论文总字数：35264字

摘 要

纵观奥斯卡获奖影片名单，观察各种社会历史背景下不同影片的发展趋势，我们可以总结出美国文化和精神的价值取向。奥斯卡奖获奖影片反映了美国个人英雄主义的文化价值取向，普世价值观和自我奋斗的精神。随着时代的变迁，奥斯卡获奖电影的风格正在发生变化，更多表现出对弱势群体和个人命运的关注，战争思想的深化以及对社会矛盾的思考。通过对奥斯卡最佳影片的整体研究和趋势分析，我们可以看到电影艺术作为一种思想文化载体，传播文化和价值观的独特作用以及社会历史的反映。作为美国大众文化的典型代表，奥斯卡奖彰显了美国大众文化的自由和勤劳，体现了美国流行文化中历史与现实的完美结合，也是美国社会生活的风向标。透视奥斯卡奖的发展过程，我们可以深刻感受到美国人民的过去，现在和未来。奥斯卡奖一直是美国流行文化多元化和开放性的先驱。它的宽容为我们提供了更多的文化融合机会，这使我们看到了一个充满活力的美国社会。

关键词：奥斯卡；美国文化；美国精神

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 The Origin of Oscar 1

2.2 Related Researches on American Popular Culture and Oscar 2

3. Oscar-winning Films" American Values 4

3.1 Personal Heroism 4

3.2 Universal Value 6

3.3 Advocating the Spirit of Self-struggling 7

4. Oscar Award: Barometer of American Society 7

4.1 American Film Reflecting American Life 8

4.2 Movie Theme Changing from Generation to Generation 9

5. The Openness and Diversity of Oscars 10

5.1 The Openness of Oscars 11

5.2 The Diversity of Oscars 11

6. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

The Oscar Award, a weathervane of American movies, has become a new angle for people to understand American social life. The Oscar has been a window for us to observe American popular culture. When it comes to the Hollywood-based film, there is no denying that it is a significant part of culture soft power of the United States. In addition to some creative elements of its films, marketing models, and the application of high-tech, the themes of the films can be regarded that most American films are based on American spirit and value. The themes reflect an attraction and tension at the cultural and ideological levels. The theme of the film dominates the whole work and it is the soul of a film (Meng 248). Through the analysis of Oscar"s best film winners, it is found that most of its themes are in line with American cultural values, mainly divided into wars and patriotism, love and ethics, social contradictions and other topics. Directors advocate universal values, equality, freedom, and innovation. Elements such as individual heroism are integrated into the film theme. This article looks back at the American cultural values and trends by recalling the history of Oscar-winning films. It can not only give people spiritual enjoyment, but also spread rapidly with the help of the power of industrial society.

2. Literature Review

An obvious feature of popular culture is that it reflects the mainstream values and contradictions of the industrial society and the various aspects of social life. We can see the Americans" interpretation of trends and freedoms from jeans. We can see their fast-paced way of life from McDonald"s and KFC. You can feel the tranquility and warmth of American country life from American country music. Similarly, we can also see the artistic aesthetics and social mainstream values of American art from previous Oscar-winning films. And the contradictions are in all aspects of society.

2.1 The Origin of Oscar

The Oscars are synonymous with the Academy Awards. So, how did the name "Oscar" come from? There are different opinions.

  According to the report, the Academy Awards were awarded an Oscar-winning alias in 1931. At that time, Margaret Herrich, who was the administrator of the Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (later as the librarian), after carefully scrutinizing the Golden Statue trophy, exclaimed: "Ah - he sees It’s like my uncle Oscar (Herridge’s uncle Oscar Pierce is working in Texas)!” A journalist was sitting in the office next door. Later he wrote that the staff of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences affectionately called their golden statues Oscar. This way, the alias will not go away (Yan 3).

  Also, the famous actor Judy Twice said that she was the first to name Oscar. She said that when she first won the award, she inadvertently called her husband, Hiroshi Oscar Nelson, the name "Oscar", which was heard by reporters who were interviewed on the spot, and it was spread.

    In addition, there is another saying: Hollywood columnist Skowski, when writing a report on a typewriter on the night of the sixth award ceremony, forgot the spelling of the Statuette, he suddenly remembered an act in a musical play that he has seen. It was a group of comedians who walked to the orchestra and jokingly said to the conductor: "Oscar, do you want cigarettes?" The conductor reached out and wanted to know, but these comedians did not hide from cigarettes. This caused a big laugh. Skowski believes that the golden trophy symbolizes desire and should be comic. So he wrote in the report: "Catherine Hepburn won the Oscar in the corner of Ava in Stunning."

    According to various aspects of analysis, the above first statement is more credible. Because Judy Tevez won the Best Actress Award for the first time in 1935, and at that time Oscar this name has long been a household name. As for Skowski"s view that the Golden Statue trophy should have a comedic color, such a view may not be acceptable to the majority of film industry.

