The Fallacies of Award Shows

Illustration by Evan Caughey
Illustration by Evan Caughey

Admirable, yet unexciting. These words could be used to describe much of the content that has won major artistic awards over the last few years, from the Oscars to the Grammys to the Emmys. Why do we continue to reward the mediocre over the adventurous? And why does it make us so upset?

It hasn’t always been the case, but it seems like lately, major awards tend to skew toward more traditional art–remembrances of the past rather than the most challenging and exciting that each year has to offer. The Oscars have been especially guilty, bestowing trophy after trophy on Best Picture winners like The Artist last year or The King’s Speech in 2011. They’re fine films, but safe, nothing we haven’t seen before.

Then there’s the Emmys, which if its voters are to be believed, posits that Modern Family is one of the best comedies of all time, Breaking Bad was never once the best show on TV in any year, and that none of the actors in Mad Men are anything special. Sometimes the experimental and the challenging may be able to snatch up a few fringe wins, but never any of the major awards (the only ones that history remembers).

This year’s Grammys were a perfect encapsulation of the trend. The Album of the Year award seemed a two-horse race between Mumford & Sons’ Babel and Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange–the latter a deeply emotional, musically adventurous mishmash of genres and themes from a bisexual singer associated with the world of mainstream rap, and the former an inoffensive English folk band that specializes in banjos. The result was never in doubt.

The Village Voice’s 2012 Pazz and Jop Poll, which tallies votes from hundreds of music critics around the world, overwhelmingly showed Ocean’s record to be the year’s favorite. Of their top ten, only Ocean and R&B singer Miguel received Grammy nominations and by my count, just eight artists of the top 50. Mumford & Sons came in as the year’s 111th most critically popular record, a few spots behind a Rick Ross mixtape and 71 spots behind Carly Rae Jepsen.

As for the upcoming Oscars, this year’s group made headlines simply for getting it right, for the most part.  Metacritic’s tally of the year’s most popular films is dotted all over with nominees. There’s the exclusion of Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck from the Best Director race, but the Academy should be commended for their adventurous choices to replace the two, Benh Zeitlin and Michael Haneke. 2012 was an undisputedly fantastic year in film, yet if Lincoln takes home the big prize, as is predicted, the award will once again have for the third straight year gone to a pleasant but tame period piece.

So what is the disconnect? If such a great many people would prefer different winners for these awards, why haven’t the ones that vote on them? One answer may lie in the type of voters. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for example, are overwhelmingly male, blindingly white, and mostly older.  The Emmy and Grammy voters are similarly made up of old guard industry insiders, the show business aristocracy if you will.  These are people that have a vested interest in growing their industry. Oftentimes this might lead them to vote for the entertainment that puts up the most numbers instead of the one that provokes the most thoughts, an effort to bestow artistic integrity upon the majority’s entertainment choices. But can they really be blamed when the few adventurous choices are met with such scorn? (see: Who is Bonnie Bear?)

The more pressing question is why should we care?  Why does it affect us which tuxedoed millionaire receives a hunk of gold for something off which they made a bundle of money? If everyone knows the awards are inaccurate, why are they still important?

If we’re being quite honest, they aren’t that important. But these shows ostensibly reward the best in art in one year, enshrining their creators in a cultural time capsule on which future generations can look back to get a sense of what each year was like, to see the best their predecessors had to offer. It’s a misrepresentation of modern art to say that The King’s Speech was better or more culturally relevant than The Social Network, or that Homeland and Modern Family were the absolute pinnacle of what television had to offer in 2012. People still debate and lament the snubs of the past for blemishing a medium’s historical record of quality, and by continually valuing traditionalism over progressiveness, we are doing more of the same.

Next week, the 85th Academy Awards ceremony will take place. This year’s nominees are full of audacious, creative, and wholly unique filmmaking, and there will be many chances to reward them and take a step forward in amending the broken process. There will also be many chances to remain stagnant and dish out trophies to past winners and more of the same commendable, yet unchallenging work. As time goes on, quality will rise to the top, but for that one night, it’s wholly acceptable to get a little fired up over a trophy.

About Jon Giardiello

Jon (COM '15) is from Wayne, New Jersey and doesn't think your jokes about it are very funny. He is majoring in Film/TV and minoring in Journalism. In between his brilliant Quad posts, he is one of the executive producers on BUTV10's own Terrier Nation.

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