One less song to be sung at this year's Oscars

As some of you may know, I take an eager interest in the Academy Awards,with a special fondness for the Best Song category that was in danger of being rather unappreciated lately. Well, now we have quite a bright spotlight shining on that particular section of the awards show these days.

Many eyebrows were raised when the theme song from "Alone Yet Not Alone"  was nominated,since it was barely released into theaters(it had a nine day run in order to qualify for the Oscars) and speculation about the influence of it's composer Bruce Broughton,who was a former governor of the Academy and a current executive member of the music branch, in making that happen.

It turns out that Bruce sent out a few e-mails(about 70) to certain friends of his who are eligible voters to urge them to nominate his song,which happens to be a no-no. This week, the Academy announced that the nomination for that song was now rescinded,something that has never happened before:

This decision has ruffled quite a few feathers,with Bruce Broughton claiming on his Facebook page and elsewhere that he did not nothing wrong and that he's the victim of a campaign to "discredit his song".

 Online petitions are already being sent as we speak to protest this  and accusations of bias due to AYNA being a faith based film are flying about fast and furious. Amidst this minor note brouhaha, I feel the need to say something sensible here and that is this:

Mr. Broughton,as a grown man and an industry professional, you know very well that what you did wasn't right. Yes, other Oscar campaigns in the past(and probably still in the present) have gone to extremes to get their films nominated but that is no excuse for you to do what you did.

As a former Academy governor and current music branch member,you should know that you are automatically held to a higher standard and by e-mailing voters listed in your personal Rolodex(as you yourself claim), you are using undue influence to obtain preference for your work. To insist that it was merely "grass roots campaigning" is as absurd as movie stars using Kickstarter to finance their pet projects(and yes, I know some of them do).

I also don't buy your claim that a "simple e-mail" from you to one of the many people on your personal friends and contacts list wouldn't sway anyone's vote. Either you're actually naive or you think the rest of us are. Sounds like a bad case of sour grapes to me.

 To the folks claiming religious persecution here,may I remind you of a certain little movie called The Passion of the Christ which received several Oscar nominations? That film was more widely seen than Alone Yet Not Alone and far more controversial in nature as well as media scrutiny and yet it was still put up there.

To tell the truth and shame the devil, that song didn't really have much of a chance of winning in the first place. Like a lot of other Oscar races, this category is pretty much down to two frontrunners, either U2's "Ordinary Love"  or " Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen.

 Hard to beat out Disney in this category,folks,especially since this song is getting a lot of love from fans of all ages. While it is a shame that Joni Eareckson Tada(the original singer) doesn't get her moment on stage there, the award is given to the writers and you can thank one of them for making her lose out on this opportunity to share her talents on such a grand scale.

By the time the Oscars are over, this kerfuffle will another footnote in movie award show history and hopefully it won't set a bad precedent for future nominees. Maybe it would be best if we all just sang along in renewed harmony to let all the bad vibes go: