Their are many who dislike the entire hoopla surrounding award season. Some say there are too many award shows, and maybe there are. I would not argue that awards handed out to “best on-screen kiss” or “best performance by an inanimate object” are eye-rolling worthy, but these type of demeaning categories should not deter from legitimate awards handed out to people who deserve them. I mean who doesn’t like to be told by a room full of your peers that we all do the same job but you did it best this year; here’s a spiffy trophy.
I feel the largest voice from the anti-award show crowd comes from the “man’s man” community. They don’t get the hype or the need to sit there for three hours and essentially watch clips from movies and television shows and listen to un-witty banter from celebrities as awards are given out to people that they don’t want to listen to anyways. Not to mention that their favorite movies never get nominated. “All they do is pick boring movies and give them awards so people will watch them. If they really cared about giving it to the best movies the first ‘Transformers’ film would have won all the awards…” (This was an actual comment made to me by a real college student while I sat reading my Variety Fair Oscar special in the Student Development building last year. I know, I too nearly had a stroke at hearing a living, breathing, educated human being say this, but I digress.)
Guys, in order to try to help you understand why we who love award shows love them so much, I will use the analogy of sports. The way that you view your favorite teams is how we view our favorite movies, shows, actors, etc. There is an entire team that puts these movies and shows together, and during this point in the season it’s all about who did the best all year putting together a winning formula: a movie that touches us or a show that we can identify with.
There is a passion that comes with supporting your favorite movie when they start to announce the nominees. Just as with your sports team in their respected season, we too follow them through the different tiers and brackets. Leading up to the season we have the critic awards that gives us an idea as to where our favorites may be falling. Into the season the Golden Globes narrow the field down even further, then moving on to the different guild awards — screen actors, directors, writers, and producers — leading to the grand daddy of them all, the Academy Awards. This is the king of them all. Wins at any of the other award shows stop mattering after the Oscars are presented.
How can you not help but get swept up in all the excitement? The parties, the outfits, the biggest stars in the world, and that is just the stuff on the red carpet leading up to the show. The greatness of the show is determined by the greatness of the show’s host, and if you have not seen an Oscar show before, then this year is a perfect time to start watching, since one of the show’s best hosts, Mr. Billy Crystal, is returning. He sings, he dances; he tells jokes that are actually funny.
With glitz and glamour to the umpteenth degree I don’t see how anyone can hate on award show season. Plus any party cool enough to bring out the likes of Jack Nicholson and George Clooney can’t be bad. Ever.
