Awards ceremonies do attract the naysayers. Those who complain about the “marathon” awards season. They grumble that prizes ruin the magic of cinema, theater, TV, and music and make them a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves. Yes, we know that they are all about marketing. And to be fair, it is annoying that in the case of films, there’s a glut of good ones at the end of every year to make the Oscar nominations cutoff point, so we’re stuck with sequels the rest of the time. But these grouchy types are missing the joy one can gain from watching celebrities involved in a ruthless, Survivor-esque battle. And even the winner is still a loser in most instances.
Because what celebrities want most of all is the EGOT. All of them. The Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. It was Tubbs from Miami Vice that coined that phrase (he didn’t achieve it). Those that have done the EGOT include composer Richard Rodgers, Rita Moreno, Audrey Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg, Scott Rudin (producer who puts an equal level of fear into the Broadway and film communities), and Bobby Lopez (theater guy who was involved in the penning of the Book of Mormon and a small movie you might have heard of called Frozen).
So, here we go, awards season conversation coming right up.
PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Started in 1975, voted for by the general public (sort of). All about pop culture.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
First ceremony of the season, still voted for by the masses (sort of), so a lot fairer than the Golden Globes. Dares to mix movie, TV, and music stars and have awards such as Favorite On-Screen Chemistry and Favorite Movie Franchise.
TALKING POINT
Nothing will beat 1977 when Star Wars won Favorite Picture, Barbra Streisand and John Wayne picked up the main actor categories, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors won for Favorite Female Performer in a new TV show.
RED FLAG
The voting is complex, done by all sorts of market research and online polls, and OH, JUST DON’T BE CYNICAL THAT ONLY THE WINNERS SHOW UP AND THEY OFTEN HAVE CBS SHOWS AND IT’S BROADCAST ON CBS.
GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Hollywood Foreign Press Association started awarding it in 1944.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
The bastard stepchild of the Oscars. Usually the third most watched awards show after the Oscars and the Grammys. There are fewer than a hundred voters who have a huge amount of influence. They also dare to mix movie and TV stars—and to sit them down and serve them alcohol. This means there’s plenty of scope for amusement. Since they split the film categories into musical or comedy and drama, there’s also more of a chance for A-listers to win, so they’re even likelier to (a) turn up and (b) imbibe. Note that this division means that Madonna has a Golden Globe. For acting. For Evita in 1997. Which to be fair she was good in, for her, but still.
TALKING POINTS
• The awards used to be given out by journalists (dull) until an inebriated Rat Pack stormed the stage in 1958 (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr.). They were invited back the next year to officially be on the stage and the tradition of celebrity involvement continued.
• Both Renée Zellweger (2001) and Christine Lahti (1998) were in the bathroom when they won. Someone online will bring that up.
• 2009—Kate Winslet started listing her fellow nominees when she won for Revolutionary Road but didn’t manage to remember Angelina Jolie.
RED FLAGS
• The Vegas Trip controversies. I’m not sure remembering this level of detail will help you attract a date. Recalling the 1981 Pia Zadora hullabaloo will show your age. (Pia had a rich husband who supposedly went above and beyond what was strictly necessary campaignwise by offering voters a trip to Vegas. Zadora beat out Kathleen Turner and Elizabeth McGovern for Newcomer of the Year.)
• Too obvious to instigate a Ricky Gervais as host versus Tina Fey and Amy Poehler debate.
• Any joke involving Globes and women’s breasts. Bette Midler made the obvious pun in 1980. It’s just, well, too obvious.
You then have in quick succession the Critics’ Choice Awards, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards, Producers Guild of America Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, and the Writers Guild Awards. And when I say quick succession, by now we’re not even really into February. The only thing you need to know about these is that the SAG Awards is the only TV awards show that just awards thesps—that’s where you’ve seen the cast of Modern Family all onstage. In regards to the Writers Guild Awards, just repeat the following conversation from Argo:
John Chambers: Can we get the option?
Tony Mendez: Why do we need the option?
Lester Siegel: You’re worried about the Ayatollah? Try the WGA.
At this point any celebrities that are still in the running (or hold a British passport) have to get on a plane to the UK and stand on a red carpet with no coat in the freezing rain.
THE BRITISH ACADEMY FILM AWARDS (BAFTAS)
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Started in 1947 by such luminaries as David Lean.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
It didn’t, merely being a consolation prize for some Oscar losers and Brits who are big fish in the UK and tadpoles across the pond in America. However, in 2002 the BAFTAs moved from after the Oscars to before them. They thus now occur at a critical juncture: By the time you get to them, there are only three or four films with a remote chance of Oscar success.
TALKING POINT
When BAFTA voters deviate from the Oscars, history shows that they tend to go for an unexpected European or an overlooked American. Case in point: In 2013 Ben Affleck got best director for Argo, when the academy didn’t even nominate him in that category.
RED FLAG
Don’t insult Stephen Fry, who has hosted about a thousand BAFTA awards; he’s much loved in Blighty and it’s not worth the upset you may cause to anyone with any British blood.
We then come to the big one. The one you’re probably going to have to watch. And need enough talking points to get you through the evening, which is about five hundred hours long. So take what you can above and study the information below.
ACADEMY AWARDS
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Started in 1929, making it the granddaddy, the oldest, of media awards ceremonies. The statuette is 13.5 inches tall and weighs 8.5 pounds, and the naked dude is modeled on Mexican actor and director Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. Worth noting that during World War II the Oscars were made of plaster and were traded in for gold ones when the war was won. Controversy surrounds where the Oscar nickname came from. Some say it was after Oscar Wilde, others after a staff member of the academy’s Uncle Oscar, others after Bette Davis’s first husband Harmon Oscar Nelson, Jr.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
There’s about six weeks of relentless campaigning between nominations and the ceremony. It will come across your radar because you don’t live under a rock, you are someone who’s out and about, and as discussed, you want to have sex.
TALKING POINTS
• There are around 6,000 members of the academy. Basically to get a vote, just win or get nominated, it’s that easy. The most recent statistics available reveal that it is 94 percent white, 77 percent male, with an average age of sixty-three. Which was cited often when the academy shut out African-Americans and women in 2015.
• Surprisingly, although we all complain about the ceremony, the broadcast has won the most Emmys in history, at around fifty wins.
• Although the academy does get it wrong, they can also hand out justice. Julie Andrews, who starred in the stage version of My Fair Lady, lost out on the movie role to Audrey Hepburn. Andrews then beat Hepburn to the Academy Award in 1965, for Mary Poppins. Hepburn, whose singing had been dubbed, wasn’t even nominated for My Fair Lady.
• Winners aren’t supposed to talk longer than forty-five seconds. You may have to repeat this talking point a fair amount.
• The Animated Feature Film
Award was added in 2001, with Shrek taking the prize.
• The cool kids all go to the Independent Spirit Awards the Saturday before the Oscars. The coolest kids go to the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, which since 1980 has been presenting honors to the worst films, but often cult classics, of the year. This is where you give kudos to Halle Berry, who actually turned up to pick up her Razzie for Catwoman—clutching her Oscar.
• Pulp Friction: What you label an Oscar going to the wrong person, or a tight race in any category. You note that in 1994 Forrest Gump, with Hanks being stupid is as stupid does, beat out Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture. Come again?
• Oscar at time of press has snubbed: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Depp, Glenn Close, and Richard Burton. Of these, those that are alive will probably win for the wrong thing. Al Pacino won his Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, not the Godfather. Or Scarface.
• We do like a good performance by a Grammy type trying to pick up the Oscar for best song and get closer to the EGOT. It won’t get any better than the 1991 ceremony when Bon Jovi did “Blaze of Glory” for Young Guns II and Madge did “Sooner or Later” from Dick Tracy, winning the Oscar for Stephen Sondheim. Theater buffs will note that she later performed the same favor for Sondheim’s sharer-of-birthday Andrew Lloyd Webber for “You Must Love Me” from Evita. Oh, and Michael Jackson did “Ben” in 1973, at age fourteen—but lost Best Original Song. Still a performance to remember and watch on YouTube, though.
