The 2021 Oscars Will Be Held In Person
By George Robbins
This year has easily been one of the most tense and infuriating years that we have all had in quite some time as a worldwide society. Obviously there have been countless issues which have arisen over the years that are easily worse than what we are now forced to experience, but not in the same way. This year pretty much started of as a continuation of last year where everything pretty much remained the same and then it almost overnight, became a completely awful year for us all. The first few months of the year went on as they normally would and they didn’t bring too much with them with society rolling on. Then the middle of March struck and the pandemic had officially begun with everybody being forced to stay indoors unless they absolutely had to out somewhere.
Everywhere people looked, businesses were shut down, with the exception of businesses that were deemed absolutely essential to the continuation of society as a whole. This essentially meant that places that sold food, clothes, and water as well as other necessary essentials like gas, replacement parts, and toiletries were allowed to keep their doors open so that people would not have to go without supplies. With places like these still open, things were not as bad as people originally thought they were going to be, but the fact remained that we were stuck indoors at the start of a pandemic. Things were already looking grim from the onset and the limited facts that people were going on were not exactly forthcoming to the general public. This meant that people had no idea what was really going on and they could only end up listening and following government mandated orders.
The long incubation period and the subsequent quarantine periods meant that it was hard to track whether someone was sick until they started showing symptoms. On top of this, it was discovered that even asymptomatic patients could give the virus to others so we were given the rules to always wear our face masks and to distance ourselves from one another. This new rule of social distancing in order to prevent infection became a commonplace practice and this was what needed to be followed in all forms of business. Therefore, businesses were given guidelines for how they should open and how they would be allowed to remain open from that point forward. Mostly, this meant that only a limited number of people could be in a certain business at one time, they could only travel in one direction, and everyone had to wear masks.
For a couple of months following the start of the pandemic, no businesses were allowed to reopen because of fears that the number of cases would spike it they were open. Eventually, once the number of new cases started dropping, state governments as well as other governments around the world slowly allowed places to reopen to the public to their new limited capacity. This went against the views many people had because although the number of new cases was down, people inherently knew that the number of new cases would spike again once businesses reopened. Sure enough, this past summer saw a huge surge in new cases, but businesses did not shut down again, at least not many of them. We are once again at one of those points where things have gotten dangerous again though as a massive spike in cases has once again arisen.
There are many businesses that have managed to have decent reopenings even with the limited capacities they now have to deal with. Unfortunately, these reopenings were not handled the way that people expected them to and people being people didn’t listen to what they were told. As a direct result to this, the second wave that experts were waiting for has pretty much come back and talks about shutting things down again are taking place all over. There isn’t really all that much that can be done at this point though and, in an effort to keep more people from getting infected, this is something they simply have to do to keep people safe. This won’t stop some people from apparently putting themselves as well as others in harm’s way though because plenty of people are going about things like nothing is happening.
One of the most dangerous forms of allowing this to happen is by event organizers planning live events where people will be doing things in person. For most of this past year, any events that would have normally taken place in person have instead been taking place online or they have been delayed until such time where they can have the event safely. Now that there are talks of possible vaccines hitting the streets soon, people are becoming hopeful that this pandemic will end sooner rather than later and they can go back to living their lives the way they use to. The fact is that there is no guarantee that the vaccines will actually end up working in the end or if they will even affect everyone if they do work. Not only that, but if they do end up working, then how long will those vaccines last; we are in uncharted territory and it could still be some time before we know if this pandemic will be over for sure.
In the meantime we should still be careful like we have been with many events that would normally be held in-person being held online instead. Plenty of conventions and the like have been able to make this work since the pandemic began, so then why do the Academy Awards want to have an in-person event for next years award ceremony. The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, is a time of year for people to celebrate those in the movie industry who have happened to make incredible works of art. Whether it be actors, directors, production staff, etc., the Academy Awards honor those who have created something phenomenal that people have had the chance to enjoy on screen. While not the only award ceremony to give awards to people for their achievements in the industry, they are easily the most well-known among the populace.
This past year hasn’t really seen a lot of positive things happening within the movie industry, but that doesn’t mean that things have not happened over the year. People were not sure of just what movies would end up being allowed to be nominated for the Oscars because their usual rules disqualify movies which have not been in theaters at least once. Luckily, they have started allowing movies which have been streamed upon release instead of put into theaters given the fact that theaters are kind of having a difficult time right now. This year is the reason for a fair number of different rules being made in order to accommodate for the difficult situation the industry has found itself in. In fact, some were not even sure whether they were going to be having the Oscars this upcoming year or not.
As it would seem, not only are they having them, but they will be having them be in-person rather than livestreamed or by some other means. They announced a while back that they were going to delay the award ceremony until some time in April while allowing the entry deadline to go to some time in February rather than ending when the year ends. There is really no way of knowing just yet how they will actually be holding the awards ceremony with things the way that they are now while still being safe. Like already stated, even if the vaccines that are supposed to hit the streets soon work on the majority of the population, there is no way of knowing just what their effectiveness will be. The only way to find out for sure when it will be safe to hold the awards normally would be to wait a lot longer for good results to become public knowledge. As of now it would appear they are flying dark, so hopefully we hear more about this sooner rather than later.