Awards Reward Industry‑Flattering Films

Award committees often prefer works that celebrate or flatter the professions and institutions doing the judging, producing a bias toward self‑referential, redemptive industry narratives. That dynamic can explain why technically smaller or foreign films that explicitly valorize artmaking (or its practitioners) punch above their size in prestige contests. — This matters because it shows how cultural prestige is self‑reinforcing and can skew what stories enter mass public conversation and why policy and social debate may privilege certain frames.