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The great luvvie love-in: Why do the Oscars ignore the films most of us want to watch? Because they're so obsessed with parading their political correctness

Published: 19:50 EST, 24 February 2015 | Updated: 20:56 EST, 24 February 2015

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Ever since I wrangled my way into the Vanity Fair Oscar Party one year and rubbed shoulders with the A-listers inside, I’ve made a point of trying to stay up for the Academy Awards.

The live ceremony is the equivalent of the World Cup final for movie-lovers. In my weaker moments, I still fantasise about what I’ll say when I collect my Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

But fending off sleep is becoming harder and harder, and not just because the programme seems to get longer each year. It’s mainly due to the gulf between the popular films I enjoy and the politically correct fare that is celebrated at the Oscars.

Julianne Moore won Best Actress for playing a woman with Alzheimer’s in Still Alice at this year's Oscars ceremony where a gulf is widening between popular films and politically correct fare

This year, the movie I thought should have won Best Picture was American Sniper, Clint Eastwood’s tribute to Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL who killed more than 150 enemies in the Iraq War.

It was a gripping, action-packed story told by a master film-maker. It also struck a chord with the mass audience, having taken more money at the American box office than all of the other Best Picture nominees combined.

In the event, Eastwood went home almost empty handed, picking up a solitary Oscar for Sound Editing. Instead, the big winner on the night was Birdman, a film starring the ex-Batman actor Michael Keaton about a washed-up Hollywood actor trying to stage a comeback by appearing in his own Broadway play.

I can understand why that would appeal to members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A 2012 survey conducted by the Los Angeles Times discovered that the median age of the Oscar voter is 62, and 33 per cent of them have been nominated for an Academy Award at some point in their careers.

But why would the rest of us want to watch a 63-year-old man wandering about in his underpants, muttering about his glory days as a superhero? You don’t need to go to the cinema for that. You can see it for free at the local homeless shelter.

The public would seem to agree with me — though ticket sales will now get the inevitable ‘Oscar bump’, Birdman is among the lowest-grossing films to scoop the Best Picture award in decades.

Eddie Redmayne picked up the Best Actor award for his portrayal of Professor Stephen Hawking, confined to a wheelchair

The other Best Picture nominees were scarcely any more entertaining.

Boyhood, which painstakingly documented every stage in a young actor’s journey from six-year-old innocent to awkward adolescent, was filmed over a 12-year period and seemed to take almost as long to watch.

The Grand Budapest Hotel, about a concierge who runs a vast pink premises in the fictional republic of Zubrowka, was another exercise in self-indulgent whimsy from ‘auteur’ Wes Anderson, while Selma, an account of Martin Luther King’s 1965 civil rights march in Alabama, felt like a two-hour citizenship lesson.

The two British entries — The Imitation Game and The Theory Of Everything — were less concerned with good storytelling than lecturing the audience about not writing off people with disabilities (the former seemed to suggest that wartime codebreaker Alan Turing, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, had Asperger’s syndrome; the latter told the story of scientist Stephen Hawking, who famously suffers from motor neurone disease).

A worthy sentiment, no doubt, but one that Hollywood’s top producers seem determined to ram down our throats year after year.

Perhaps the explanation is that if you make a movie about a person with a disability you’ll have no trouble persuading an A-list actor to star in it, because it’s still their best hope of picking up an Oscar.

The big winner on the night was Birdman, a film starring the ex-Batman actor Michael Keaton (pictured) about a washed-up Hollywood actor trying to stage a comeback by appearing in his own Broadway play

Though ticket sales will now get the inevitable ‘Oscar bump’, Birdman is among the lowest-grossing films to scoop the Best Picture award in decades

This year was no exception, with Eddie Redmayne winning Best Actor for his portrayal of Hawking, confined to a wheelchair. Julianne Moore, meanwhile, won Best Actress for playing a woman with Alzheimer’s in Still Alice.

Apart from American Sniper, the only Best Picture nominee I enjoyed was Whiplash, an unexpected gem about a psychotic drum tutor played by J.K. Simmons with an unorthodox approach — intimidation and violence — to bringing out the best in young musicians. For me, the high point was when Simmons won Best Supporting Actor and urged people to spend a moment to make a phone call to their ageing parents while they still could (‘don’t text’).

That was a rare moment of genuine compassion in an evening of politically correct grandstanding.

Hollywood has always suffered from an excess of liberal sentiment, but this year the Oscars felt more like a student union election than a glamorous showcase for a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Forget the shiny gold statuettes. Who would win the coveted prize of ‘Diversity and Inclusion Commissar’?

First up was John Travolta, who delivered a public apology to the Hispanic American actress Idina Menzel for mispronouncing her name at last year’s Awards.

Unfortunately, he then fell foul of Hollywood’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice by engaging in some ‘inappropriate touching’ of her face.

John Travolta fell foul of Hollywood’s Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice by engaging in some ‘inappropriate touching’ of her face

Then came singer John Legend and rapper Common to perform Glory, winner of Best Original Song and a tribute to the civil rights marchers memorialised in Selma. As the song reached its lachrymose climax, audience members felt obliged to advertise how moved they were by bursting into tears.

Personally, I thought the Oscar should have gone to Everything Is Awesome from The Lego Movie. But the winner of the Academy Award for Most Politically Correct Acceptance Speech went to Patricia Arquette, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Boyhood.

After thanking everyone from her agent to her favourite artist, she added a bit of gobbledegook about ‘wage equality’ and ‘equal rights for women’. Meryl Streep started punching the air in an ecstasy of celebration, while beside her Jennifer Lopez leant forward in her seat and whooped, making sure the viewers at home got an eyeful of her cleavage.

Only in Hollywood could an actress make a plea for a higher percentage of the gross and be acclaimed at the same time for striking a blow for feminism.

I wasn’t the only person to be turned off by this year’s ceremony. The 2015 Oscars received the event’s lowest ratings in six years, averaging only 36.6 million American viewers, compared to 43.7 million last year.

The LA Times described the telecast as ‘embarrassing’ while the New York Times called it ‘hopelessly detached from movie viewers’.

Patricia Arquette, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Boyhood, thanked everyone from her agent to her favourite artist, before speaking about ‘wage equality’ and ‘equal rights for women’ whereby Meryl Streep started punching the air in an ecstasy of celebration

That’s the nub of the problem. Hollywood’s liberal elite is becoming more and more out of step with the moviegoing public, rewarding films that highlight ‘issues’ while ignoring box office success. And heaven help anyone who argues that films should be entertaining.

Last year, the big winners were 12 Years A Slave, which tackled slavery, and The Dallas Buyers Club, which boosted awareness of AIDS. This year, as the nominations showed, the fashionable causes were motor neurone disease, Alzheimer’s and Asperger’s Syndrome.

Now I’m as sympathetic to those terrible illnesses as anyone, but the truth is that most of us want to enjoy ourselves when we go to the cinema, not be brow-beaten.

Even if you include the £207 million that American Sniper has taken at the U.S. box office, this year’s clutch of Best Picture nominees have earned less money than any previous crop since the category was expanded to include up to ten movies in 2009.

My favourite film of last year was Guardians Of The Galaxy (the superhero movie based on the Marvel Comics), which grossed more than £450 million worldwide. Not only was it mostly snubbed by the Academy — being nominated only for Best Visual Effects and Best Make-up and Hairstyling — but comedian Jack Black even had a dig at it in his opening song.

‘Opening with lots of zeroes, all we get are superheroes,’ he sneered.

But isn’t it about time Hollywood celebrated the movies that the public actually like instead of lecturing us about which ones we ought to like?