Ratatouille Post

Yes Virginia, Ratatouille should be nominated for Best Picture with Brad Bird for Best Director as well. But of course it will not be, for the very simple reason that the existence of the Best Animated Film guarantees an animated movie will never win the Best Picture prize, which makes it virtually impossible to win anything other than that niche category. The only animated film, to my knowledge, that has ever come close to winning is Snow White, which won Walt Disney an honorary Oscar. There's a bias against truly great animated films for that category, which is probably due to the fact that the Academy consists mainly of people involved in moving picture films, of which animators are a minority. So, seeing so many animated films get very little accolade year after year at the Academy Awards, the niche category was probably the best way to honor those films, even if it does regulate them to something "less than" true art.