Why I Cut the Oscars Some Slack

Every year it's the same thing, "The Oscars suck". Granted, we all watch them or know who the winners are or 10 years down the road start trusting their pick like it was right. It happens. It's the biggest awards ceremony and the one with the most history (I'm not researching that. It's probably true). But, no one really let's the Oscars change their minds about a favorite or least favorite movie. I still hate "Million Dollar Baby" and love "Return of the King". I still don't get "Slumdog Millionaire" and think "Dark Knight" got snubbed.
Also, the LA Times (I think. Once again, this blog gets about a dozen hits, so I'm not researching, just riffing) came out with an article recently about the membership that has a bunch of people crying for reform, or at the very least, gives yet another reason to point to how insignificant it should really be.
The results are pretty damning too. The Academy is over 90% white, over 75% male, and a solid majority voted for LBJ. That is not very diverse at all. It hardly represents the average person's pick for best movie and there are huge segments of the population that are barely, if at all represented. Apparently the voting body is only about 5000 too, which some people say is pretty small. Personally, that seems as big as any other voting body for this sort of thing.

The Oscars are a fun ceremony though, and I kind of hate that it gets shat on so much, so I'd like to help it out a little. Now, where to begin...
 
Let's start with the membership. No fucking duh the membership looks like that.
1) It's lifetime membership and the only thing white than Hollywood now, is Hollywood then. Also, lifetime membership implies a certain age discrepancy. Unless you want to start smothering Warren Beatty in his sleep, there's not a solution to that. And, I don't mean to repeat myself here, but the only bigger boys' club than Hollywood now is Hollywood then. I think the thing really, that people should be looking into is the breakdown of the new membership now. Let's make sure those numbers make sense so this can self-correct itself over time.
2) The Academy Awards are a reactionary group. Hollywood dictates them, not the other way around. Blame the demographics of Hollywood for this. The Academy picks from those available. Now, if Lindsay Lohan gets in but Raven Simone doesn't then we'll talk.
3) I've very OK with the age range. It's a little on the old side (see Lifetime Membership) but the best people in a field generally are older. The goal of the Oscars in it's simplest form, is to have people who know movies best decide on the best that year has to offer. Sure, that almost never happens, but blame the industry, not the demographics of the voters. The closest analogy to this is Obama. Sure he's black, but he's still a politician doing what politicians do.

Here's a good one. What does "best" even mean? It's subjective, of course. Personally, I'm alright with a little subjectivity in my best picture winner. Considering, the closest you can get to an objective measure would be Box Office Gross + Movie Rentals + Movie Purchases. I don't like that system, because then Twilight would be on a Mad Men-like winning streak. I'd pick a movie about middle-aged white guys with first world problems over vampires just about any day of the week.
The best the Academy can do is to get votes from the most divisions of the industry as possible to come up with something. If you want it to be a popular vote, watch the People's Choice Awards and see how you like those results.

Lastly, and I think, most importantly, do the Oscars actually get to decide anything? I mean really. It's almost March by the time this ceremony comes around (and that's earlier than it used to be). It is the last awards ceremony for movies. Even by the time the nominations come out it's virtually decided who the frontrunners (see: Only movies that could win) are.
Let's take this year for example. The Artist is going to win. A "shock" would be The Descendants or Hugo and even those would be pretty expected. Octavia Spencer will collect the Supporting Actress and Christopher Plummer will get his lifetime achievement award. We know so many of the picks because every other guild, critics association, and film studies group has picked the same exact movies.
Can the Oscars really take some much of the blame for lacking imagination in their picks if they are the same ones all the other groups are narrowing their lists down to?I think it's a healthy load of bullshit for The Artist, but it's not like the Oscars are stubbornly backing that movie even though there's a clearly more deserving movie that everyone else is recognizing. Internationally, the same dumbasses are making the same dumbass picks.

I guess what I'm really getting at is, can't we say the awards season sucks, not just the Oscars?
(And yes, this was an abrupt ending because I have completely lost my train of thought at I refuse to outline this.