RED FLAGS
• Bit obvious to bring up Marlon Brando refusing his Oscar for the Godfather in 1972 and sending Sacheen Littlefeather to collect it. Or Michael Moore’s political diatribe against George Bush II in 2002. Go with the George Bernard Shaw anecdote. Shaw refused to pick his Oscar in person for Pygmalion, saying something along the lines of “It’s perfect nonsense! To offer me an award of this sort is an insult, as if they had never heard of me before—and it’s very likely they never had.” His Oscar was found to be in such bad condition when he died that it was initially used as a doorstop when his home was turned into a museum.
• Conspiracy theories: Marisa Tomei’s 1992 best supporting actress win for My Cousin Vinny, when she managed to beat out Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives and Vanessa Redgrave (who had all sorts of supporting Palestinian controversy swirling around her when she picked up the gong in 1977) in Howards End. A discredited rumor has it that presenter Jack Palance misread the winner from the back of the envelope, instead of from the contents. One feels sorry for Tomei that it’s still swirling.
• Never bet against a movie about show business—Hollywood loves giving its top honor to films about itself. In recent memory, think Birdman (2015), Argo (2013), The Artist (2012), Chicago (2003), and Shakespeare in Love (1999).
TONY AWARDS
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
The American Theatre Wing established an awards program to celebrate excellence in the theater in 1947. They were named for actress, director, producer, and the dynamic wartime leader of the Theatre Wing, Antoinette Perry. Initially there was no physical Tony Award; the winners got a scroll and a mini-memento such as a money clip. The medallion has been around since 1949. After World War II ended, the Tonys were born in order to improve the quality of the performances by introducing the element of competition and to attract a broader audience.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
The Oscars of the theater. The Broadway community, who, let’s face it, never shy away from a theatrical moment, quickly took to the concept. And it is a community, which is why everyone HAS to thank it in their speeches. To be fair, the Tonys help keep Broadway alive. A good performance on the Tony broadcast or some high-profile wins can save a show and thus the jobs of an awful lot of people. There are around nine hundred Tony voters drawn from the Broadway community.
TALKING POINTS
• What works for the Tony broadcast might not necessarily tie in with where the community’s heads are at. But since the community wants CBS to keep broadcasting the show, they lump it. Thus you saw Harry Potter himself singing and dancing his way through a number from How to Succeed … in a prominent position in 2011’s broadcast—when he’d been snubbed and not even nominated for his starring role. Hats off to Daniel Radcliffe for turning up.
• In 2011 and 2012 the Tonys moved from Radio City Music Hall to the Beacon Theatre. This upset some in the community. Size matters. They returned to Radio City in 2013.
• The Producers in 2001 managed to win twelve awards, including Best Musical. The Scottsboro Boys was nominated for twelve Tonys in 2011 … and won none. It had closed months before the Tonys, though.
• Hal Prince, the director/producer, isn’t known as the Prince of Broadway for nothing—he’s got twenty-one Tonys and counting.
• Five actresses have won a Tony and an Oscar in the same year. They include Audrey Hepburn in 1954, with a Tony for Ondine and an Oscar for Roman Holiday, and Judi Dench in 1999, winning a Tony for Amy’s View and an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.
• Tony-winning best plays and musicals that were adapted into Oscar-winning best pictures include My Fair Lady (Tony, 1957; Oscar, 1964), The Sound of Music (Tony 1960; Oscar 1965), and Amadeus (Tony, 1981; Oscar, 1984).
• Patti LuPone has given some legendary Tony Award number performances, for example, in 1980 with “A New Argentina” from Evita and “Anything Goes” from Anything Goes in 1988.
• The British invasion of Broadway seriously took hold with the Les Misérables performance “At the End of the Day”/“One Day More” (1987).
