“What this country needs is a good 5¢ cigar,” somebody’s vice-president said at the beginning of the last century.That is a quote that you can look up on Google to find who said it, but I think you would be hard pressed to find who it was who may have said or decided that what the entertainment industry needed was one more award show. Yes it’s that time of year again.
From the People’s Award to the Oscars, from the Grammys to the World Music Awards, from Essence Magazine Awards to I don’t know, People Magazine’s sexiest man alive award, this nation is rife with award giving shows where everyone pats themselves on the back and congratulates one another for having survived the previous year with work or some other attribute being recognized for being above and beyond that of others.
The only award show that I ever really watch has been the Oscars and that is only because I grew up watching movies, the classics on TV so there is some sort of affinity there that I can’t really explain. Although the last Oscar show, I should call it the Academy Award Show, that I actually appreciated was when John Wayne left his sick bed to present the Best Picture award wearing a tuxedo and h
airpiece that were both much too big for him and kept slipping; he had lost a lot of weight at the time. Then he died like two weeks later. But that’s show business and I loved him for it.I think the best appreciation for an award was done by George C. Scott for his award winning performance in Patton. He not only did not show up for his award but he told them what they could do with it. He was only interested in his work and not the petty politics that go with movie industry that he thought had burned him, as I'm sure petty politics burn other people in other industries or companies. As far as I know that Oscar is still sitting on a shelf in the back of a warehouse somewhere waiting for someone to claim it.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that awards are fine and everything, but it is the work that is really what it’s about and trying to do the work even more so. The fact that one piece may seem to be better than other pieces to certain people at a certain time is really arbitrary and unimportant in the long run. It’s the work that counts and so I would like to thank the…
Actually I was working up to what this piece was going to be about, but this has already gone on much too long as is that there will have to be a Part II to this, or a So & So Returns to finish up the arc.
By the way, am I only the only person in the world who thinks that Viola Davis who was on screen all of 5 minutes in the movie “Doubt” should get more than just a paycheck for her performance? For a black woman to come up and knock Meryl Streep on her ass when they were together and send her back to acting school, and you know I love me some Meryl, is an achievement worth seeing and experiencing.
I love these award show! Mabey because I have always secretly wanted to be the one who was honored or one of the beautiful people walking down the Red Carpet. I too love myself a good film which I almost started to tear up when the GG's honored Stephen Speilberg (a fellow native Cincinnatin btw).
ReplyDeleteOne of the students told me that we should legalize marijuana! I thought... If we did that, we would have a new major staple plant and more revenue! lol
ReplyDeleteNAMjA - I know what you mean by being able to walk down the red carpet and have people scream out your name or ask for a quick interview, photo or autograph. To be able to get up on stage and receive an award and deliver an acceptance speech that would blow away the audience. It's about receiving love and there's nothing wrong with that. But as an audience member I get bored by seeing people who I don't really know or even care about and if truth be told, they don't me and would actually care even less about me. It's good for one or two shows, but now these things last all year round and all I can see them do is diminish the significance of the other shows that they compete with.
ReplyDeleteAs for Spielberg, I would have to do a whole post to explain what I feel about him or at least his work.
fuzzy - I hear you. The former mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke believed in the same thing and actually so do I.