From The Observer, October 22, 2006
"The culture of prize-giving has gone mad. It has replaced the art of criticism in determining cultural value and shaping public taste. We enjoy the glamour of a Booker or an Oscar night, but we lose something too in this orgy of awards, says Jason Cowley" of the UK’s Observer.
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5 comments:
Amen. With this comes the prefab wooden language of self-celebration. Do we even notice the mass-produced phrases anymore?
Before you write "award-winning", replace it in your head with "as seen on tv" and see if that helps.
Oh, I think that's a pile of steaming....sour grapes. This article doesn't, in my mind, do much to show any evidence between the deteriortation of the "art of criticism." In fact, just when this golden age of criticism was is not specifically indicated.
According to this article,
"something more than money is at stake here: recognition, symbolic capital, prestige. Prizes create cultural hierarchies and canons of value. They alert us to what we should be taking seriously: reading, watching, looking at, and listening to."
Oh no! Recognition and prestige for artistic endeavors! There goes the neighborhood...I mean, which seems more plausible: That the existence of rampant honoring and recognition is systematically decreasing the quality of work done and turning everyone into media whores OR That the prevalence of media and the exploded idea of celebrity itself is turning everyone into whores?
In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with saying, "Hey, why don't we get together a committee to see every play in town and recognize those we feel to be outstanding based on these guidelines." The great thing about it is, anyone can do it. You can say, "Hey, I'd like to set up a committee to taste every blueberry muffin in town and throw a blueberry ball to celebrate the winner." That's why there are so many prizes! Because there are suddenly 40,000 types of art, music, literature, lines of study, types of media, to pursue and a subgroup for each and people desperate to RECOGNIZE outstanding acheivement in ALL of these.
Now, if you're reading this page, you probably consider yourself a critical mind. 90% of the theatre community reads reviews like wild hyenas on a freshly killed zebra, and if the reviews are bad they bitch and whine about how there are no qualified reviewers in town, and reviews are pointless anyway, they're just one person's opinion, blah blah blah....But every positive review is pasted into every pdxbackstage advert and every theatre vertigo post to let people know how popular the show is. Is THAT the delicate "art of criticism" that horrid wicked conventions like the Drammys just trample under foot?
What percentage of the population really makes their judgements of what's good based on the awards it receives? Is anyone ever really, I mean, REALLY floored by who wins Oscars, or did everyone pretty much already have it narrowed down to 2 or 3 possibilities? Would the elimination of the Oscars suddenly have everyone renting obscure French art house films? Absurd.
Yes, there is a culture problem. It's the fetishism of celebrity and money and the media exploiting every aspect of person and process. A string of movies striving desperately to acheive a "Best Picture" title is better any day than the long line of cookie cutter crap that's cranked out to have one major box-office weekend and fade into obscurity after the first million people have thrown up in their popcorn (but been further brainwashed by commercials and previews for the crap that's Coming Soon).
This rant of mine has gone on far longer than I intended. Sorry! My point is, EVERYONE doing art deserves to be recognized, by their peers, by their audience/fans, AND, when possible, by a committee whose sole purpose is to decide, as a moment in culture, whose work they feel is worthy of further recognition and promotion based on its excellence, its innovation, its superiority compared to the other work being done in that medium or genre.
My favorite movie won an Oscar. One of my favorite books won a Booker. A lot of my favorite performances/actors/designs have won awards of some sort. I didn't choose or like them because they won awards, but the fact that these works that I find truly outstanding have been noted by these organizations lends, in my mind, some credibility to the practice.
I agree with Anonymous 2. Well said. But the Observer columnist pretty much gives away the game in the final few paragraphs, anyway: "Of course the whole prize-giving culture is bound up with celebrity and commerce and globalisation and our omnipresent media landscape. It is also essentially part of a game, a jamboree. It is fun to go to or watch the awards ceremonies, fun to argue about who has been excluded, and even more fun to be on the inside as a judge and, above all, to win."
I agree the piece doesn't say much about the deterioration of the art of criticism. And that an underlying problem is money, media, and celebrity. But underlying that, it seems to me, is the simple lack of interest among much of the public in digging for quality reading, or theater.
Is that a function of the inherent "eliteness" of the arts? Or poor arts education? Or too many competing goods and services for the poor citizen's interests?
Prizes often get awarded to obvious or over-the-hill creators. But every once in a while, someone gets picked out of obscurity, out of the dust heap (e.g., William Kennedy), and far more people get alerted to that artist than otherwise would have been the case.
And I don't think most writers and artists -- especially theater artists, who have a more immediate preoccupation with getting the show down and pleasing the live audience in front of them -- set out to win a prize from the start.
Are we talking "awards" or are we talking the Drammies?
Getting an award at the start of a career--whether as a new theatre company, actor, playwright, etc.--can help establish talented people, just as an especially good review can. And getting an award toward the end of one's career is a nice way to say thank you, particularly if someone has a substantial body of work that hasn't been studded with previous awards. In between, it's unfortunate when something or someone who really should be recognized gets frozen out for an obvious mistake or for a flavor of the moment, but usually those recognized are worthy of it. Are they the best? Unless their achievement is blindingly brilliant in comparison with their competitors, that's always going to be subjective.
As to whether there are too many awards...not really for Portland theatre. Here you have the Oregon Book Award for playwrights and the Drammies for everyone else (and the playwrights when they do Best Original Play). It's hardly overkill.
I don't think the number of awards is the problem. The more the merrier.
It's the trumpeting of awards won that becomes annoying.
This marketing white noise clogs the air waves and dulls our senses. And it's downright unbeautiful to boot.
But does this promo speak even work? Does the list of parenthic awards after each person's name get butts in seats?
Or have we just unconsciously adopted the lingo of the muffler salesman.
Have I got a deal for you!
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