Photo Credit: People Magazine
Awards shows often fail to celebrate what is worth celebrating
Devarya Singhania, Contributor
Even though the web series I’ve watched lately hasn’t enthralled me, award shows have delightfully kept me company. However, there’s a sense of mockery and absurdity I’ve started to notice behind all the glamour. I miss Ricky Gervais, how he could absolutely call all the actors out for their hypocrisy, maintain a dominant aura, and still always manage to make a dig at Steve Carrell. He made these shows memorable. He knew that there would be an obvious repulsion from the viewers based on who received the awards, and why shouldn’t there be? All the deserving, immaculate films, filmmakers and actors are scraping money like discarded food in recycling bins. He made me remember a time I laughed with the celebrities in attendance, not at them.
There are only a few events that can stir a dismal, languid “bleh” within me, and award shows have started to become the best contender. I’ll be honest: I didn’t even know that the Golden Globe awards had happened. It was (and I say this genuinely) the pride in me which stemmed from the notification of my country, India’s RRR winning the ‘Best Original Song,’ leading me to actually tune in and watch parts of it. We all remember last year’s debacle at the Oscars. How wretched it was for Will Smith to have won the ‘Best Actor’ award, simply minutes after degrading the genuinely hilarious host. It’s immaculately eerie to think that the only time award shows become relevant is through an actor willingly sabotaging his career. He had to hit rock bottom for us to see the show. Daunting, disarming, disgusting. At this point, I don’t know if the sleek, metallic, and glossy trophy holds any occupation, other than to satisfy the mounting dust particles on the shelves of the dowdy rich.
I respect the winners at this year’s Golden Globes (slightly), but not the nominations as a whole. Glass Onion got nominated over The Menu? Outrageous. I loved Knives Out, so I am wondering why Daniel Craig would want to serve us a retread through the same material. It ended up receiving a nomination! Mockery. The Banshees of Inisherin winning displaced me into a world outside the captivity of a disdainful disappointment, while elevating my optimism for the respect for cinema. In a world that is scarcely entertaining and becoming seemingly unoriginal with repetitive movie tropes, I find it gratifying that award shows allow themselves to be ridiculed – generously, only for our amusement. Look at any news article after an award show, and I can assure you that the number of faults which will be excavated will leave you spellbound. Obviously, winning an award is a great prestige to acquire, and I’m not taking anything away from the winners, but I do feel sympathetic for the majority of filmmakers outside of North America. Any film made in a language outside English is immediately dubbed as a ‘Foreign Language Film,’ which perhaps reduces the prestige of the award; because ultimately it is not the ‘Best Picture’ in a film genre, but a language. Award shows embody this perfectly: an accented representation of honour, hidden behind the flattering glamour of the accolades. The prestige is for the show, and in their theatre, we’re enthralled by the circus.
