'Slumdog Millionaire' to Oscars voters: Choose this tune for best song, not that one
Over the last few days Oscars voters received a campaign CD featuring two of "Slumdog Millionaire's" three music nominations: best song ("Jai Ho") and score. Missing from the CD was "Slumdog Millionaire's" other contender for best song ("O Saya").
Fox Searchlight is daring to choose between its Oscar children. The studio wants voters to focus their "Slumdog Millionaire" love on one song, fearing that the vote might split otherwise, causing both to lose. So this is good strategy, although poor politics. Inevitably, the studio is inviting a chorus of discontent from the folks behind the song not being hyped.
In this case, the strategy is probably wise because "Jai Ho" is the obvious favorite. It's the big, magical dance finale of "Slumdog Millionaire." Voters may not know it by name, though, and may easily confuse it with the other tune since the titles of both are in Hindi. Now they'll probably get the hint after being prodded by the studio.
What's unfortunate about this decision is that "O Saya" is written by one of the coolest music artists on the planet right now. M.I.A. is nominated for record of the year at this Sunday's Grammys ("Paper Planes").
There's always the possibility, of course, that this strategy might backfire with those bull-headed, contrary-minded academy members. After all, Paramount Classics made it clear in 2005 that it wanted an Oscar nomination for the title tune to "Hustle & Flow," but ended up getting one for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" — which won!
However, that's a rarity and that occurred prior to Oscar nominations being unveiled, not afterward. Such favoritism being shown at this late point in the derby trot is extraordinary. When Disney nabbed bids for three songs from "Enchanted," it was clear that "That's How You Know" — the big dance spectacular staged in Central Park — was the movie's best shot to win, but it got the same amount of attention and campaign push as "So Close" and "Happy Working Song." All three lost to "Falling Slowly" from "Once."
DreamWorks didn't single out one of "Dreamgirls" three nominees — "Listen," "Patience," "Love You I Do" — and lost the Oscar to Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth."
Not all multiple nominees lose because of voting splitting, though. "The Lion King" (1994) had three nominations for song and triumphed for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?"
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A great movie.... simply awesome... must get all the oscars ... and the music has crossed the limits of wonders... Awesome, brilliant, execllent, superb are not the words who can completely describe the miracles done by AR RAHMAN............ HATS OFFFFF>........... Love it...........
Posted by: Sadan | February 22, 2009 at 10:33 AM
"Beauty & the Beast" also had three song nominees (it was the first to achieve such a feat) and won for the title song. The other 2 nominees were "Belle" and "Be Our Guest".
Posted by: Movie_Dearest | February 08, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Jai Ho has energized the mainstream audience and its beats are pulsating. It is a feel good song and everyone is making the dance moves to the song. Did you see Ellen and her crew along with Dev and Freida make the moves towards the end of one of her shows on which Dev and Freida appeared. I think that the cast of the movie should perform the dance at the Oscars to the song with the stage set resembling the Railway Platform as it is in the movie. The billion audience will like Jai Ho and the dance number.
Posted by: Nazir Patel | February 08, 2009 at 03:37 PM
RBBrittain, it also didn't help that HSM2 and its songs were crap.
Posted by: Zach | February 07, 2009 at 02:44 PM
Tom, probably worth noting that AR Rahman is credited on both tracks (for music on 'Jai Ho' and as co-writer of music and lyrics on 'O Saya').
Posted by: dbblg | February 07, 2009 at 11:24 AM
This shouldn't even be an issue as The Wrestler should be taking the Oscar for Best Song...what the hell?
Jai ho, in my opinion, is a song that has nothing to do with the actual film, and is just a credit or curtain call song that could have been written for any Indian themed film.
Posted by: michelleK | February 07, 2009 at 10:41 AM
Though I'd rather see "O Saya" win than "Jai Ho", the strategy is proper. If Fox Searchlight hadn't picked one or the other, they ran a high risk of giving the Oscar to Peter Gabriel by default; thus they had to pick a lead song.
Before "Cold Mountain" lost both its song noms in 2003, when a film got multiple song noms it was obvious which one was the lead (even with "The Lion King"), so vote-splitting didn't occur. In that era, starting with "Fame" (the first ever multi-nominee for BOS), every multi-nominated film won the Oscar for its lead song except:
* "Yentl" lost to "Flashdance", also a multi-nominee.
* "Footloose" lost the 1984 BOS race to Stevie Wonder's song from "The Woman In Red", the only year EVER when all five song nominees were No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100--even with NO nommed songs from "Purple Rain", the year's biggest soundtrack with two No. 1's of its own. (Prince instead won the last Oscar ever for Best Original Song Score.)
* "The Bodyguard" lost to fellow multi-nominee "Aladdin"; it also had weak focus because "I Will Always Love You" was ineligible. ("Dreamgirls" had the same problem; none of the three nommed songs could outshine "And I Am Telling You...".)
Lack of a clear lead song also explains why HSM3 got no noms even though all 11 original songs from the film were submitted.
Posted by: RBBrittain | February 07, 2009 at 07:28 AM
No, The Lion King had three nominated songs: Can You Feel the Love Tonight?*, Circle of Life, and Hakuna Matata. No film has ever had four nominated songs, I believe.
Posted by: Zach | February 06, 2009 at 11:10 PM
>>>Not all multiple nominees lose because of voting splitting, though. "The Lion King" (1994) had four nominations for song and triumphed for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?"<<<
'The Lion King' had three song nominations. The fourth nomination was for Best Original Score (which also triumphed).
Posted by: par3182 | February 06, 2009 at 10:40 PM