Between Reviews: And the Losers are…
AND THE LOSERS ARE…
JAN 20, 2008 - WHATEVER IT IS THESE HOLLYWOOD WRITERS are on strike about, they’d better get things back on track before the Oscar ceremony, because I don’t want to wait another year to justify my investment in a television set. The cancellation of this year’s Golden Globes gala (thanks to this writers’ strike) has put people in a blue funk for various reasons – not being able to see the stars in their designer duds, or not hearing their red-carpet quips about how it’s (everybody together) an honour just to be nominated. But for me, the greatest loss is not being able to judge, from the comfort of my living room, the actor – or actress, though Shabana Azmi will have my head for this; according to her, a female politician isn’t a “politicianess,” so why should a female actor be an “actress?” – most deserving of the award for a shamefully overlooked aspect of celebrity life. I call it Best Stiff Upper Lip.
You know, of course, what this is about. The presenters walk up. They think the reason we’re all goggle-eyed is to listen to their lame banter, so they painfully procrastinate the opening of the envelope. Somehow, we hang in there – with gritted teeth and character-building patience, resisting the temptation to test if concentrated waves of telepathic hate can indeed strike dead a twosome on a stage half a world away. Eventually, they get to the business at hand, announcing the names of the five nominees. As Name One is read out, a rectangle appears behind them, displaying the corresponding actor’s face as a deer caught in the camera’s merciless headlights. This goes on till all the names (and all the faces) are out there. An imaginary drumroll later, the winner is announced. He (or she) rises in triumph and walks past the maze of congratulatory forearms – while the losers cheer on, praying to unknown higher powers that the world is buying the fake bonhomie they’re selling.
That’s my favourite part of these awards shows. We’ve heard of acting schools that train students by asking them to imagine themselves a Christmas tree in late April, or Brando taking on-set instructions from Michael Bay. But surely – tucked away behind doors that will open only to retinal scans of awards-shows nominees – there’s a thriving living being made on how not to let on what you’d really like to do when it’s not your name in the envelope: namely, reach the stage before the winner does, grab the award, use its base to bash in the skulls of the presenters who put your face in that rectangle for the whole, wide world to see, and, finally, invoke an ancient Aztec curse that will cause the hall in front of you to burst into flames before being swallowed up by the earth, the winner going down first.
Of such happy thoughts are awards shows made – and I really, truly hope that at least the Oscars will allow me to give away the stack of Best Stiff Upper Lip statuettes that have gone sadly undistributed during the Golden Globes. As for the awards themselves, I notice that Cate Blanchett has won Best Supporting Actress (not my words, Shabana, but theirs) for I’m Not There – a film I’ve had my eyes on partly because it’s inspired by the life of Bob Dylan, and also because it’s been lauded to the skies for its daring gimmick of using different actors to portray the singer at different stages of his life. When I first heard of this, I thought: but we do something like this all the time in our films, in our songs, where playback singers are chosen according to the mood of the moment. If Rafi represented the romantic yearning of Dev Anand’s character in Teen Deviyan, as he launched into Aise to na dekho, the ebullience of same character (in the Are yaar meri number) was brought out through Kishore Kumar. Maybe it’s time to dash off a note to the media in the West.
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“not my words, Shabana, but theirs”
Aditya: I wonder how she’d rename the category, though. Best Supporting Actor (Female Category)?
Yes, the Presenters have many a time had me dreaming about skull bashing and suchlike, the affected ways and plastic smiles had me impatiently, wishfully, reaching for the fast forward button..an entire article on the subject?? How delightfully honest! Bravo BRangan!
I need to gripe about the Writers Strike too, life has come to a standstill and all is lost without the weekly dose of Desperate Housewives and Grey’s anatomy..not sure if these shows are aired in India yet, but when they are, folks,…WATCH!
I think some awards have renamed the category that way…the recent Screen Awards for one, which was quite a farce with 16 people walking away with the Best Supporting Actor (Female) award:)
On that point, would Shabana like it if there was only one category for Actors and both male and female actors vied for it. That would imply that Lata Mangeshkar (yes, my comments have to eventually lead to her
) fought for the wrong cause by insisting on seaparte Filmfare awards for male and female playback singers. 
this article is reminiscent of ur ET madras plus column days..
Mickie: Those shows do air here, but a season or two behind. So we’re still good
Priti: I hope that’s a good thing
not such a good thing
i like your present style a lot more.. in fact, i was a little surprised reading this piece…
I actually find the writer’s strike quite refreshing. It’s let me inherit some loss, breach a kitchen’s confidentiality and reconnect with some white mughals. You know, coz of all the brilliant programming that is now available (case in point: American Gladiators!). But here is some interesting reading:
http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/page/2/
aditya, can I throw a canard on why Lata would have wanted separate categories for male and female playback singers ?:-)
I think Shabana would be confident enough to go for a single acting category and trump her male counterparts to the award as well - she is a bloody good actress..er..actor
Deepauk M: “American Gladiators”? What’s that?
Raj: You’re an evil, evil man
So Raj, you’re back!
I think we should continue our debate elsewhere. I will soon be doing a series of LM posts on my blog (thank you!), and we can continue it there
American Gladiators used to be a show relegated to the backalleys of television, namely the 2-3 pm slot on the USA network, but now occupies primetime on NBC. Its exactly like Roman times, except its not. A group of steroid enhanced humanoids take on regular folk (OK regular might be overstepping bounds, but as regular as people volunteering to be on American reality shows can get) in a series of non-contact “games” such as the joust, and there is no friggin horse. Anyway as Kittu Mama might say “Ca(b)le Muthiduthu”.
Remember couple of years ago Desparate Housewives fame Felicity Huffman nominated in Leading Actress for Transamerica playing a trans-sexual.
So in essence you’re a fan of scheudenfraude.:-) Excellent!:-)
On the topic of award categories, I do think there should be only one “best actor” category that male and female performers both vie for. However, since the name of the game seems to be to proliferate the number of awards, I look forward to the day when separate awards are handed out for direction.:-) I can see it now, “Best Directoress” - Farah Khan.:-))