Amongst all of the glamor and glitter of Hollywood award shows, one may find themselves blinded to just how little it all truly means.
Once anyone begins to drill through the gilded core of these glamorous shows they will undoubtedly realize the true nature of the award show.
Only last month, the 86th Academy Awards were held on March 2 where the show collected 43 million viewers world wide.
The popularity of the show goes far from disguising Hollywood’s fundamental issues that lie under the facade of the award show.
The Oscars happens to suffer from one of the most common symptoms of award shows and that is fake pablum. This diagnosis consists of celebrity presenters not caring about what they say as it comes directly from a teleprompter. This year’s event happened to feature numerous examples of how the famous presenters had absolutely no concern for what they were reading.
The most viral of which was John Travolta’s epic flub of Idina Menzel’s name, introducing her as “Adele Dazeem.” Additioanlly, there was also Harrison Ford who announced three of the nominees for Best Picture in a way that was not only sluggish, but also possibly presented in a drunken stooper.
Despite the same annual routine, the public continues to be infatuated by these award shows. Additionally, viewers continue to tune in although most of the famous actors who are on television are not even concerned about the outcome.
This concern relates to another unfortunate problem faced by famous award shows like The Grammys, is that the awards are chosen by the same people who are producing the product being voted upon.
The Grammys is one of the prime examples of undeniable voter bias and self-commemoration within the industry, as there is an actual stipulation stating that voters must be, “a music industry professional with creative or technical credits on six commercially released tracks.”
Thus, these award shows may be seen as a form of self-commemoration for all performers.
As opposed to having the people decide who they thought was the best actor or singer in The Oscars, The Grammys, or The Tonys, they have an esteemed academy inform the viewer of who acted the best or who sang the best.
Another problem which arises when having an academy or a committee of people pick the winners of these awards is that these groups and organizations tend to represent a very limited demographic. This demographic consists mostly of elder caucasian males.
Though viewers at home would appreciate seeing newcoming actors take the award show stage, these nominations usually go to veteran and highly recognized actors and actresses.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Oscar voters have a median age of 62, with people under 50 constituting only about 14 percent of the ballot. Also, it is important to keep in mind that Oscar voters are about 94 percent Caucasian, and 77 percent male.
However, one may argue that such an event like the Oscars, regardless of who wins, is all about the audience getting to praise a group of people usually harshly critiqued by the media, for their achievements. This year many of the most spoken groups of people were the cast and crews of the nominated films of the year.
The sad truth is, that amongst all of this phony voting, hardly anybody pays attention to who actually won. Instead, everyone chooses to focus on the more “important” factors such as which designers the stars were wearing and who they talked to on the red carpet, and what they did to prep for the Hollywood event.
For example, many people who watched the Oscars seem to be more hung up on Travolta’s flub while introducing Idina Menzel than her actual performance that followed.
Also, a majority of the viewers cared more about what stars like Jennifer Lawerence and Anne Hathaway were wearing than the fact that Robert Lopez became the first person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony all within the same decade.
Although so many of these traits represent the darker and more superficial aspects of these anticipated award shows, they are valid and significant points which are not often thrown out into the ring amongst the greater news of the simple occurrence of these award shows.
However, it is apparent that hiding behind the golden statues, people might not like the award show that they find.
It is important to continue the award show ceremony legacy alive, but also to remember that while watching these world wide broadcasts, one should keep a realistic and logical perspective in mind.