HOLLYWOOD—Well so much for Awards Season being back to normal in 2022 Hollywood insiders. With that said, the Critic’s Choice Awards has been postponed, a bevy of film festivals have been cancelled or delayed, the Golden Globes which was already facing plenty of controversy will live stream, but with no audience, no celebrities and no red carpet. The Grammy Awards are slated to air January 31, but it seems like that will be delayed as well with the rise of COVID-19 cases as a result of the Omicron variant. Well, news was announced on Wednesday, January 5 that the Grammys ceremony for January 31 has indeed been postponed as a result of the current rise in COVID-19 cases.
Yeah, gathering a bunch of people in a building and actually televising an awards ceremony in the middle of a pandemic where things are NOT going well people does not sound like a good idea at all. So the past 2 years at this point raised an important question for me, should we start to look at revamping award shows?
Simple answer: yes. I think the grand red carpets, the over the top events, the celebrities and the long award shows need to come to an end. I see no reason why an awards show should last 3 hours. That seems to be the norm for most ceremonies. However, you have ones like the Grammys and the Oscars that sometimes inch near the 4 hour mark, which is simply why too long people, sorry, not sorry.
Tell me an awards show where you were fully entertained for 4 hours from start to finish. I can tell you for a fact I know that is something that has NOT transpired and it will not transpire. Why? There just tends to be way too much filler time with the ceremonies. You have commercials, you have segments that are too long or fail to entertain and then you have the awards that have to be handed out. People give speeches, some rant longer than others and some award shows don’t even hand out all the awards. Yeah, I’m talking to you Recording Academy, 10 awards for a 4 hour ceremony, yet you have 20 plus musical performances or more, please, please make that make sense for me.
Hell, I’m starting to think some of the celebrities don’t even like going to lavish award shows. However, I could be wrong, plenty of them might love going to these ceremonies and having the spotlight on them, their TV or movie for a few hours people. At the same time, who would want the camera watching your every move for several hours? I know I wouldn’t want that to happen. The Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations are slated to happen sometime this month, rather the ceremony is actually held this year is still in question.
The same goes for the Academy Awards who will unleash nominees in February and the ceremony is slated to be held at the end of March at the current moment. However, if 2021 taught us anything, the virtual element of the awards ceremony just doesn’t work. If you cannot have the glitz and glamour as we’ve come to expect for the ceremony we just should have it. You need a host, you need an audience, you need people to interact with, otherwise it’s not an awards show, I don’t know what I would call it people.