it is amazing.

Just look at the faux-vintage poster.

I must stress that this column isn’t a review, it’s a celebration, similar to my Dark Side of the Internet ‘review’ from a couple months ago.

For those unaware, (which, given the combination of the poor box office gross, the age of the film, the lack of knowledge of people I mentioned this film to, and the fact that it was made in 1994, is most likely a great number of you) Ed Wood is a movie about one of the worst directors who ever lived. Now, I know what many of you are thinking. “Why make a movie about him if he sucked?” or maybe just “Yeah, yeah, dumbass. Stop speculating and just get to the point.”

Yes. Get on with it. Totally.

Well, my point is, that’s actually what makes Edward D. Wood Jr interesting. He loved making movies. Really, the only thing that matched his excitement and persistence was his complete and utter lack of talent. The thing that was either great or depressing about Wood is that no matter how often people tell him that his movies are shit, he still keeps going, thinking that the failure of his latest opus was at worst a bump in the road. Everyone knew that he sucked except him and maybe his production posse.

Look at that jolly bunch.

The center of the film is the relationship between Ed and his mentor Bela Legosi, which Tim Burton said helped attract him to the film, given his similar relationship with Vincent Price.

With Johnny Depp as the third wheel.

One thing about the Oscar-winning performance of Legosi that rings untrue with many is that he cusses like a sailor, which Legosi’s own son, who wasn’t mentioned in the film and took a time to be convinced to even see it, said was bullshit. But he did praise Landau’s performance as his father, so there’s that.

As Gene Siskel says in the above link, this film should be required viewing in all film schools. As a film student myself, I must agree. This movie is inspirational.  Doug Walker said that he thinks of this film whenever he creates anything because as awesome as he might think it is, for all he knows it’s a piece of shit. I both agree and disagree. As Wood’s story proves, everything has a potential fanbase, even though poor Eddie’s fans didn’t come around until after his death.

Hell, if something like Sharknado can become popular, why not a nice kid from New York?

So watch this film. Watch him. Worship him. And, of course