Before we begin. Yes, I know Heath Ledger won his Oscar for playing the 'Joker'. However, that was a very different situation. Let me start with…

Reason No. 1:

Oscars look at cumulative lifetime work before awarding someone. (Mostly).

Look, there is a reason why Martin Scorsese (of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Wolf of Wall Street and ‘Marvel Films are not cinema’ fame) won an Oscar really late in his career.

Let’s take a small detour and talk about Scorsese for a moment. His 1973’s Mean Streets should have won him an Oscar. If not, then 1976’s Taxi Driver OR 1980’s Raging Bull . These are ALL better films than his 2007’s The Departed . However, Oscars are often given for a lifetime of work than one film. Speaking of Taxi Driver, DeNiro also didn’t win for his acting in a role very similar to Phoenix’s 'Joker'.

Taxi Driver (1976) one of the inspirations behind 2019's Joker.

For some reason, these lifetime work applies only to big filmmakers. What works against these big filmmaker’s works in favour of the smaller indie filmmakers.

Many first time nominees have won Oscars. 2016’s Moonlight is one such example. Let me explain further. Somehow, the Oscar voters see underdog films as clear winners against mainstay filmmakers. They feel this underdog filmmaker and producer might not get another shot at the Oscars. For example 1977’s Best Picture Winner was Rocky. Not Taxi Driver . Rocky back then was a one-off indie flick, which had no hope of a future. (Boy did that turn out wrong. Rocky is now one of cinema’s most beloved franchises).

Scorcese’s Taxi Driver on the other hand was a dark and disturbing take on vigilantes and madness.

Coming back to Joker, the director Todd Phillips is, not a newcomer. Nor is Phoenix a one-hit-wonder. He has been nominated before but the general Oscar mood might be, ‘his best is yet to come’. End of Reason number one.

Reason No 2:

They award it to hopeless cases!

I know how that sounds. But what I mean is that… if the nominee is very old or is dead there is a high chance of winning. This applies to Heath Ledger for playing the 'Joker' in The Dark Knight. If he had been alive there is no chance he would have won an Oscar. But since that was his last properly acted out role and his acting was beyond impressive not to mention he was dead. They gave him an Oscar.

They ignored all of the Lord of the Ring films till the very last one as they knew there will not be anymore (They were wrong, the Hobbit films came, but it was not of the same quality). So the 3rd one The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept the Oscars that year. This comes firmly under the hopeless category as there will be no more LOTR films, they had to give it the recognition even if the second film was much better!

Our own Satyajit Ray won a lifetime achievement, Oscar, just before he died. The Oscar committee ignored all of his work until he was literally on his deathbed before giving him one!

P.S: Jackie Chan has won an Oscar now that he is really old! Coming to our own Joker, none of these reasons applies to this film or the actor. So despite everyone’s enthusiasm. They will not consider this a hopeless case! Speaking of enthusiasm beings us to the next reason…

Reason No 3:

Oscars never go with the public opinion.

The Academy Award for Excellence in Motion Pictures is not the same as the MTV movie awards. There is a reason why 1977’s box office shattering, cinema reinventing summer blockbuster Star Wars (despite being nominated) didn’t win the Best Picture award. The people Loved Star Wars… the Oscar went to Annie Hall. Eh what?

2009’s Avatar . The biggest hit ever at that point in time. Ran in theatres for almost a year. Did not win any major Oscars except Visual Effects and some technical ones. Despite having the best picture and best director nomination.

In fact, the divide between the movies people love and movies Oscar gives its awards to is such that last year it had some of the lowest-grossing films ever to win the Oscar. None of the major category winners was box office draws. Guess what, everyone is saying… Joaquin Phoenix will win an Oscar for this film. Oscar voters don't like that much. Plus there are other reasons…

Reason No 4:

The Academy Awards is now WOKE.

Not everyone reading this might know what is woke. I myself do not claim to understand this phenomenon fully. However, the woke culture is sweeping the USA and anything which has a white non-gay lead will be lambasted and criticized.

“What the film wants to say — about mental illness or class divisions in society — is not as interesting as what it accidentally says about whiteness.”

Joker falls firmly in the cross-hairs of the woke culture. It is a tale of (so they say) an entitled white man who feels society has wronged him and now seeks revenge on said society.

The film is not really anything like that, but the critic review of the film is not that good considering the hype it’s gotten post-release. 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s not too bad you would think, but much lesser films have gotten 80 to 90% positive ratings. The audience rating is 90% on the other hand. That’s a rebellion by the audiences and this usually doesn’t go down well with the academy who relies on critical reviews and their opinions. Every single film to win at Oscars has a great review score Or it is a critical darling.

Continuing from the above point, forget the acting, the film itself does not have anything progressive to highlight. There is no Gay non-White lead. The lead is also not a woman (Every Recent Star Wars films anyone?). So in short woke culture is preventing Joker from great critical reviews and that’s going to go against the film big time for even nominations. Two years ago the Oscars were criticized for having too many white voters and not selecting enough films that are woke. Since then they have gone out of the way to make sure no white male lead films win at the Oscars.

Joker and Phoenix it's lead white male actor don’t stand a chance!

Reason No 5:

The film has scared the USA as a society.

The themes of the film are anti-rich and guess what… the Oscars is managed by the rich and famous of Hollywood. The film has themes of common masses rising up and taking down the elitist rich and their art-house styles.



source Even before its release, there was fear-mongering that this film will cause US society to collapse into anarchy, with everyone copying Joker and causing mass shootings/killings.



source Even in its second week of release, there is heavy police presence outside the theatres and no one in costume/cosplay or face paint is being allowed inside. Even if none of it is true and is just fear-mongering by the media which wants a tragedy to occur during this film’s theatrical run… The damage has already been done. Joker is now portrayed by mainstream media as a dangerous and white supremacist film.

With this level of fear of a film, would the Oscars then risk giving the best acting lead to Pheonix?

There is no chance the Academy Awards who got scared and fired its black male presenter last year over allegations of anti-gay tweets from a decade ago, will risk the ire of these reporters, media, and critics by honoring this most divisive and fearful film with a best acting Oscar.

To sum it all up, I do not know who the Oscar nominees for this year are. I guess it all depends on the competition but I do sincerely believe that despite everyone and their grandmas saying that Joaquin Phoenix will win the best actor oscar for his performance, he will not.