Sunday, September 21, 2003
Put the Awards Back Into the Show, Please
Did anyone here besides me actually watch the Emmys this year? Show of hands? Okay, I can see that nobody cares anymore. Good.
Because the "Awards Show" platform needs a serious revisiting. How in the hell does a director justify hurrying along someone who's given less than thirty seconds to make their acceptance speech, but then decides to cut to a three minute long piece about how they got Simon and the gang to audition the fucking acountants for the Emmys?! PEOPLE. It's an Awards Show. Not a variety show.
Giving an award for the director of the Tony Awards for "Best Variety Show Direction" is pretty much putting the nail in the head of the Awards Show coffin. Giving out a TV award for award show?! Wasn't this supposed to be an awards show that just happens to be televised? Shouldn't it work the same whether it's on TV or not? Hey, let's just admit that this is nothing more than a TV show that we put on to charge more money for advertisements, and not a show where we award the best performances in Hollywood! Why not just come forward and tell the public that you'd rather not hear what the award winner has to say, and that you'd rather have Bernie Fucking Mac go on for five minutes about how not funny he is.
I've got this crazy idea. Why not just throw a huge party, invite all of Hollywood, and then don't even bother handing out awards. Just have song and dance numbers up on the stage the whole freaking night, with some of the world's worst stand-up comedy routines in order to distract the viewing public from the bitter truth:
It's not about the awards anymore, is it? It's all about your ratings.
Award winners: please start telling the director to go fuck himself when they cue the music while you're in the middle of your acceptance speech. It worked for Randy Newman at the Oscars, and I (and the audience) applauded him for it. And please, literally say "go fuck yourself" on mike. If they cut to commercial, so be it. You didn't show up to get your face on TV that night. You showed up to accept an award for excellence, so who cares if TV land sees your acceptance speech or not. Right?
Right?
