The Case Against Award Shows
by Kingmi Baby
Eddie Vedder said it beautifully at the 1996 Grammys. Pearl Jam had just won Best Hard Rock Performance for their song “Spin the Black Circle.” They walked up on stage and Vedder said, “I don’t know what this means, I don’t think it means anything.” Honestly, in this writer’s eyes, that’s exactly the truth.
This is something I think about every year around this time. In January and February we have the People’s Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Grammys, and the Oscars, all of which are enjoyable to watch, but do they really mean anything? No. Hell, with the exception of the People’s Choice Awards the fans don’t even really have a say in the nominees and winners, and the fans are really the only ones that matter, right? It’s a show, it’s supposed to be entertaining, but somewhere along the line we gave them this value that they really don’t deserve. They became this big event that validates art as “worthy,” they became the judges of what’s “good” by giving out awards like Best New Artist, Best Album, and Best Movie. It drastically enhances the popularity contest aspect of art, which is, lets face it, the ugly venereal-diseased side of art; in that, if you get an award, you’re invited back to give it to some else next year, thus continuing the cycle and transmission of CTDs (Critically Transmitted Diseases).
For example: Regardless of how popular they are, does everybody really think that we couldn’t have found a better band than Fun. to call the “Best New Artist”? I think if we took all the music that was released in 2012 and gave it all an honest look, we could have. But that’s beside the point. The real point I’m trying to make is how can you give awards to something like art? How do you rate it? On a scale of how well it connects to people? On a scale of how many records sold? The thing is, you can’t. Just because I don’t think Fun. is a good band, doesn’t mean someone else can’t find them to be amazing. So why should we listen to a board of people we don’t know? Why listen to anyone?
Art isn’t about awards or sales, it’s about the connection between an artist and someone else, and people connect to different things. Would a metal head love “Call Me Maybe”? Probably not, and they’d likely feel guilty if they did and not tell anyone. The point is, everybody has a different opinion and you can’t tell someone that his or her opinion is good or bad. It’s an opinion. It’s true to them, whether or not it’s true to anyone else.
So the case against award shows is that you can’t put a label on art saying that it’s better than anyone else. That defeats the purpose of art. It’s not about who is the best, it’s about that connection, that magic that happens when you hear a song or see a movie that you really love for the first time. That’s the only real way to rate art, and it has to be for you, not for others.
Category: Buzzworthy
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