2.2 Related Researches on American Popular Culture and Oscar

Compared with the long history of human evolution, the history of the United States is actually very short. However, in just over 200 years, this country, composed of immigrants from all continents, people of different skin colors and different cultural origins, has quickly formed its own unique popular culture. Today, American popular culture has become a typical representative of western culture, and it is eager to penetrate other parts of the world. The United States is ambitious to sell its ideology, values and lifestyles to every corner of the globe to facilitate its capital accumulation and develop new market.

As the improvement of technology and the prosperity of the US economy, popular culture has developed by leaps under such a background. Scholars, such as Zhu shida, Lewis and Mencken believe that popular culture has become the mainstream of American culture. Prof. Li qirong points that popular culture mainly refers to people"s daily life and is equal to folk culture, such as hippies, jeans, Hollywood, pop music and mass media, as well as the most representative Oscar (Li 158). The study of popular culture in the West is mainly divided into the Frankfurt School and the British School. Their attitudes towards popular culture are very different. According to Prof. Jiang Hua, who studies that in Heilongjiang University, thinks that the Frankfurt School is based on the value orientation of elite culture.

Most tend to think that popular culture has a high degree of ideology and unity. It is a tool imposed by the Ministry of Capital and Culture Industry on the masses and controlling the public"s mind. It takes a completely pessimistic attitude towards popular culture. British Cultural Studies School broke the limitations of the distinction between elegance and vulgar culture in the Frankfurt School study, paying more attention to the active interpretation of the media culture by the audience. The practice of popular culture enables the ordinary people to resist the cultural dictatorship of the power group and have the ability to participate the democratic system even it is only symbolic (Jiang 8).

It has been suggested that there is a third popular culture theory in the west, namely Podria"s popular culture theory, which believes that society has been dissolved or imploded into some masses, and the differences between classes and races have disappeared,. There is no difference in the mass composition, and the masses live in the era of simulation dominated by symbols and images, which is controlled by the mass media, because the mass media has become the hegemony of controlling and spreading social culture (Yu 12).

In the book American Cultural Concepts, Dong xiaochuan also vividly illustrates that we can witness the changes of American value and culture from the translation. In English, the word “mass culture” can be spelled as “Popular Culture” or “Mass Culture”. Popular Culture means focusing on propagating culture for the majority of the people, which is relative to elite culture. So, Popular Culture is sometimes translated as the culture almost everyone can understand it (Dong 304). The significance of mass culture is to emphasize that mass culture is mass-produced and widespread through the mass media. American scholar Stan Wilson said that in modern society, these two words are almost synonymous, because today"s cultural communication is almost entirely based on mass media.

It can be seen that the mass media has an inseparable relationship with the popular culture. Whether it is traditional text-based books, newspapers, magazines, or later electronic media-based movies, television, and radio, they are both the carrier of American popular culture and an important component of American popular culture. Especially in the second half of the 20th century, the emergence and popularity of computers and the rise of the information superhighway have brought the development of American popular culture into a new era (Ailise 140). The Oscars are the best perspective on this phenomenon.

After the 1960s, the expression of Popular Culture has become more and more accepted. But I don"t think that American popular culture is a popular culture. Personally, I accept the later interpretation of this phrase. That is, contemporary American popular culture mainly refers to consumption caused by American urbanization and industrialization (Cunningham A53).The cultural form of mass production, characterized by modern media as the medium of mass consumption, has its great influence on the elite culture and civic life of the United States.

3. Oscar-winning Films" American Values

3.1 Personal Heroism

In the history and culture of the United States, personal ideals and individual heroism occupy an important position and are an important driving force for the progress and development of American society. According to American scholar Robert Bella, individualism is the most profound national identity of Americans and the core of American culture. The fundamental things in American cultural traits come from it (Robert 190).

As a core component of American culture, personal ideals and heroic films have become an important part of Oscar"s best films. In the film Escape from Tehran, the heroine Tony Mendes did not hesitate to break the order after the Washington government suspended the rescue plan, and rescued the compatriots with one"s wisdom and courage. In this way, it is no accident that the film is favored by the Oscar-winning judges in the context of highlighting individual heroism. The Hurt Locker itself selected the theme that is easy to "create" a hero. It is worn in a protective suit that is thick and far away from the outside world. The comrades-in-arms and civilians are outside the safe distance, and the bomb-removing experts are heading for one by one. The protagonist James lost his earphones in the mission and lost his teammates" communication. He went to the city late at night to find the whereabouts of the little boy "Beckham". But the film"s excellence is to lead the audience to reflect on the traditional individual heroism. James"s heroic and even arrogant behavior contrasts with the cautiousness of the two teammates. It can be said that the successful removal of 873 bombs and multiple failures behind it. The helplessness has created the alienation of humanity under the devastating war of the male protagonist.

