The Decline of Award Shows

By Gretchen Christophe '22

Ah, to remember the simpler days of the Kid’s Choice Awards. Waiting to see the slime, performances, and award results never seemed to involve any controversy. Now, as we’ve grown older and watching Nickelodeon has become less socially acceptable, the Golden Globes, Grammys, and Oscars take its place in adulthood. However, with more mature awards shows come mature topics like inclusivity and accountability. These award show winners also aren’t determined by everyday teens at home like Kid’s Choice, but instead decided by a panel of entertainment professionals—the list of whom is not made public. The glitz and glam of the designer gowns and suits on the red carpet show viewers what they should aspire to achieve. It isn’t just a display of talent and admiration for fans, but instead, it becomes a display of upcoming fashion trends, brand partnerships, and status. After a year of many lost lives due to COVID, the regular glam of awards shows appears tone-deaf, to say the least. This brings us to the question: has COVID-19 shown us that consumers no longer care for award shows?

With the recent Golden Globes and Oscars drawing many eyes to the flaws of award show results, avid watchers are wondering what the future of these shows looks like. The awards-industrial complex has faced scrutiny for years because it seems to uphold the old values of Hollywood in an ever-changing industry. The ideas of “Old Hollywood” created a glass ceiling that prevented those without prior connections from succeeding in entertainment, and award show panels maintain this same lack of accessibility. While some aspects of the show seem to be equal, the organizations behind the nominees and winners are anything but representative of the changing entertainment field. In particular, the Golden Globes’ HFPA is made up of all-white members. Its mysterious entity has led to viewers raising questions about its conflicts of interest and authority for selecting who wins what. In a similar vein, only Recording Academy voting members vote on Grammy winners.

At this year’s Globes, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler acknowledged these issues in their host monologues. Fey expressed, “Award shows are stupid. But the point is, even with stupid things, inclusivity is important.” Yet this acknowledgment doesn’t diminish the lack of best picture nominations for Black ensemble films like Judas and the Black Messiah, Da 5 Bloods, and One Night in Miami. The Golden Globes suffered a 63 percent viewership decline whereas the Grammy’s plunged to a low of 51 percent. In general, live TV viewership has been on a steady decline for some years now due to the growing popularity of streaming services. Similarly, the Oscars ratings also crashed to an all-time low, and all three ratings have shown just how much award shows have been impacted by the pandemic.

However, there was some good that came out of the Oscars—they created a historical moment when Chloe Zhao, director of “Nomandland,” became the first Asian woman to take home the Best Director award. Even with this, the largest upset of the night came from the producers falsely setting up the ceremony expecting the late Chadwick Boseman’s win for Black Bottom, and instead presenting Anthony Hopkins as Best Actor at the end of the night. This confusion revealed to audiences that the production team for award shows often don’t know the award winner until it is announced live. The structure of the show left many feeling unsatisfied as the last two awards went to previously awarded white actors rather than winners who would end the show with a great representation of diversity and an emotional memoriam. Even with nine people of color as nominees, viewers were left disappointed with the results of the night, thus leaving many to believe that too much power is in the hands of the Academy rather than the people. Overall, the nature of the award shows this season has reflected what many viewers have experienced during this pandemic: even with strides made toward change and the future, you never know what to expect.

What will happen when the first awards shows are fully “normal” after the pandemic? Will there still be an emphasis on the glitz and glam, or will a larger discussion around inclusivity in the industry still be promoted? Will ratings finally tick upward, or is the decline of awards shows a trend that is here to stay?