Few had heard of “Alone Yet Not Alone”, or the movie of the same name, before it was nominated for Best Original Song in this year’s Academy Awards. Matt Singer at The Dissolve even went so far as to ask “what the heck is it?” And he’s a guy who knows his movies.
The short version is that it’s from a faith-based movie with a tiny release. For a while, how it became widely known enough to be nominated was a mystery. Now that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has decided to take it off the ballot, we know a bit more.
In what the Hollywood Reporter is calling “a move with few precedents”, the song was knocked out of the running because the composer may have misused contacts as a former governor and current executive council member for the academy. In other words, he sent out a mass e-mail.
Some of the governors involved in this decision must’ve been arguing to let this pass. Unsurprisingly, I’m not versed in Academy Award rules, but for an infraction like this, looking the other way for a song that has a slim, slim chance of winning seems favourable to what’s surely an inevitable bout of controversy for “targeting” a religious movie. Times like these make me glad I stopped going to Big Hollywood out of grim curiosity.
