Questionable Award Shows

[Bartmanhomer]

Hello everyone. Someone mentioned questionable awards shows in the Random Banter Thread. So I feel like I want to have a continuation of this discussion. I'm been watching awards shows for almost a decade now (mostly the Oscars) and I love award shows so much. However, during the years that I've watched there have been some things about award shows that have been questionable. For example, there is a lack of diversity in award shows I noticed. From what I heard that the 2022 Golden Globe Awards is canceled due to the lack of diversity. I know I'm not the only one that has I've to notice this but I want to know what's your thoughts about it.

[JadedDM]

I've never had any interest in award shows of any kind in the past, or in awards in general. (That is, if you were trying to persuade me to watch a film, 'It's won a lot of awards' would do nothing to sway me.) So I can't offer much input. But I do think diversity and representation are important.

[Mechalich]

Awards shows are mostly pointless. They're an excuse for everyone in a particular group to hold a party - which is fine, its the same reason small college athletic departments and mid-sized corporate entities hold them - and that's basically it. They also were, for many decades, a relatively cheap enterprise to stage and put on TV and get a lot of views (even with greatly reduced viewership from its peak a telecast like the Oscars still makes a bunch of money for the networks).

Awards themselves, by contrast, do matter. However they don't really matter in the moment so much as historically. It's the same way that in sports championship teams are remembered while runners up tend to be forgotten, in media award-winners are remembered and those who are snubbed are, if not forgotten at least faded. This is particularly important for fields that cannot rely on mass popularity. Being the most popular or best selling thing is in itself a form of 'award' (music actually had, for a time, an award show called the World Music Awards that handed out trophies purely based on sales figures), but there are many fields that will never have the kind of mass market presence to achieve historical impact via popularity and rely on critical recognition, of which awards are a crucial part, instead. The Oscars, famously, has a tendency to reward smaller indie productions that a comparatively tiny number of people watched. Likewise the Grammys actually hands out upwards of 80 awards including categories like 'Best Latin Jazz Album' and 'Best Opera Recording' that probably aren't all that meaningful to the public at large but to people within those industries with an eye on their historical legacy they are of titanic importance.

Diversity and representation in awards matters because of the aforementioned historical importance. Systematic underrepresentation in awards is in effect a form of historical erasure, because older works that haven't won awards tend to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Consider, for example, how many films made prior to 1950 you've seen that did not receive significant awards recognition.

[Velaryon]

I've had a low opinion of award shows in general (and the Grammys in particular) ever since they failed to award Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness album of the year in 1996. Everything I've learned about them since then re: favoring certain genres, giving awards because "this actor/musician/whatever should have won one by now" instead of actual merit, lack of diverse representation, and everything else has just convinced me that 13 year old me was right to dismiss the entire concept.

[Mystic Muse]

Hello everyone. Someone mentioned questionable awards shows in the Random Banter Thread.

Yes. You did. You're the one who mentioned questionable award shows in the random banter thread.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yes. You did. You're the one who mentioned questionable award shows in the random banter thread.

Yes, I did mention that earlier. Man, I'm getting old.

[Peelee]

Yes, I did mention that earlier. Man, I'm getting old.

Do you mean you forgot that you said something, so you made a thread because you thought someone else said what you said?

[Bartmanhomer]

Do you mean you forgot that you said something, so you made a thread because you thought someone else said what you said?

Yes. I forgot that I mention It. Like I said before I'm getting old.

[137beth]

Stephen Sondheim gave a searing critique of arts awards in general in his book Finishing the Hat. Much of his criticism applies to any big-budget arts awards, though he focused on the most famous awards he had won (Tonies, Grammies, Oscars, and Pulitzer prizes).

[Peelee]

Stephen Sondheim gave a searing critique of arts awards in general in his book Finishing the Hat. Much of his criticism applies to any big-budget arts awards, though he focused on the most famous awards he had won (Tonies, Grammies, Oscars, and Pulitzer prizes).

Ah, a member of the elusive PGOT club.