Just as the film said at the beginning that "war is an addictive drug", it is this hero who is eroded by drugs, confused, helpless and heroic. Doctrine, just like another end of the two Oscar-winning films Black Hawk Fall: no one wants to be a hero, sometimes just a hero. Like the film The Domineering, Maximos, as a slave, conquered the audience with his courage and struggle, challenged the authority of the Roman Empire and the authority of the emperor, and similarly the 68th best film Brave Wallace in the Heart.

There are also a series of award-winning films about the interpretation of individual heroism, such as Walking with the Wolf. The heroism in American cultural values expressed by these films has three characteristics. First, the individual heroism culture of the United States has profound religious and cultural origins. Weber elaborated on the relationship between Protestantism and the development of capitalist society in the book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The Protestant Reform advocates direct communication between the individual and God, and the removal of the power of the church and the government, personal ideals and will Independence has been sublimated and praised. Second, individualism has not completely violated the team spirit and group role. Just as Mark Moss finally gained the approval of the arena audience, Wallace was recognized by the British people and the Scottish nobility. The heroic behavior only promotes individual performance. The tenacious spirit, individuality and creativity, ultimately need to be recognized by the public to achieve the ultimate social effect. Third, the hero is the contradictory unity of honor and tragedy. The film is mostly intertwined with the powerful and inner pain of the protagonist"s appearance, the public"s approval and self-question. European and American drama theorist Kleiggen said: "They (theatrical figures) win in defeat, win and lose. But only the conflict itself is the source of dramatic meaning. Moreover, from this inevitable conflict, heroism has emerged. "(Robert 9)

3.2 Universal Value

Universal value refers to a kind of value that most people can recognize based on thinking about human nature and respecting people"s general natural laws. The commercial factors of Hollywood movies have led to the box office as one of the important criteria for measuring a movie, so how to cater to audiences of different countries, nations, and beliefs is also a concern of Hollywood movies. There are many films in the Oscar-winning film that focus on the fate of ordinary people and reflect the attention of ordinary individuals of all races and countries.

The film Slumdog Millionaire won the eighth Awards in 2008. In the film, Jamal shaped a poor slum child to become a rich man through TV. It seems to be accidental, but behind a series of coincident stories is his persistent pursuit of love, relying on the spirit of courage to face the embarrassing life and relying on the help of family and friendship. These life views and world views with universal values ​​have made the fate and life of the film"s protagonist sympathize and support the audience. The film Beautiful Mind is a protagonist who suffers from schizophrenia. In particular, the protagonist is John Nash. He has won the Nobel Prize. The protagonist overcomes the schizophrenia problem with his wife"s care and care. When he was on the world"s highest podium, he said: "Only in the mysterious love equation, can we get a logical and reasonable explanation. I can be here tonight because you (Nash"s wife) ⋯⋯" harvested in 1997 The 11th Oscar-winning Titanic is a classic film full of universal values, the eternal love of true love in the movie, the love of women, the elderly and children in distress, the criticism of different classes on the same ship, the life Compassion and a series of full and complete universal values ​​have been recognized by various audiences around the world, and even after 15 years, the 3D version of Titanic still won good box office results.

The Oscar-winning favor for universal values is, on the surface, leading the film industry to cater to the tastes of different groups of viewers. At a deeper level, the United States is a country founded by Protestants, and its culture mostly reveals the sense of responsibility and the maintenance of the lives of the people. This orientation of the Oscar judges is the externalization of the universal value of American culture in film art.

3.3 Advocating the Spirit of Self-struggling

Self-strength is a spirit that the United States is proud of. In the United States, the Declaration of Independence believes that everyone has the right to pursue happiness, and it is self-evident that the Oscars are for the small people to achieve the world through self-strengthening. The inspirational film that is eye-catching is also a special liking.

In 1994, the sixth Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump was a masterpiece of self-strengthening spirit. Forrest Gump told him the world with his “running” that life is a box of chocolates and you never know what flavor it will be. American culture values ​​equal opportunities for people and tends to put the final result of things into a “random event” so that people can never infer from the objective conditions of others whether this person can succeed, regardless of whether you are born poor or rich, whether it is the high or low of innate IQ, you need to rely on your own hard work to stand out. Julia Roberts, the 73rd Oscar for best actress, she is the single mother in this movie. With the courage and perseverance of “uncompromising”, she is a weak woman without any legal education background. , won a world civil service lawsuit. Americans are not professional in their respect for the spirit of self-effort, and even in the King"s Speech, Albert, the King of George VI, needs hard work to do the "speaking".

