Sometimes, contests aren't really contests. Sometimes, people who are winners are already winners. Sometimes, losers aren't losers.
Such is the case with the Academy Awards - and other awards shows.
That's why they say "and the Oscar goes to" instead of "and the winner is." Somebody realized that they were already winners, and God forbid we hurt the feelings of a multi-millionaire who has the world on a string by inferring that he is a loser by declaring someone else a winner.
We're big on awards. We give out Grammy's, Emmy's and other awards to people in the entertainment industry who earn more money than ten people together. We get wrapped up in who wins and loses - er...wins and doesn't win ... to the extent that we have 4-hour television shows that encourage people on the east coast to stay up until after midnight to find out which rich bastard won a Best Director Oscar or which film that already took in $400 million of your money is given the exclamation point of an award. It's an odd behavior pattern.
Is it necessary to give awards to people and things who are already society's winners? What's the point?
On Monday morning the winners will be headline news on the local newspaper, and your TV news will run a feature on the winners. Somewhere, a critic will bemoan the non-winners and say that they were all deserving.
Yeah, right.
3 comments:
Academy Awards = zzzzzz. After a haitus of a decade I actually tried to watch this year. The hosts (both of whom I enjoy on the movie screen) were so lame - and when they trotted out poor Kirk Douglas it was time for me to watch a movie.
I heard the Douglas speech on the radio on Monday. It was painful to listen to, and I can imagine it was equally painful to watch. I'm not sure what they were trying to prove, but I had to turn the radio off.
As time passes, I care less for awards shows and the fawning "patting yourself on the back" attitude.
I don't think it's dignified.
I use to watch them every year but not this year. There's been this odd trend lately that most of the nominees for best picture come out a month or sometimes just a few weeks before, "awards season."
It's as if they've decided ahead of time who will win and they release those movies all at the end thinking we won't notice the bums rush.
Well, I do and I'm always a bit cynical when certain movies "magically" receive tons of "best picture" reviews at the same time of the release.
They don't even give us much time, regardless, to see it in the theater before the awards ceremonies have already crowned it winner!! And people wonder why I'm a cynic???
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