The Oscars Category That Has Never Seen a Winner
Oscars categories frequently evolve, with new additions and retirements. In 2000, the Academy introduced the ‘Best Original Musical’ category, intending to honour original musical films. However, despite its existence for over two decades, this category has never seen a winner or even nominees.
To be eligible, a film must be an original musical, featuring not less than five original songs by the same writers, created specifically for the screen. This requirement has made it challenging for the Academy to gather enough contenders for a competition, leaving the ‘Best Original Musical’ Oscar unclaimed since its inception.
The intricacies of this category have kept it largely unnoticed, even as the cinematic landscape continues to evolve.
This wasn’t always a challenge. Until the 1960s, the era of classic movie musicals like ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, ‘The Sound of Music’ and Disney favourites ensured a steady supply of original musicals made exclusively for the screen.
Yet, despite the abundance of such films, the Academy faced difficulties in honouring them. The history of scoring and musical categories at the Oscars dates back to 1935 when the first Best Scoring award went to ‘One Night of Love’. However, this category faced issues in 1938 when ‘One Hundred Men and a Girl’ won, featuring a score entirely composed of pre-existing classical compositions. This led to the introduction of a new category in 1939, recognizing Best Original Score.
The 1942 Oscars saw the addition of ‘Best Scoring of a Musical Picture,’ won by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace for their work on ‘Dumbo’, marking a division between musical and dramatic films. This trend persisted until 1985 when the focus shifted to separating original from adapted scores, leading to various category name changes while maintaining the core distinction between original creations and adaptations.
In the 1980s, the Academy consolidated its music categories, leaving only one: Best Original Score, exclusively for films with compositions created specifically for them. Initially, this seemed unproblematic, with winners like Maurice Jarre for ‘A Passage to India’ and John Barry for ‘Out of Africa’.
However, the pattern shifted in 1990 with Disney’s resurgence in animated musical films. Alan Menken received two consecutive awards for ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, followed by Hans Zimmer’s win for ‘The Lion King’ in 1995.
This dominance sparked controversy, as the distinction between songs and instrumental music was blurred, leading to a split in the category. The Academy introduced Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score to differentiate between genres, responding to concerns that evaluating scores for different film types was challenging.
Despite initial reluctance from composers, this change marked a shift away from Disney’s stronghold, with non-Disney films winning in the late 1990s.
In 2000, the Academy modified its approach by combining comedies and dramas in the Best Original Score category, while creating a separate category for Best Original Musical. To be eligible for the latter, a film must feature a minimum of five original songs integral to the storyline.
Despite seeming ideal, this division faced challenges immediately. Two popular animated musicals from 1999, ‘Tarzan’ and ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut’, had approximately 45 minutes of music, falling short of the Academy’s criteria for an original score. Yet, being the sole musical entries that year, they couldn’t qualify for Best Original Musical, as the category requires a minimum of ten competing films.
– Farheen Ali
