Cheryl Boone Isaacs President Of The Academy Explains Decision To Rescind 'Alone Yet Not Alone' Nomination

by UInterviewFebruary 3, 2014, 12:00 am >

Following the announcement that the Academy had rescinded Alone Yet Not Alone’s nomination for Best Original Song, many accused the Academy of bias against a faith-based film. President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, firmly denies that the decision had anything to do with the content of the film or the song.

“This is not about the film. This is about the voting process in one category. That’s all there is. We are adamant about keeping the integrity of our voting process,” Isaacs told The Hollywood Reporter Saturday, Feb. 1.

Composer Bruce Broughton Emailed Academy Members

The Academy also released a statement Saturday, detailing the voting process that determines the nominees for Best Original Song. According to the statement, all songs are intended to remain anonymous at the time of the voting, preventing any favoritism. As previously reported, “Alone Yet Not Alone” composer and former Governor of the Music Branch of the Academy, Bruce Broughton, e-mailed some of his friends who were voting to encourage them to listen to his song for fear that it would get lost amidst nominees that had the benefit of studio publicity. Unfortunately, by doing so he revealed his identity as composer of the song, something the Academy has since decided is an act “that undermines the integrity of the Oscars voting process.”

“It has been a long-standing policy and practice of the Academy – as well as a requirement of Rule 5.3 of the 86th Academy Award Rules – to omit composer and lyricist credits from the DVD of eligible songs that are sent to members of the Music Branch,” reads the statement.

Instead of listing the lyricist and composer, songs presented to the voters are only identified by their titles and the film titles. According to the official statement, Broughton e-mailed 70 of the 240 voting members and specifically identified track number 57 as one that he had worked on and requested that they listen to it.

“Our purpose is to keep a level playing field and to keep it anonymous, so when one person – in this case, Mr. Broughton – sends out an e-mail driving the voting members to a specific song that’s his, it does break the rules. And, certainly, a member of the executive committee of the music branch should know this,” Isaacs said.

Broughton defended himself, saying that he only promoted his song for fear that it would be overshadowed by big budget films that had the money to campaign for the Oscar.

“What happens is that the music branch of the Academy puts all the songs on a disc and I was concerned that this song would be really easy to overlook. So, yeah, I wrote some people and said, ‘Could you just take a look.’ That was literally the extent of the campaigning. I received in the mail songs from other films that were pressed and recorded CDs. We didn’t do anything like that,” Broughton told Entertainment Weekly.

When questioned on how Broughton’s actions differed from those films that submitted expensive ads and hosted special screenings, Isaacs explained that the other films did not specifically identify a song on the supposedly anonymous DVD as their own. Furthermore, they did not specifically target the voters in the category of Best Original Song.

“[In that scenario] the people in the audiences are comprised of a whole number and range of people; the audience is full of many different folks. This was a direct communiqué to voting members who are given an official list that specifically kept the names of the composers and the lyricists off to avoid undue influence. This was a very targeted, specific approach. That’s very different. And no one else, other than people in the music branch, would have this reminder list with the number, the eligible song and the title,” Isaacs explained.

Isaacs also took the time to defend the Academy for not replacing “Alone Yet Not Alone” with a new nominee, saying that it goes against an Academy rule that states that no new nominee should take the place of another deemed ineligible.