Winning an Oscar isn't all about acting ability

While the awards claim they recognize the top performances from around the world, a new study has found that you're more likely to win an Oscar if you're an American acting in a film that portrays American culture.【小题1】British actors are more likely to take home an award.

Researchers say the trend suggests viewers are more likely to perceive a performance as "truly brilliant" if they are members of the same social group as the actor. It can be seen, perhaps most famously, in the case of Leonardo DiCaprio, who finally won a long-awaited Oscar in the 88th Academy Awards for his role in The Revenant,which follows the story of an American frontiersman.【小题2】In 2014, Matthew McConaughey won an Oscar for his role in Dallas Buyers Club,and Jennifer Lawrence took an award home in 2013 for Silver Linings Playbook【小题3】The findings come from a new study published in the British Journal of Psychology. The team investigated a total of 908 merit prize winners: 97 winners and 383 nominees for the Oscars, and 97 winners and 331 nominees for the BAFTAs. Overall,they found that US actors dominated the awards,claiming over 50 percent of the prizes across the Oscars and BAFTAs.

【小题4】When the performer and judge shared membership within a particular social group-for example, being American-the actor was more likely to win. As a result, American actors were found to win 52 percent of all BAFTAs, and 69 percent of all Oscars. While British actors won just 18 percent of all Oscars, and 34 percent of BAFTAs.

【小题5】In the Oscars, Americans who performed in films about non-US culture accounted for just 26 percent of the award winners. But, those who performed in films about American culture made up 88 percent of the winners.

Since we were kids, we’ve been taught the difference between good and evil. But the world is not black and white anymore, even in the realm of movies. Here are reasons why we’re so captured by those “bad guys”.

Villains (反派主角) are realistic. Studies have proven that we are more likely to sympathize with characters who are similar to us. Good guys are often portrayed in movies as nearly perfect, and it’s hard to relate to them. We all have our own imperfections and a dark side. So, villains are often more realistic than good guys are.

At the same time, modern antagonists aren’t 100% evil. They’re complex and troubled characters who have their own story. Everyone hates Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter movies because she’s unreasonably ill-natured. There’s no story and no logic behind her behavior. She’s just self-serving. But many antagonists actually have their point which we see, and often even accept. We see what they’re going through and what they’re thinking, and we can’t help but empathize with them.

We’re curious about them. Every time we see a person acting bad or weird, we want to know why. And that makes us eager to know more about them, about their past, and about what they’re even thinking. They’re controversial, and we like to analyze these characters and their actions. They’re not pure evil, and modern movies do a good job of emphasizing this. There’s something that made them evil or something that won’t let them be good. There’s some internal conflict constantly going on within the character that we just find fascinating.

Villains are unpredictable. We never know what will happen to the villain. And that makes us care about them during the whole story. It’s what gets us hooked on watching them through to the end. Also, you can’t predict their actions. There are not many options aside from the right thing to do for the hero. But there’re many absolutely crazy possibilities for the villain that we couldn’t come up with even in our wildest dreams. And this makes us interested in watching them.

Do you like movies? If your answer is yes, there are a few movies you can choose from.

Rebecca

Lily James stars as the innocent young woman who is attracted by a handsome English widower Mr. de Winter in Monte Carlo. But when she marries him and then moves into his Cornwall mansion, she is troubled by the reputation of the previous Mrs. de Winter. It released on Netflix from 21 October.

Over the Moon

Over the Moon is a musical inspired by the legend of moon goddess Chang’e. When a 12-year-old girl hears the legend from her parents, she builds a rocket ship so that she and her pet rabbit can visit the moon goddess. The director, Glen Keane, has talked about the film’s authentic depiction(描述) of Chinese family life. It released on Netflix from 23 October.

Possessor

Andrea Riseborough stars as an assassin(刺客) who can telepathically(心灵感应地) control other people’s bodies and get them to do the killing for her. Her latest job is to kill an IT tycoon and his daughter by controlling the daughter’s fiance（未婚夫）. It released on 2 October in the US and 9 October in Canada.

Honest Thief

Liam Neeson plays Tom, a retired bank robber who promises to return his ill-gotten gains in exchange for a reduced prison sentence so that he can settle down with the woman he loves. But the two FBI agents assigned to get back the money decide to steal it instead and frame(诬陷) Tom for murder. It released on 14 October in France, 15 October in Portugal and 16 October in the US.