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Animation doesn’t get much love at major award shows. Since their beginning, the Annie Awards have sought to change that.
Animation at the Oscars.
The two Oscars dedicated to animation are far from enough. Despite featuring a decent selection of nominees each year, the animated categories barely scratch the surface of what goes into making an animated movie. This year, folks on Twitter, both audiences and some of the creatives behind the nominated films, noticed how animated films are framed at the Oscars as children’s fair, which is upsetting for those who know that there is a vast and magnificent world of mature animation.
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The Emmys handle animation even more curiously. The same shows are recognized over and over, and the list of nominees over the past few decades demonstrate an unbelievably narrow knowledge of animated shows on the part of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. I appreciate The Simpsons and South Park as much as anyone, and a few lesser-known gems have broken through, like Over the Garden Wall, but if you follow animated television with any regularity, you’d be shocked at the omissions. If you feel like animators deserve more extensive recognition, you’re not alone. Let me introduce you to the Annies.
What are the Annie Awards?
In 1972, June Furet decided that work in animation should be rewarded. Max Flesher had just died, and of course he was such a founder of animation, creating Betty Boop, and Olive Oil, and Popeye, and so forth, and he invented rotoscoping.
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And so I thought it was a splendid idea to honor him and Dave Flesher, his brother, who directed so many of the films. Furet said of her inspiration for the awards in an interview for the Annie Awards official website, she got permission to put on a ceremony from SFIA Hollywood, the Hollywood branch of the International Animated Film Society. Took her husband’s suggestion to name the awards Annies after animation, and scraped together a ballroom event with dancing and an orchestra. Because she had connections in television, she managed to get the show locally broadcasted, and so began the Annie Awards.
For a more fleshed out version of the story, follow the link in the article. Since that initial awards ceremony, the Annies have changed remarkably. Over time, as the Annies became a more widely recognized event, various honorary and technical awards joined the Windsor-McKay award that was first created to honor the Flesher brothers.
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It wasn’t until 1992 that the Best Feature award was introduced, but that means it’s been around for 10 years longer than the Oscar awards for animation. That allows for films like Wolfwalkers to win alongside major studio films like Soul, as was the case in 2021. As of 2022, there were 33 awarded categories, not including the juried awards for Lifetime Achievement, Technical Achievement, and Charitable Work. And those categories reflect the ever-evolving medium, including spots for video games and VR.
Where can I Watch?
The Annies are usually held a few months before the Oscars. The past two years have been held virtually in April and March, respectively. They are often looked at as predictors, but unless you seek it out, you’re unlucky to come across the ceremony. It wasn’t nationally broadcasted until the past two years, in which it was livestreamed, and that may or may not continue after the pandemic, nor is there typically extensive news coverage, as is the case with the Golden Globes and the Oscars. You can, however, watch full recordings of past Annie Awards on ASIFA Hollywood’s YouTube page.
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If you have an hour or two and you’re exhausted by the overwhelming glamorousness of the Oscars, I highly recommend watching at least one Annie Awards ceremony. The ceremonies are still fairly low-key despite hosting hundreds of animation creatives each year, and watching the recordings feels like you’re looking in on someone else’s event. The Oscars are beautifully produced, but have become such a spectacle.It’s refreshing to watch an awards show and not feel like you’re being performed at. Unfortunately, I can’t predict whether the Annies will be streamed or not next year, but be on the lookout for news in January. There just might be a way to watch them live.
Imperfect Like the Rest.
So far, I’ve had nothing but good things to say about the Annies. I really do love them and think that they’re a great thing for the industry, but I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge concerns about their being rigged or somehow illegitimate.
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A lot of fans of the awards have noticed that each year a few titles tend to sweep the awards, and usually those titles come from one of the event’s big sponsors. Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks, Warner Brothers, or more recently, Netflix, Disney/Pixar in particular has had a rocky history with the event, at one point seizing submissions and claiming that the voting system favors DreamWorks.
All in all, nothing about that differs much from the Oscars or Emmys. A few titles sweeping the awards is far from unheard of at entertainment award shows. Studios campaign for their movies and shows, and the success of those campaigns does, in part, rely on connections those studios have with the Academy.
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Politicking the awards is not unique to the Annies, and the awards do more than harm. Arcane deserved all of the recognition it received at the Annies this year. Your name, Kimi no Na wa, deserved recognition in 2017. The Adventures of Tintin deserved recognition in 2012. The list goes on.
Love for Animation.
June Fure attended the Annie Awards up until the end of her very long life. Each year, Fure, executive producer Frank Gladstone, and scores of other people passionate about animation have ensured that the awards live on.
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The ceremony itself may not be to everyone’s liking, but the people who put it together and the people they honor cherish animation dearly. Next year, when awards season begins, if you start envisioning rotoscopes and Gertie the Dinosaur, wondering when your favorite animated works will get their due, or seeking an awards show that takes anime seriously, look to the Annie Awards. If nothing else, you’ll be looking alongside hundreds of people who love the art form just like you do.
By Kevin Hauger
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