• You will invariably be able to say about the telecast: “A second-rate tribute to a first-rate season.”
RED FLAGS
• Broadway shows are incredibly expensive, so in recent years Wall Streeters have suddenly become “producers,” who then win Tony Awards when all they’ve done is written checks. One such type admitted to me he’d invested in a musical to win a Tony so he had something to brag about on dates. You need to watch out for such kinds—they will not be kind to you after you’ve slept with them.
• Shows you think won for certain awards didn’t. Wicked didn’t win Best Musical in 2004—that went to Avenue Q. Phantom of the Opera didn’t win Best Score. Dad was up against Stephen Sondheim, who isn’t at Hal Prince levels of Tony wins, but is highly decorated.
• The Wicked performance of “Defying Gravity” really weren’t the best vocals Idina Menzel has ever produced. If watching the Tonys, however, you might find yourself with a Wicked fan, at which point, best to keep schtum. Wicked fans (and indeed Fanzels), well, they’re up there with Janeites and Trekkies.
GRAMMYS
BACKGROUND BRIEFING
Originally called a Gramophone Award, it’s presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the US for outstanding achievement in the music industry. The first awards were held in 1959 and it’s a peer honor, not based on chart positions or sales.
WHY IT MATTERS TODAY
Money, money, money—it comes streaming (geddit?!) in. The post-award weekly sales bounces for the following say it all: Adele 2012: 207 percent, Dixie Chicks 2007: 714 percent, Norah Jones 2003: 331 percent.
TALKING POINTS
• If you work in the music industry and you don’t have a Grammy, well, what’s wrong with you? They hand out about 80 (at one point it was 109). Of course, you can’t air all that, so only the big ones make it to the small screen.
• Those behind the Grammys telecast know what they’re doing. The low ratio of awards (about a dozen) to performances = ratings and as discussed, purchases.
There are endless sparkling performances to choose from that will be better than someone you’re watching this year: Michael Jackson in 1988 with “Man in the Mirror”—seven minutes reminding everyone of his talent. In 1999 Ricky Martin crossed over with “La Copa de la Vida”/”The Cup of Life” and the Ladies Marmalade belted it ou
t in 2002.
When anyone does something controversial, note how Elton John sang with Eminem in 2001 after critics labeled the rapper a homophobe.
When somebody does something eccentric, remind them how Gaga made an “eggcellent arrival” and then performed “Born This Way” in 2011.
• Grammy voters can verge on the conservative side. As a result, seminal records from those such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, and Bruce Springsteen didn’t win. Specific snubs:
Note that in 1992 Nirvana managed not to win Best Rock Song for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It went to Eric Clapton’s unplugged version of “Layla.” Which should have won in 1972. In 1992? Not so much.
In 1966 the Best Rock and Roll Recording went to “Winchester Cathedral.” Wait? What? It was a novelty single, up against, wait for it: “Eleanor Rigby” (the Beatles), “Good Vibrations” (the Beach Boys), “Last Train to Clarksville” (the Monkees), “Cherish” (the Association), and “Monday Monday” (the Mamas and the Papas).
RED FLAGS
• The difference between Album, Record, and Song of the Year is as follows:
Album goes to the performer and production team of a full album.
Record goes to the performer and production team of a single song.
Song goes to the writers/composers of a single song.
Not sure if that’s really any clearer. Sorry. I tried.
• Milli Vanilli lip-synched their way to the Best New Artist award in 1990’s show. They eventually, of course, lost their Grammy. Bit obvious to remember that.
• US immigration prevented Amy Winehouse from turning up in 2008, so she was in London performing for the broadcast. Debating the pros and cons of this is going to get dull and possibly turn a fun evening into a discussion about politics, drug addiction, and death. Leave it.
• Justin Timberlake apologized for Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate Super Bowl scandal in 2004. Just painful to watch. Can we not do that again, please?
The Intelligent Conversationalist Page 26