4. Oscar Award: Barometer of American Society

Although American culture has deep-rooted connections with the original Protestant ideas of the founding of the People"s Republic, after the civil war, the World War II, the scrubbing of the Vietnam War, especially after the social and contradictory crisis brought about by the changes in science and technology and the world pattern, Americans have warned against the war. Great changes have taken place in the perception of social reality, and the values of American public have undergone profound changes. Through the changes in Oscar movies before and after the war, we can analyze the transformation and trend of American culture and values.

4.1 American Film Reflecting American Life

American movies are the eye-catching watch of American society. Art cannot be separated from life. American movies that value box office are more closely related to real life. In 1939, the giant system of Gone with the Wind not only vividly reproduces the scene of the 19th century Civil War in the United States, but also shows the maturity and economic prosperity of the film industry in the United States at that time, except for the United States, a country that relied heavily on war. After the United States was involved in the Pacific War, the award-winning film Casablanca showed American society’s hatred of fascism and its yearning for peace, reflecting the state of social life in the United States at that time. During the Second World War, the conflict between human nature and morality was most evident. The filming of British Patient is mainly intended to arouse people"s deep thoughts on human moral conflicts. This kind of conflict is not only the conflict between love and morality, but also the conflict between people and concepts, namely nationalism, moral standards, political thoughts and so on. In the face of human nature, national borders, wars, political positions and concepts are so small. Just as Catherine wrote in the diary, although we are dead, we are full of love and experience. The definition of the state should be us (human), not the borders on the map (Xiang 46).

When in the end of World War II, the issue of soldiers" recovery became another contradiction in American society. The film Golden Age, which reflected the problem of demobilized soldiers, was therefore favored by Oscar. In the late 1950s, with the rise of the American human rights movement, the women"s movement, and the anti-war movement, films that reflected the problems of American social violence, drug abuse, racial discrimination, and warfare also followed. Their masterpieces like The Hot Night and Midnight Cowboy are also favored by Oscar. Midnight Cowboy based on the novel of M. Leo Herlithi, and it is the first film in the history of Oscar, which was pushed by the "Dark Social Film". As one of the "New Movies" sports in the United States, the cruel reality depicted in Midnight Cowboy is a challenge to all those who embrace dreams and negatives.

Since the late 1980s, the US economy has gradually cast off stagflation and prosperity, and the style of the film has become more diversified, such as the anti-war film Field Row, the biographer Mozart, and the western film Dance with the Wolf. This diversification reflects the overall concern of Americans in all aspects of life after the economic recovery. Later, Oscar began to focus on some films that blur traditional ethics.

In recent years, the best films and best actors have been awarded to the characters and themes of the “negative characters”, such as the gangster crime theme of Infernal Affairs, and Daniel Lewis, the capitalist of Anderson in The Scarlet. The Brokeback Mountain award-winning theme of homosexuality is a breakthrough in the American society of the Protestant tradition. Since the 1990s, American science fiction movies and 3D movies have developed rapidly, and their computer stunts are leading the world. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Return of the King and Avatar which created the box office miracle are all. Show us the American computer skills and extraordinary creativity. This world-leading computer stunt is rooted in the creative national spirit of the United States and the vibrant economic and social life.

In addition to creating countless breathtaking war scenes, this film theme also conveys praise for human courage and love. It is this American spirit that makes it possible to represent the American film station on the podium of Oscar (Niranjan Sudhir 4).

4.2 Movie Theme Changing from Generation to Generation

First of all, the anti-war movie changed from a mere description of the tragedy brought about by war to the torture of the nature of human nature. The Oscar war movies before the 1970s, such as Wing, No war on the Western Front, The Spring and Autumn Period and The Immortality described the ravages of war for love, affection, and friendship, and expressed the cruelty of war to the audience in the form of tragedy. After the 1970s, the films of Field Battle, Saving Private Ryan and Modern Revelation no longer focus on the tragedy of killing and death, but express the helplessness of the pure soul of the war in the war. .

Secondly, Oscar movies more reflect the concern for social contradictions and reality, just like the Godfather series, Flying over the madhouse, Old Men, Chicago, etc. The trauma of World War II and Vietnam War brought doubts and ideology of the American people"s traditional values, and formed many social realities. Finally, due to the rapid development of the US economy, there is unprecedented confidence and curiosity about the future. Therefore, sci-fi movies such as Avatar, Star Wars, and Pirates of Dreams have been derived, showing Americans" exploration of the future.

The above-mentioned Oscar movie theme has changed with the development of the times, illustrating some of the transformation of American mainstream values.

First, individualism and collectivism keep balance. When the protagonist in the Oscar film shows helplessness and inner torture, when people gradually feel the indifference of independence and struggle for themselves in the society, the close connection between social production and global industry makes the traditional extreme individualism values ​​difficult to maintain. Mainstream values try to keep a healthy balance between individuals and society.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：35264字