Tom Dunne: It's time to admit awards ceremonies have become more slap than tickle
Ricky Gervais is somebody who 'gets' the absurdity of some awards ceremonies.
Are award ceremonies doomed? Are audiences too woke, the presenters too primed to roast people? It is a perpetual powder keg? In the entertainment industry, is the idea of presenting an award to someone who is, reasonably sound, as opposed to, facing charges, now just wildly optimistic?
Luckily I have vast experience here. Okay, maybe it isn’t at the Oscar/Grammy level, but trust me, throw in a (limited) free bar and the back function room of Wynn’s Hotel of a Tuesday and what’s the real difference? Believe me, the egos, the excess and the wildness are cut from the same cloth.
For many, that combination – your name in print and as much €1 a bottle beer as you could carry – was simply too much. People believed they were, at least from 7pm to 9pm, in Hammer of The Gods era Led Zeppelin. You’d told your mother you might be late. The rest was history.
All you needed was to be compos mentis if your name was called. Alas, for many, this was too much. One year, the guitarist in one winning band fell backwards over his amp as he performed. In a film he’d have kept on playing. But this wasn’t a film. He stayed down, and the next day being Wednesday, little Jimi Hendrix missed work too.
Luckily, this was before social media. When getting sick on your shoes or spray painting a toilet with the sexual preferences of a rival band stayed local. When mistakes were things you could rectify with a mumbled “I love you, man” or, in extreme cases, with turpentine and a brush.
Hence, it was no surprise that this year’s Grammy Awards were a nervous affair. That ‘slap’ still resonated loudly and the organisers were lighting penny candles in the hope that come the morning the word Grammy would be trending a little bit, but not too much. Looking down at the combustibility of those nominated this must have seemed a forlorn wish.
It didn’t start well. The Grammys don’t have a strong appreciation of rap so from the off Drake and The Weeknd were not in attendance. Deep down you suspect that Grammy people still hope that rap is a movement that other categories, like Best Christian, Best Rock, Best Country or Best Regional Mexican (not a food award) will eventually see off.
But they had to nominate someone and this caused problems. Marilyn Manson and Louis CK, despite being closer to the ‘facing charges’ than the ‘reasonably sound’ end of the celebrity spectrum were both nominated. CK actually won.
When asked about this in November the Recording Academy’s CEO just said, “We don’t look at people’s history.” He must be delighted to see his quote still reigning proudly atop the charts in the ‘hostage to fortune’ hall of fame.
But is this actually what we have come to? In order to fill a category with five nominees is it now necessary to adopt a, hear no evil, see no evil approach? Does this explain why ABBA were nominated, despite being holograms. “Oh, if only they were all holograms!” said organisers, “holograms don’t face charges!”
It reminded me of the American Music Club’s song, Johnny Mathis’ Feet. In this song, Johnny, a seasoned entertainer advises a young Mark Eitzel that on stage, in the spotlight, an entertainer must learn to “disappear in the silk and the amphetamine”.
This remains solid career advice for anyone in music. Up there, backlit, with the smoke machines on, is the perfect place to hide, and once the houselights never come up, what can possibly go wrong?
A finger must be pointed at Ricky Gervais in this. It was he, at the Golden Globes in 2020 who pointed out the absurdity of it all. That despite playing great parts and heroic people, the fact is that most people in that celebrity room had “spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg”.
He added that, “If ISIS started a streaming service, you lot would ring your agents.” That was met with stony silence, or possibly acceptance, it was hard to distinguish which.
Award ceremonies seem to have reached that point in The Wizard of Oz where the Wizard is revealed as a small man with a bull horn. Either we go all 2022 on him, lead him away in chains while pointing out, loudly, that he is a bully whose actions have done irreparable damage, or we compliment him on his acting. 2022, the choice is yours.
