21st Critics' Choice Awards

The film Star Wars: The Force Awakens screened too late for the vast majority of the Broadcast Film Critics Association to see it in time for consideration for the awards. But after what an email to members called "an unprecedented cry out" from its membership, the BFCA's board of directors called a "special referendum" on adding the movie to the 10 candidates for Best Picture, which it won. (A similar situation happened for the 6th Critics' Choice Awards in 2001, in which the film Cast Away was voted by referendum to be included among the nominees for Best Picture.) The BFCA faced immediate criticism, including from its own members, over what many saw as an attempt to increase ratings for the awards ceremony's broadcast on A&E (which, is 50% owned by Disney, the company behind Star Wars) on January 17.[3] Two members, Eric Melin (who runs Scene-Stealers.com, the film critic at the Lawrence Journal-World, and the president of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle), and Scott Renshaw of Salt Lake City Weekly, resigned in protest.

Melin, in an open letter, said:

"In order for a professional critics body to have integrity, nomination and voting guidelines must be consistent with the way they were laid out at the beginning of the process. Nominating Star Wars: The Force Awakens for Best Picture does not follow those guidelines, and re-ignites a loophole for this kind of thing to happen every year... Unlike the other nominations, this was not decided upon using a weighted ballot of all possibilities, and it smells like a desperate ploy to get better TV ratings. Additionally, your insistence on billing the Critic’s Choice Awards as the 'most accurate predictor of the Academy Awards' is antithetical to the purpose of having a 'critic’s choice' award at all. The awards should not serve as another TV marketing arm to the studios. Rather, it should represent the views and opinions of film critics, which is a very different group from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As film criticism continues to be devalued and the lines between journalist, critic, and studio shill continue to be blurred, the only thing we have is our integrity, and this smacks of a marketing ploy. Believe me, I know because my day job is a social media marketer. What I am not is an employee of A&E Networks, and the only thing I have as a lowly paid film critic is the courage of my convictions."

— Eric Melin, [4]

Similarly in another open letter, Scott Renshaw said:

"This decision has been a long time coming, but was made inevitable by the decision to change the voting process to allow Star Wars: Episode VII- The Force Awakens to be included as a nominee after the official nominating deadline. Irrespective of any precedent that may be invoked... it is obvious to me that this decision is based more on marketing value than making sure that the best films are included. If that were the case, the entire nomination process would have been opened up again to allow The Force Awakens to be considered in all categories. Any suggestion that this decision was made primarily for any reason other than to improve ratings for the awards broadcast feels disingenuous at best. An awards voting body has nothing to stand on but its integrity. I no longer feel my own personal integrity is consistent with ongoing membership in this organization."

— Scott Renshaw, [5]

• 6th Critics' Choice Television Awards

• 21st Annual Critics’ Choice Awards – Winners