Another Pointless Award Show

The Oscar nominations were released today and I’ve already seen people complaining about what was nominated and what was snubbed.  All I can say to these people is “why you say that for”?  To me there is no use in complaining about these award shows because history has proven that the voters for these major awards (I’m talking Emmys, Grammys, and Oscars) are usually not good at their job.  Take the Grammys, which I consider the worst of the worst.  Look at any list describing the best albums or songs of the past 50 or so years.  Now look at the Grammy’s list of annual winners.  The disparity could not be greater.  Our musical overlords of the 50’s-70’s only got their hardware in the form of apology awards.  Today the Grammys has gotten better but they still face heavy criticism in the area of best Rap album and so on.  The whole Kendrick Lamar Macklemore debacle brought back echoes of A Taste of Honey beating Elvis Costello for best new artist.  The Grammys are the most irrelevant of the major award bunch and that is only if you consider the Grammys an award ( classic Simpsons burn).  Despite my hang ups about the Grammys, I do consider their show the best of the three (aside from the Tonys) because it focuses on performing rather than self-righteous speeches that make you want to jab q-tips in your ear a la Lena Dunham in that episode of Girls back in the day (to answer your question – yes I do want to see an act off at the Oscars/Emmys).  The performances are usually fun and give you a chance to directly experience all the music you hear in the background of a terrible club.  So I thank the Grammys for that.

I’d like to skip the Emmys (self-explanatory) and move directly to the king daddy of all gold statues, the Oscars.  The Oscars should be renamed “the Awards for Best Movies to Arrive in Theaters after August” because generally those are the only movies they feel that counts (though this year the field has expanded slightly).  Again I direct you to the test I gave the Grammys.  Look at what is on the Sight and Sound poll or really any greatest movies of all-time list and compare it with the Oscar winner of that year.  Sometimes the most memorable thing about the Oscars are the films that don’t win (Citizen Kane, Goodfellas, the list goes on and on) and thus proves the disconnect between Oscar voters, critics, and the average film goer.  But in the end, the Oscars (like the Grammys, Emmys, and Tonys) are shows that peddle in having apples and oranges compete against each other.  How can one successfully compete in the arts?  1977 had Annie Hall beating Star Wars for best picture.  How can you even compare these groundbreaking and great films against each other?  It is artistic madness at its worst.  These films compete for respect and peer recognition but in the end that doesn’t always last or matter.  I like to bring up the modern example of The Social Network and The King’s Speech.  The film, The King’s Speech, is classic Oscar bait: a stuttering King overcomes his disability by working with an eccentric doctor which allows him to lead his country against the Nazis (in this historical timeline Winston Churchill does not exist).  This movie won the Oscar solely by its description, but today you’d be hard pressed to see it referenced in our popular culture despite being an Oscar winner and a decent movie.  The Social Network has become a part of our vernacular and is one of the most quotable films of the past few years on top of it being supremely excellent while answering the pressing question of who knew a movie based on Facebook would be so great?  You can exchange my example with plenty of other films to prove how meaningless this award really is.

For all my award show hate I do sort of enjoy the Golden Globes.  I think the idea of separating films and television shows based on drama and comedy is a smart method because comedies are always overlooked when it comes to award shows.  Apparently Oscar voters do not care for the phrase “dying is easy, comedy is hard”.  So I’ll give the Golden Globes a pass for having genre distinctions.  Otherwise, awards given out at award shows are meaningless.  Winning Best Picture is not akin to winning the World Series.  People know now (and at the time) that Goodfellas is supremely better than Dances with Wolves and that Citizen Kane is superior to How Green was My Valley.  So don’t pay these awards any mind because competing in the arts is pretty stupid.  Just sit back and get mad at all the circling jerking and self-righteous congratulation that is award season.