The Business of Awards

For most of the world the period between the last couple weeks of December and the first quadrant of the new year is dubbed Award Season. In that short span, every industry has their biggest awards sometimes back to back of each other. Some industries have more awards than they have movies and everyday a new award ceremony seems to be popping up.

Before I go any further though I will let you in one of my truths which is my belief that every single award ceremony in the world, in every industry is first of all a business. That is to say that the first purpose is always to make profit. There will be no naked gold statuetes without the sponsors, the sponsors wouldn’t sponsor without the celebrities, the celebrities won’t attend without nominations and you don’t count as a celebrity if nobody knows your no name – regardless of how good of an actor you are. It’s the simple truth, it’s common sense, you don’t have to be Einstein to figure that out.

Now having said that, some award ceremonies are lesser evils than the rest. That is to say that even though they have to be diplomatic they find a way to mix their diplomacy with that which is right in such a way that that which is right is prioritized a tad more than the diplomacy.

…every single award ceremony in the world, in every industry is first of all a business.

Some award ceremonies are jokes. Wait, don’t laugh. It’s the simple truth. Let’s zone in on Nollywood for a minute now. You cannot tell me that there has never been an award ceremony nomination line-up that you glanced over and thought “this people have got to be kidding me”. Sometimes there are people on that list whom even the most unlearned individuals in the world do not consider actors yet they pop up on these nomination lists.

Some award ceremonies do not even attempt to hide the fact that this event is just an excuse for a party. The invites are loud, the celebrities in attendance are publicized till the death. Their names are plastered in bold bright font right beside the date and venue (whether or not said celebrities have been in any movie for the past decade or not and whether or not they have turned into politicians in the meanwhile).

…this event is just an excuse for a party

For our ceremonies we are dealing with actors who can’t act who somehow manage to get nominated because of celebrity status. We are dealing with award ceremonies for a certain year including movies made and released a few years prior. We are dealing with the same movies being renominated year after year. And sometimes, for no fault of our own, we are dealing with one actor populating a category (that is to say that one actor will be nominated for best actor for five different movies).

And then there is the phenomena of ‘Viewer’s choice’. Now this is not a Nollywood only problem, it scales to other industries as well. Which is probably why none of the big awards in any industry is a viewer’s choice award. What is this phenomena of viewer’s choice awards that I speak of? It is the problem of asking people who hardly even watch movies for talent to grade talent.

I’ll take myself as an example, I always say “I like silly movies”. It’s really ironic because I love them yet I will give you a terrible rating for being unoriginal and overly predictable. Now, I said I like ‘silly’ movies, I didn’t say I like senseless movies. There’s a degree of silliness that even I won’t thread. I like romantic comedies, unfortunately for me however, they are all about the same thing yet I am still the first person at the theaters when they release. I like Tyler Perry movies! Did I just destroy my own credibility? I can’t fault them, I love silly movies.

It is the problem of asking people who hardly even watch movies for talent to grade talent.

Now if I didn’t review movies I would think that “Think Like a Man” was a much better movie than “Gravity”. Thankfully, I review movies and if I chose to vote on any award silly enough to nominate “Think Like a Man” for Best Picture, I would know to vote for “Gravity”. However, for the average person that rationale doesn’t follow. It’s a simple case of I liked TLAM better therefore TLAM was a better movie. 

It is for this reason that most industries relegate viewer’s choice awards to the background. Can you imagine the Oscar’s as a viewer’s choice award? I realize the irony of this entire thing because #NRAwards are viewer’s choice however that’s just a survey. As far as I’m concerned, any award that is entirely viewer’s choice is just looking for the coward’s way out. This is because instead of having to defend your choices and winners, you can stand behind the cloud of “eh, you voted it?”

In the end, the fact is that we can never really hate award ceremonies because they are necessary and nice to have. But having it means making it real and the reality of things is that nothing is ever straight. The conversion from ideologies to reality involves a few compromises.