It would be unfair for award organizations to suddenly change their standards after years of using the original system

The argument

An industry standard has been established, and those standards must be maintained in some form, despite the pandemic. The argument is not that theatrical release can or should operate in the way it always has, but that completely shifting the theatrical requirements is an abrupt departure from the norm — a rule change made under emergency conditions, applied to films already produced under the old expectations, which allows streaming giants to encroach upon long-established standards. Who benefits from that departure matters to the fairness claim. Streaming giants are already highly contested in terms of monopolization and oversaturation, which has long diluted modern movie standards, so the rule change would fall in favour of the party that needs it least. The existing arrangement is also asymmetric in their favour: streaming services are not excluded from long-term movie benefits once films are wide-released digitally, but theatres do not enjoy that same privilege in turn. Relaxing the theatrical requirement would remove the one advantage still attached to theatrical release while leaving that asymmetry intact. As the already floundering theatre industry faces an enormous hurdle in the form of a pandemic, the reversal of award show rules would be a massive blow. The argument then distinguishes this from changes it accepts. In recent years the push for diversity has encouraged organisations like the Academy to reflect upon their historical standards and observe where they might have been exclusionary. Such updates are made in the name of fixing a pre-existing problem — correcting an injustice the old rules themselves created — rather than making changes in anticipation of the digital era. That is the distinction the argument turns on. Award bodies may revise standards to repair their own failures, but rewriting them mid-stream to accommodate a commercial shift is a different act, and an unfair one after years of using the original system.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The Academy and other award organizations have long been criticized for various reasons, including lack of diversity and an excess of pretension and exclusion of foreign films. As they begin to make those changes, now is the perfect time to instigate a new set of changes that are ideal for a modern world. Rapid digitization and streaming go hand-in-hand, and awards should cede to development and be open to updating their standards.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise treats the theatrical requirement as a standard of merit when it is an eligibility rule that has been amended repeatedly, so changing it again is a continuation of the practice rather than a departure from it — and nothing about an award's history establishes that its existing rules are fair. [Rejecting P2] The argument then substitutes a different case for its own: protecting cinemas from commercial pressure is an economic aim, and the awards are being asked to serve it by excluding films — which is precisely a standard set for reasons other than the quality of the work, and the diversity reforms the premise cites as legitimate show that organisations revise rules when the old ones exclude wrongly.