The Oscars: The Laff Awards That the Academy Doesn’t Give

By Matt Pressman

The hardest thing to make movie audiences do is laugh. Serve up a sad story about a paralyzed female boxer or a doomed WWII romance and wait for the water works. Send some sexy young things to an exotic locale to be disemboweled or have appendages sawed off and watch the viewers squirm and scream. Show talking robots pummeling each other to the strains of Linkin Park and see pulses race. Given the singular filmmaking talent it takes to make a truly hilarious film, shouldn’t comedies have a legitimate chance to compete for Hollywood’s highest honor?

Yes, comedies are eligible for Best Picture, and there has been a token comedy among the contenders in four of the last five years—Lost in Translation, Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, and, this year, Juno. But everyone knows they have no realistic chance of winning. Furthermore, these (and every other comedy that gets nominated for Best Picture) are all “comedies with heart,” as sentimental reviewers like to call them. When a film dares not to have a profound message and accomplishes the exceedingly rare feat of keeping an audience in hysterics from start to finish—There’s Something About Mary, Old School, Superbad—the most it can hope for is a People’s Choice Award.I suppose this is the way it has to be. The Oscars honor the filmic accomplishments that Hollywood is most proud of, and one can’t expect that to include a shot of male genitalia stuck in a zipper. But if the Academy accorded the laugh-out-loud comedy the respect it deserves, these would be the nominees and winners for Best Comedy from each of the last five years:


Bad Santa

Bruce Almighty


Old School (winner)

Something’s Gotta Give


Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy

Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle

Mean Girls

Napoleon Dynamite

Team America: World Police (winner)


The 40-Year-Old Virgin (winner)

The Aristocrats

Diary of a Mad Black Woman


Wedding Crashers


Borat: Cultural Learnings of America (winner)

The Break-Up

Talladega Nights: the Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Thank You for Smoking

You, Me, and Dupree


Blades of Glory

I Think I Love My Wife

Knocked Up

Superbad (winner)

Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story

Matt Pressman is an editorial associate at Vanity Fair.