Question/Suggestion for Tony voters

[Dave13]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:24am

Oftentimes, many Tony award categories are hotly contested.  It seems this year is no exception. Do Tony voters just make one selection, or do they provide a top 2 or 3 selection? By providing a Top 2 or 3 list seems to be more fair than just making one selection. It reduces the risk of "fan voting" in my opinion and the quality of selection would prevail given all of the voters would be ranking the nominees.

Updated On: 6/9/17 at 10:24 AM

[JSquared2]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:27am

Dave13 said: "Oftentimes, many Tony award categories are hotly contested.  It seems this year is no exception. Do Tony voters just make one selection, or do they provide a top 2 or 3 selection? By providing a Top 2 or 3 list seems to be more fair than just making one selection. It reduces the risk of "fan voting" in my opinion and the quality of selection would prevail given all of the voters would be ranking the selections.  "

Huh??

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:27am

Didn't the Oscars recently adopt something similar? Isn't that how Moonlight won Best Picture?

[froote]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:37am

Yes the Oscar for Best Picture (but not the other categories) is voted for on a preferential ballot. Although we'll never know if Moonlight would have won without it, it's generally thought that the La La Land backlash that came around the time of Oscar voting led to those that didn't love it placing it near the bottom of their lists, and Moonlight getting a good number of 1, 2 and 3 rankings to lead it to Best Picture. It has been around for a few years now and I like the way it works, the winners usually turn out to be more to my taste than they used to be. 

[TheTheatreBrain]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 5:08pm

Tony voters make one selection on a paper ballot. Leave it to the theater to do things the old fashioned way. 

[Robbie2]

Posted: 6/9/17 at 10:31pm

TONY AWARDS  How Does Broadway Cast Its Deciding Votes for the Tony Awards?

We break down the complex system behind awarding the theatre’s highest honor.

Here you go ~

http://www.playbill.com/article/how-does-broadway-cast-its-deciding-votes-for-the-tony-awards

 

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 10:06am

froote said: "Yes the Oscar for Best Picture (but not the other categories) is voted for on a preferential ballot. Although we'll never know if Moonlight would have won without it, it's generally thought that the La La Land backlash that came around the time of Oscar voting led to those that didn't love it placing it near the bottom of their lists, and Moonlight getting a good number of 1, 2 and 3 rankings to lead it to Best Picture. It has been around for a few years now and I like the way it works, the winners usually turn out to be more to my taste than they used to be. 

 

"

The problem with the preferential ballot, though, is that you end up with the general consensus "we can stand this nominee even if it's not our 100% favorite" rather than the actual favorite winning.  Taking the Oscars again as an example, regardless of personal opinions about the films, it seems pretty clear based on how the awards played out that more voters liked La La Land the best over Moonlight, and the same was true last year with The Revenant and even Mad Max likely getting more top votes than Spotlight.  But neither won because so many people also hated those films.  So by letting people pick 2 or 3 shows on the ballot at the Tonys, it seems like that would result in not the show the majority of the voters liked the best winning, but rather the show they could sort of agree on that they could tolerate winning.

 

[froote]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 10:15am

I disagree that it was clear that more voters liked LLL over Moonlight or The Revenant over Spotlight. Rather, LLL and The Revenant are huge technical achievements and therefore manage to pick up more awards than Moonlight and Spotlight which are smaller and more intimate stories, for which flashy visuals would distract from. Not to mention LLL had the Best Song category which Moonlight couldn't even compete in. And it actually wildly underperformed compared to expectations. Most people were predicting it to win 8-12 awards and it only won 6. Compare it to this year's Tonys - I wouldn't be surprised if The Great Comet takes home the most awards because it will do well on the techs - but if it doesn't take musical, score or book, which most are predicting it wont, then they obviously didn't like it the most. 

I also don't think it's a case of tolerating, Best Picture had 9 nominees this year. Being placed in the top 3 means voters liked a film much more than tolerating it or being able to stand it winning. I think the preferential ballot allows for a winner that most voters are happy with, rather than a winner that some people love and others outright hate.

To clarify though, I don't want this method to be introduced at the Tonys as I don't think it would work as well in a category with only 4/5 nominees, compared to 9/10 at the Oscars.

Updated On: 6/10/17 at 10:15 AM

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:04am

Perhaps tolerate wasn't the best word--voters clearly liked Moonlight and Spotlight, but while we'll never know, it still feels to me like the bulk of them preferred something else but sort of settled on those as their #2 or #3 choice (and you're right about the technical awards, but Best Director would almost always match Best Picture prior to the preferential ballot, whereas in 3 of the past 4 years now it suddenly hasn't--that to me at least is a big indicator of the effect it's had).

And not to get too off topic here, but the main problem I have with the preferential ballot at the Oscars at least is that they only use it for one category--it's like "We have 23 categories we're going to vote on one way, and then all of a sudden for the biggest award of the night, we're going to vote completely differently!"

Updated On: 6/10/17 at 11:04 AM

[froote]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:12am

As you say, we'll never know, there was and is certainly a lot of passion in the film industry for Moonlight. But if we were to say you were right, I still think 'best' makes more sense as meaning a film most voters really like than one that a good proportion vehmenently dislike.

As for Best Director, it seems like nowadays they go for the flashy choice again. For instance, the one time in recent years when Director and Picture matched was when Best Picture was the flashy film (Birdman over Boyhood). It seems like many voters are equating best with most, similar to the editing category. But again I think most of the time it works. I certainly don't think Spotlight deserved an Oscar for direction and whilst I thought Moonlight was easily the best film of the year, I would have voted La La Land for direction too.

