Photoplayer Hater

Like most people, I once thought Oscars, Tonys, Golden Globes, and Emmys always meant something. As time goes on it has become clear that they are not completely impartial organizations and have goals beyond recognizing excellence. Many times I have seen awards given to people I felt did not deserve them. Individual taste can account for much but there are also many factors involved apart from merit.

Who Makes Good TV/Press

Major awards are not just awards, they are TV shows. TV shows of all stripes need viewers or else they will not stay on-air long. People need to be made aware of the broadcast and enticed to watch, which makes it necessary for media to publicize the event. So nominating people who have large followings, though not necessarily great artists, can become a requirement for survival.

Popularity Trumps Skill

There are so many productions made each year: stage plays, television shows, movies. It is hard enough for die hard fans to keep up much less your average awards show voter. To an extent voting will be affected by whether someone is familiar with someone's work more so than the quality of that work. No matter how great a film is, if you have never seen it you would not likely vote for it to win Best Picture.

Biases Of Voters

The voters for the Academy Awards are notorious for voting up a very particular type of performance and film. They love sweeping, epic films of grand scale for Best Picture and they love performances where people cry a lot for Best Acting. Many of these voters are also of a certain generation, and they will not have the same perspective as a younger voter might. So impartiality is not possible given the demographics of the awards voters.

Used To Promote Films

Any production that garners awards also increases its chance of financial success. This has become more prominent in the recent past as producers and studios have taken out advertisements in mainstream publications lobbying for a vote for their thing. This is big business. An award can be the different between disastrous loss or windfall. So the pressure changes from matter of prestige to one of money, and when money is involved things often go awry.

Used To Promote A Cause

Just as studios and other business interests see awards as a way to further their financial success, many artists see awards as a platform to spread their causes or ideas. Rather than graciously accept an award on stage with some thank-you's to close people, some want to use it as a bully pulpit to make change in the world or maybe just gain status be seeming like they care about issues. As the campaign for their film on talk shows and in interviews they also use it as a way to speak about these side interests which may be their primary reason for making the effort in the first place.

Even with these inherent flaws, awards are just like any other show. They can be brilliant at times and brainless at others. No matter how you try to shape an awards organization there will be politics of some kind or another, but it is important to keep all that in mind. Awards are not really a stamp of quality, they are something else that kind of looks like a stamp of quality.