The Oscar nomination for an obscure song in a lightly seen film has been rescinded.
The Academy’s board of governors disqualified Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel’s “Alone Yet Not Alone” after learning that Broughton, a former governor and current Music Branch executive committee member, had emailed members of the branch about the song during the nominations voting period.
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“No matter how well-intentioned the communication, using one’s position as a former governor and current executive committee member to personally promote one’s own Oscar submission creates the appearance of an unfair advantage,” Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said.
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“I’m devastated,” Bruce Broughton said in an email to Billboard. “I indulged in the simplest, grassroots, campaign and it went against me when the song started getting attention. I got taken down by competition that had months of promotion and advertising behind them. I simply asked people to find the song and consider it.”
The board determined that Broughton’s actions were inconsistent with the Academy’s promotional regulations. The Academy’s rules state “the Board of Governors may take any corrective actions or assess any penalties that in its discretion it deems necessary to protect the reputation and integrity of the awards process.”
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They will not ad an additional nominee in the original song category. The song’s qualifications had been challenged on the basis of the film never being advertised in print.
There continues to be rumblings over the allowance of four songwriters on the U2 track “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.” The rules state that no more than three songwriters may be listed on a track.