Last Sunday, the Grammy Awards took place. They were hosted by Trevor Noah and included performances from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Bruno Mars, and Megan Thee Stallion. However, this award show did not come without criticism from the general public, as well as artists, who believe that they are a scam. With this being a trend between many different award shows, such as the Oscars and Golden Globes, how long is it until award shows are phased out?
One of these controversies was sparked when the nominations came out this year for the Grammys, as The Weeknd didn’t get a single nomination. 2020 was arguably one of the best years for The Weeknd, with his new release and performance at the Super Bowl in February, which left people shocked as to why he didn’t get a single nomination. As the Grammys crept closer, The Weeknd came out saying he was going to boycott the Grammys because of the lack of transparency in how nominations are chosen by The Recording Academy.
Similar sentiments have been shared by artists such as Zayn Malik. Fiona Apple refused to attend the ceremony this year and said that if she did and won, she would smash her award on the stage. These artists have all stated that the nomination process allows for racism, sexism, and favoritism to happen, and Apple specifically didn’t attend because the producer Dr. Luke, who Kesha has come out against saying he was extremely sexist, was nominated for many awards this year.
In years past, the Grammys have consistently shown this favoritism that these artists have described, with artists like Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce getting passed up awards to other, white artists. In my opinion, they have a right to be angry because it has been shown over so many years how The Recording Academy treats artists of color.
Even though there was much hype around the ceremony this year, TV ratings of the show dropped 51%. The Golden Globes’ ratings dropped 63% this year as well. This begs the question, is all of this indicative of something?
I think it is. Even though award shows have been around for as long as I can remember, so many things have changed and shifted throughout the years that have shown that we don’t need them anymore. Personally, I thought the original change to have no host at the Oscars a couple of years ago was even bigger than everything that’s happened this year, but these ratings and criticisms are definitely significant.
It could also be that this year is a weird year, and people don’t really want to or have the energy to focus on meaningless award shows. Sure, they’re fun to watch, but we’re living through a pandemic. Are they really needed right now?
In my opinion, I think it’s time that we move past award shows. All of them are befuddled with racism and sexism, and bad jokes are used to cover all of it up. It’s nice to have a sort of “standard” to know what is the best media of the year, but especially with the Grammys’, it can be hard to know the guidelines that they’re holding this work up to.
The nominations for the Oscars came out this week, and I think that depending on how they go could definitely change the future of award shows. If they follow a similar pattern that the Grammys and Golden Globes have, I don’t think that a world without award shows is an unimaginable future.
