Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel and Mark Lee to overthink second-tier awards in light of the Golden Globes and the Miss America pageant. What, exactly, is the virtue being celebrated when we give awards, and at what point does the institution surrounding that virtue become an end in itself?
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I woke up this morning to the news that Ricky Gervais mercilessly mocked the very awards ceremony he was hosting and that a few other actors basically called out the whole thing for being what it is: a sham second rate awards show. Did everyone suddenly wake up to reality? Could this be the beginning of the end of the Golden Globes?
He did. And it was glorious. But I think everyone knows it’s a sham second rate awards show. They don’t even bother to put on their nicest outfits…which is sad because to me the Golden Globes is a slightly more entertaining than normal fashion show.
I failed at finding any video of the new Miss America playing her song but I found her song…Whitewater Chopped Sticks. Mark wasn’t too far off on what it would have sounded like. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqBDgGK9Sn0
Aside from the song categories and the foreign film categories, the Golden Globe winners were ridiculously easy to predict. But yay for Glee.
Pete’s chocolate speech was so brilliant. I feel like that should be a grand monologue at the climax of a film a la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
The talk of Ballistic: Eks vs. Sever got me thinking about thoroughly maligned pieces of pop culture and their prospective fandom. I presume that even a movie like Eks. vs. Sever, considered one of the worst of all time, has to have at least a handful of diehard fans. Perhaps somebody even considers it their favorite movie. I’ve been publishing a series of articles about songs considered the worst ever on the Node wing of Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist site, and these songs all surely have their fans as well. Somebody, somewhere still loves the Macarena.
I don’t really have any questions to posit based on this notion, I just thought it was interesting and vaguely related to the content of this podcast. Although, it did inspire a question I would like to ask, and that I shall put out there in the comment section of this show now. Is there any piece of much maligned pop culture that you truly enjoy or enjoyed? I’m not talking something you appreciate ironically, but something you think is genuinely enjoyable.
For my answer, I will say I thought Cavemen was a good show. It was a funny, enjoyable sitcom. I will grant the premise probably couldn’t have lasted more than two seasons, but I was still disappointed when it was canceled.
No-one else think the Confucius prize is sort of the second-string to the Nobel Peace?
Well, it’s really the anti-Peace prize, but the nominees had done some good work. Rather confusing.
The Confucius Prizes are the hipster Nobel Prizes for people who hate the establishment and pretend to be rebels despite being the establishment and stepping in lockstep with authority.
I’m sure some of the people who did the work were nice and all, but the whole purpose of it is to try to stamp out the Nobel Prizes because they criticized the Chinese government. I feel dirty even publicizing them, and it’s best for everybody (even those in China) they stay in obscurity, especially outside China.
Also, Confucius was a bit of a hack.
He had all of the non-philosophical bootleg problems that Plato and Aristotle had (setting up a system in which people like him just happen to be in charge, using random animals and shapes and stuff as metaphors for humanity without sufficient reason to draw the comparison, making a bunch of extrapolations about how the universe works with insufficient reason to believe that his premises about the natural world had any grounding in reality), without the endearing subversiveness of an ancestral Socrates figure – who also provides the means to determine “hey, a lot of what I’m saying might be bullshit” that is always an attractive quality in a thinker.
Also, maybe it’s just lost in translation, but the logical rigor of Confucian thought has always seemed a little soft to me. Maybe there’s an OTI reader who can better justify to me why I am wrong. Obviously he’s a critically important historical figure and a tremendously influential literary figure, but I don’t tend to think of him as a philosopher of relevance.
(I’ll add that maybe my problem isn’t so much with Confucius himself as with the way the Analects are compiled and presented as an authoritative text. It’s important to remember that Confucius never presented himself as an authority of the same scope and magnitude as he has been presented by the regimes that have relied on him as grounding for their legitimacy.)
(and also maybe I’m not giving Lao Tse enough credit, but this is already a quadruple post, so I’ll leave it at that)
I’m of the opinion that we should make it very clear where the Chinese Government stands – they would rather see a Taiwanese politician of note receive a peace prize than one of their own citizens who is (was?) more patriotic towards them than you would expect for a man under house arrest.
first off, yay for frisbee, it’s like the best sport ever, no wonder it’s called the ultimate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_(sport)
regarding the ice-hockey skates, there has been numerous incidents of neck cuts during the history of ice-hockey and at least one fatal, after the most recent one in 2008 some of the lower leagues in North America actually introduced neck guard rule, just as you had sort of predicted.
and could someone pin down for me what exactly is the point of low-tier beauty pageants (when there is no chance of getting famous). what do the girls get out of it, is it like a female version of arm wrestling contest or form of exhibitionism of parents/participants? because in most pop culture representations it looks quite emberassing for everyone involved.
It isn’t really driven by exhibitionism. My understanding is that pageants are supported by a widespread culture for which they are an important tradition. It’s a competition that people really want to be the best at, and mothers get their daughters into it, because it was impressed upon the mothers when the mothers were young that this was an important thing to do by their own mothers.
The smaller beauty pageants are truer to the culture of beauty pageants because they run on momentum and tend to be defended with a conservative vehemence against detractors.
But the money and need for good public relations at the larger events makes the distaste for outsiders or naysayers at smaller beauty pageants not realistic for the larger ones.
They’re a lot like dog shows. The big ones seem pretty silly, but they are generally run well and make money if they succeed, and they can attract a certain amount of political pressure, so they evolve a little over time in their presentation. The small ones are driven by a strong traditionalist streak to the point where people really into them can seem kinda crazy.
This is my understanding from fairly limited exposure through TV and various individual conversations, though.
thanks for answer, that’s about how i understand it as well.
letting aside the mostly negative or sarcastic depictions in pop culture, my uncle has two little daughters and the whole family is really into this – ranging from the best preschooler to majorettes and beauty pageants and they all seem to enjoy it, girls like the attention and parents get to be proud, making home videos and boast to anyone who cares to listen.
now the key question is when the objectification and sexism start to be an issue? because i’m not sure how i feel about 8 years old with make-up, the majorettes outfits, the “competitive” spirit even at this level.
When Little Miss Sunshine was released, there were a number of articles released more seriously in the British press suggested that some of the darker undercurrents expressed in that movie re: young pageants were not being exaggerated, but perhaps that was inevitable.
i list little miss sunshine close to the top of most painful and unpleasant film experiences of my life (actually as the only american movie in that list)
Then I can assure you that I did not see the film in the same way, I thought it was great. But I’m interested to know what got to you so badly in it?
apparently most people did and that might actually be part of the problem, i was as so many times before expecting something different based on reviews – and i’m not saying it’s a bad movie, i just felt really bad watching it
in general i have problems with stories about pathetic characters struggling with their miserable destinies towards the sad end – i’ve got enough of that in reality – and LMS hits perhaps a bit too close to home
I really assumed that Mr. Wrather’s talk of the Macarthur Genius awards was a set-up for some joke using the term sub-genius. I was wrong.
Also, Mr. Fenzel apparently didn’t have the grade school science teacher that explained how any experiment that produces valid repeatable results is a success, even if they were not the desired results.