asimplefellow

Day 8/100 Happy Days

It’s Awards Show Season!

The Golden Globes are on tonight. I like the Globes…it is the junior league of award shows. Serious, but not too serious; slightly less pretentious, and definitely funny – intentionally or not.  It is the warm up act for The Oscars, and gets us all primed for the narcissim to follow!

I do not really follow the whole celebrity thing and I do not really care who wins what film or TV show except that the Awards are usually a good indicator of what movies I should shell out the $13.00 at the theatre over the next few weeks.

But it does appeal to the voyeur in me – the one who wants to see the train wreck.

You know what I mean.

I want to know what will create the buzz for tomorrow. I want to know what special interest group is going to be most offended…by either the MC’s jokes, the presenters’ weird-ass attempts at livening up the dullest category of awards, some stray word uttered in the heat of the moment without malice, or whomever was scorned in the nominations.

I have to admit that I enjoy the awkwardness of the award shows. Firstly, the immense pressure that the MC is under.  The best ones are the irreverent ones – I do enjoy Ricky Gervais as he is both fearless and tactless…a great mix to ensure hilarity.  However, so many other moments can make you cringe.

Like…

The great teleprompter moments…it is boggling how can actors who spend their whole careers adding feeling and emotions to scripts, can be so bad at reading the prompts.

I love the way the cameras pan on all the nominees, and relish the moment when we get to see in real time (plus seven seconds, of course) the poker faces and painful smiles of congratulations on the face of the those who did not win. I am waiting for the day when one of the losers breaks out in tears, like an U-21 athlete who has been knocked out of the World Finals. It’ll happen someday!

I love the winner’s or tribal leader’s  hunt for that scrap of paper, the one with notes in six font; their frantic search all their pockets for a pair of glasses,  as they start to thank everyone and anyone for their victory. I love how they start out deliberately and carefully, and then gradually pick up speed like a Klezmer band as the time wears on and the Award Show Orchestra plays louder and louder – an aural “shut the f*** up” and get off the stage.

Finally there are unscripted moments…the faux pas, the stumbles, the shock.

It is theatre and it is entertainment. I love how such a self-congratulatory event becomes bigger than itself…it makes my every day seem so much saner.

Later,

ASF