Farcical Razzies help to balance overly serious Oscars
With all the attention paid to the Oscars this weekend, it was easy to miss the other award show that took place. The 35th Annual Golden Raspberry Awards gave out its recognitions to the worst movies of the year. Started in 1981 by copywriter and publicist John J. B. Wilson to “honor” the very worst in film, the award show has established itself as the mostly ignored, tongue-in-cheek counterpart to the Oscars. It has been bashed and heavily criticized, but beyond the fun of calling out the worst films every year, it does the important job of reminding us not to take the Oscars too seriously.
The Oscars, with all its excitement and glamour, are a very flawed institution. The winners often fail to reflect both the tastes of the public and the critics, and often reveal a very out-of-touch voting base. Any institution that awards Rocky the big prize over Taxi Driver, All The President’s Men and Network — to use a better example than the tired Crash over Brokeback Mountain from 2006 — is one whose decisions shouldn’t be taken as the final word on the best in film. Just this year, there were strong criticisms about the demographics of the Oscars nominees in the wake of perceived snubs to lead actor David Oyelowo and director Ana DuVernay for their work in Selma. Now, anyone can vote for a Razzie as long as they pay the $40 membership fee to be part of the Golden Raspberry Foundation. Despite the pall of illegitimacy that such ease of entry seems to cast over the Razzies, it would be difficult to make an argument that their choices are objectively worse than those made by the members of the Academy.
On March 31, 1981, the first Golden Raspberry Awards were held. They took place in Wilson’s house and about three dozen people were in attendance to witness the inaugural Worst Picture award go to Can’t Stop the Music. That same day, one of the biggest Oscars injustices happened when the good-but-not-great Ordinary People beat Martin Scorcese’s masterful Raging Bull. Going off of Rotten Tomatoes alone as an objective metric of critical recognition, Raging Bull’s colossal 98 percent rating towers over People’s 92 percent. But Can’t Stop the Music was indeed the worst-rated film out of the 10 nominees with its 8 percent edging out Saturn 3’s 10.
That year is only one data point, and the Razzies are not trying to set themselves up as a better authority on quality in film than the Oscars. But that is the point. The Razzies do not take themselves seriously in the slightest. They often make joke nominations and break their own rules. For example, this year’s winners for Worst Screen Combo were “Kirk Cameron and his ego in Saving Christmas,” beating out “Kellan Lutz and either his abs, his pecs or his glutes in The Legend of Hercules” and “Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors) in Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Those aren’t the nominations of an award show that takes itself seriously. The level of humor is lowbrow to match the quality of the films it so studiously judges. But, despite the lack of seriousness in the Golden Raspberry Foundation, it can’t be stressed enough that the Razzies consistently do a much better job at declaring the worst in film than the Oscars do at declaring the best.
Perhaps it is the lack of seriousness that allows the Razzies to be more accurate. With so many eyeballs pointed in the Oscars’ direction and so many voices speaking breathlessly about the prestige of the Academy, it is easy for decisions to get muddled by politics and ideas about who is “due.” Al Pacino won his only Oscar in 1993 for Scent of a Woman over arguably superior performances by Denzel Washington in Malcolm X and Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. But the perception of that award was that Pacino was only being rewarded because his best performances were all snubbed, most notably his smoldering performance as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II being passed over for Art Carney’s unforgettable performance in Harry and Tonto. He was perceived as “due” in ’93 so he got the award he should’ve gotten in ’75. You can bet that Academy members will be hearing every proclamation that Leonardo DiCaprio should have won an Oscar already the next time he’s nominated, even if it’s an inferior part.
There is no clamoring for an actor not receiving his deserved statuette in an award show that nobody watches. Just as there is no uproar when none of the nominees are people of color, as was the case this year when out of 20 acting nominees, only Shaquille O’Neal was a person of color. Everyone knows the Razzies are a joke, so they are not put under a magnifying glass and dissected like the Oscars are. This frees them to make their selections in peace and allows for a more accurate selection of winners.
And yet, what little attention the Razzies manage to get is usually negative. It’s understandable. Studios and actors want their bombs swept under the rug and forgotten, instead of paraded around as the gold standard of how bad movies can get. But we should not be too quick to dismiss the yearly reminder of things like the fact that the man who beat Taxi Driver, Network and All The President’s Men in 1977 went on to win a record four Razzies for Worst Actor (including three Worst Supporting Actor nods, Sly has managed to be nominated for a whopping 17 acting Razzies). It is all a bit absurd, but it’s all in good fun. It is also not a condemnation, which is another complaint against the awards. Many Razzie winners are actually quite talented and it should not be a bad thing to call them out when they sign up for a film for the paycheck. For example, Adam Sandler openly admitted that he did Blended in order to get a vacation to Africa. His Razzie nomination should almost be expected with motivations like that.
Some actors have a sense of humor about it. Sandra Bullock attended the ceremony in 2010 and accepted her Razzie for All About Steve the night before she accepted her Oscar for The Blind Side. She was one of three people to win both a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year. Another was Brian Helgeland, who won the Razzie for The Postman and the Oscar for L.A. Confidential the next day. He accepted the award, wishing to display them together as an example of “the quixotic nature of Hollywood.”
Hollywood can get downright bizarre and anyone who celebrates it needs to celebrate that as well. The Oscars are great fun and it’s always a treat to see all the stars out together. But to treat them with reverence is a bit silly. The Razzies are a constant, farcical reminder of this.
Daniel Grzywacz is a senior majoring in anthropology and neuroscience. He is also the lifestyle editor at the Daily Trojan. His column, “The Showbiz Must Go On,” runs Mondays.