Your last point is an interesting one but I think when there's only a few nominees, it's more difficult to rank, there's usually just one or two standouts out of 4 options. Which is why I don't think it would work at the Tonys. 

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:26am

I see your point about best meaning the one the most people can agree on, but I guess I still just prefer the "pick your favorite and move on" method rather than essentially picking a few favorites to put support behind.  I feel if 50 people think one thing is the best and 45 think another is, the one with 50 votes should win, even if those 50 also think the other thing is second best.

As far as Director is concerned, yes, the more flashy film has won recently, but when you look at some of the other times Picture and Director have matched in the past 20 years or so before the preferential ballot, you had things like "The Artist" still winning director over "Hugo" or "A Beautiful Mind" over "Lord of the Rings".  Not to say those directors weren't deserving at all, and for the record, I 100% agree Spotlight was better than The Revenant and frankly thought both La La Land and Moonlight were about even, but it just seems to me the preferential ballot has really changed what's winning and I'm not sure that it completely reflects what the bulk of the Academy thinks is the "best".

And you're right about preferential definitely not working in categories with less nominees, which is why it would never work at the Tonys or other Oscar categories, but it still just seems strange to me that you suddenly vote completely differently for the biggest award of the night.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:35am

here's an interesting done by Vox about this kind of voting and the oscars. https://youtu.be/AfIxihGOaQ8

[froote]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 11:35am

Yeah people will have different thoughts on it and I respect your opinion. I actually listened to an awards podcast a few months ago and they had a very heated debate about whether the preferential. ballot was a good thing. I have to admit, as I said in my first post, a big part of me liking it is that the winners have turned out to my taste. I preferred Birdman to Boyhood, Spotlight to The Revenant and The Big Short and Moonlight is potentially my favorite film of all time. So you can imagine that I would find it difficult to want to go back when I struggle to find winners I really loved beforehand. 

[Broadway61004]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 12:15pm

Fair enough!  I suppose I hardly ever agree with what the Academy picks anyway, so it doesn't make that much of a difference to me (but as I said, I do agree with you that Spotlight was better than Revenant and also that Birdman was better than Boyhood, although I still wouldn't call either of those my favorite films of the year)

[Wayman_Wong]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 12:57pm

OK, I'll say it: The preferential ballot sucks, and it has made a mockery of Oscar history. There was a time when the Best Film and Best Director won hand-in-hand. Often, but not always, the movie with the most nominations won Best Picture; it was a sign of the film's popularity. There was a time when it meant something to have the most Oscar nominations. Like ''All About Eve'' and ''Titanic,'' ''La La Land'' scored 14 nominations; unlike them, now ''La La Land'' is the only 14-time nominee to lose Best Picture.

Now anything can happen. The preferential ballot allows the voters to manipulate the vote in how they rank the movies. I believe Best Picture is the only category where they allow that. It should be based on getting the most votes, not so-called ''consensus.'' So ''La La Land'' won the BAFTA, N.Y. Film Critics, Broadcast Critics, the PGA, the DGA and swept the Golden Globes, but got upset by ''Moonlight,'' and, to add insult to injury, the Best Picture presentation was a disaster. ... ''The Revenant'' won the Golden Globe, BAFTA and the DGA, and yet it lost to ''Spotlight'' for Best Picture; ''Spotlight'' won only 2 Oscars, a low that the Academy hasn't seen since ''The Greatest Show on Earth'' in 1953.

What also made this year's Oscars even uglier was the politics. Some people urged Academy voters to pick ''Moonlight,'' a movie about a young, gay black boy, as Best Picture, as a protest vote against Trump's win at the election. They also accused ''La La Land'' of being racist because it was about a white guy who loves jazz and didn't have any black people in the movie (wrong!). That was appalling.

Updated On: 6/10/17 at 12:57 PM

[froote]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 1:05pm

I would argue that if La La Land hadn't have been nominated so much/won all of those prior awards, it would have won Best Picture. The backlash only came when people realized how overhyped it had become. The truth is for most people it wasn't worthy of being one of the most nominated films in history. If something is good enough, it can survive the hype (Hamilton anyone?) La La Land was not the most critically acclaimed film of the year (that was Moonlight) and by the end of the season, people had had enough. Just look at the difference in reactions when La La Land won the Golden Globe for Comedy/Musical vs. Moonlight winning for  Drama. Likewise Moonlight winning Adapted Screenplay vs. La La Land's Director win. Both times Moonlight's win got a standing ovation and La La Land's win did not. The signs were there before Best Picture was announced. 

I'd be interested to hear what other awards Spotlight should have won. The fact is it's a very low key film. It wont be recognized for costumes, cinematography, sound or visual effects. That doesn't stop it from being the best film of the year.

I didn't see anyone suggest that Moonlight should win because of Trump, more they were giving that as a reason that it might win. I agree the backlash against La La Land was too much though.

[PatrickDC]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 1:17pm

Sounds like the ranked choice voting we have in San Francisco. When you vote, say, for a Supervisior position, you pick your top three candidates as 1, 2, and 3. If there is no clear majority winner, the ranked choices are tallied. This avoids the time and expense of run-off elections. 

[carolinaguy]

Posted: 6/10/17 at 2:24pm

One of the main reasons they have preferential voting for Best Picture at the Oscars is so there is no possibility of a tie in that category.