The Year So Far: Best/Worst Awards Show Moments
With the foremost awards for Film, Music, Theatre and Sports behind us already, and the list of nominees already announced for the Television equivalent, there is no shortage of "awards show 2017" content to analyze. That being said, there is often more drama surrounding nominations (or lack thereof) for awards, than for the actual proceedings and winners themselves. It might be a bit harder to make that claim this year, for each of the awards shows we witnessed. Here were my chief highlight and chief lowlight:
Best Awards Show Moment: Moonlight gets the delayed win
"No, I'm sorry, there's been a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture." These two sentences, spoken by La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, should probably be eternalized in the canon of famous cinema, as they denoted, in one fell swoop, the most shocking Oscar moment and one of the biggest Best Picture upsets in recent history. I've written before that the absurd chaos surrounding the bungled Best Picture announcement was a monstrous shame that denied the cast and crew of Moonlight the unbridled, unrestrained celebration they deserved. That being said, months later, it's tempting to look back on the incident with fondness, as it has cemented the two films in history, and undoubtedly forever connected two movies whose plots and characters could not be more different, but whose quality stood head and neck above the field of contenders for Best Picture. Delayed or not, Moonlight's victory was a victory for us all not just because of the thrilling underdog aspect (its sole win on the awards circuit had been for "Best Picture - Drama" at the Golden Globes) not just for the significance of seeing an all-black cast and director celebrate their achievement, not just because of the important story it told, but really, because the Oscars actually got it right. Moonlight was, and still is, the best film of the last year, and a beautiful piece of art that will be forever remembered.
Other highlights: Jimmy Fallon's Golden Globes open, Chance The Rapper's Grammy upsets, Jimmy Kimmel's Oscar hosting, each Oscar-nominated Best Song's live performance, John Mulaney and Nick Kroll at the Tonys, Simone Biles wins Best Female Athlete at ESPYs
Worst Awards Show Moment: Beyoncé snubbed at the Grammys
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm beating a dead horse. I should have known that awards show queen Adele was going to win the night over Queen B. But still, there's no excuse for the Grammys yet again finding a way to deny a black artist the top honors the night, which is what they did as Album of The Year, Record of the Year AND Song of the Year all went to Adele (for 25, and "Hello," respectively). Adele herself, to her credit, acknowledged the crime this was as Beyoncé's Lemonade was almost universally billed as the true album of the year. When Beyoncé lost to Beck for the major award in 2015, it was because it was recognizing "musical artistry over commercial success" (let alone the fact that Beyoncé was more critically acclaimed than Morning Phase). In 2017, it was because, "Well, the Grammys are always recognizing the biggest over the best, and Adele's album was EVERYWHERE" (let alone that Beyoncé is, you know, pretty famous, too). The past 5 years, the most critically-acclaimed Grammy-nominated albums have belonged to Beyoncé twice, Kendrick Lamar twice, and Frank Ocean. None of them won, and you can offer any sort of explanation for why it is that they lost, but the only fact that was consistent about the albums they lost to was the fact that they lost out to white artists. And if even that's not enough, can you at least concede that maybe "Formation" deserved Song and Record of the year over "Hello," so that it wasn't just an Adele clean sweep?
Other lowlights: Justin Bieber and Drake even being nominated for Album of the Year, James Corden's Grammy hosting, Casey Affleck winning Best Actor over Denzel, the Warriors winning Best Team over the Cubs, whatever the heck Bill Murray and David Ross were doing at the ESPYs, Modern Family and House Of Cards getting nominated (again) for Emmys over Silicon Valley and The Americans