Can I get an award please?
Last night was one of my wife’s favorite night’s of the year- the Academy Awards. I think the whole concept of famous people giving each other awards is a bit silly, especially those who act absolutely shocked that they were picked when their chances were basically 1 in 5.
I am also perplexed by those who cry hysterically when they win, as if they have just experienced the greatest moment in their lives. I get that it is an honor to be chosen by your peers for your work and performance, but it’s just a subjective opinion by a select group of member voters who may be biased toward friends or affected by studio marketing of their sponsored films, or who have not even seen many of the films. And most of the speeches are so tiresome- how amazing their fellow nominees are (folks they just beat out for the trophy, so you can just imagine how amazing they are), the obligatory nod to the studio and other folks who might hire them again, followed by reading a long list of people that we have never heard of.
That said, my wife puts up with a LOT of hockey games and it’s her birthday tomorrow, so it’s really the least I can do to be an energetic observer and comment on all of the “wonderful gowns.” To make it a little more palatable, and more like fantasy football, we gamble on the winners. Naturally she won, thanks to considerable pre-game research, and will be receiving an hour long massage.
But the whole ceremony got me thinking about the entire concept of awards in general and our obsession with them in our society.
There is no doubt considerable value to most humans of having confidence in ourselves and good self-esteem – the relationship between having it and success in life and relationships is unmistakable, and the relationship between the absence of it and failure and even mental illness is equally clear. Similarly, what others think about you- family, friends, and colleagues at work- can contribute mightily to one’s view of oneself. So giving someone an award does have some positives. And who can really find fault with showing appreciation and gratitude for a job well done or a person who goes above and beyond to do something magnificent? Ok, I can.
The flip/dark side of providing awards is that it often leads to arrogance (which we have far too much of in our society) and can result in people obsessively craving recognition, making the accolade more important than the accomplishment, performance or deed itself. It’s the same genetic malfunction whereby very wealthy folks agree to donate lots of excess money to worthy causes like Universities, Hospitals and the like, but only if they get their names prominently displayed on the building, hallway, or room.
We provide awards these days not just for sports and entertainment accomplishments, performance at work, and charitable acts, but everything. It’s pretty clear that we have come a bit too obsessed as a society with recognition when people feel the need to put a bumper sticker on the back of the car announcing to the world that their precious child is an A student. Really? So are more than half of the students it seems today with massive grade inflation because teachers are too worried about the repercussions of offending their parents by not sufficiently recognizing their child as brilliant. And even if that grade is somehow a unique and amazing accomplishment, why is it important to splash that fact on your car and let the whole world know how great your kid is?
It’s gotten to the point that people seek recognition for the most basic things in life – like being a good parent. I always get a huge laugh when a see some guy wearing a t-shirt that says they are the “#1 Best Dad!” I want to go up to the bozo and ask if I can get an autograph or take a picture with him- after all, what are the odds of me just happening to run into the World’s Greatest Dad out of the more than 3.7 Billion men in the world?!
Even if the fella is a great dad, and is proud that his kids gave him a shirt to that effect (although I suspect some of these guys actually bought it for themselves), why isn’t he embarrassed to wear it out in public? If it said “My Kids Love Me” or “Jenny thinks I am a great Dad,” that would still be weird and seem like an unnecessary craving for public attention, but fine. However, expressing that you are “the greatest dad,” Muhammad Ali style, means by logical extension that every other dad in the universe is inferior to you. If that aint unbridled arrogance, I’m not sure what is.
Why have we become such award addicts? The fact that we are constantly bombarded with media recognition of folks that accomplish little or nothing does not aid the cause. From the “Sexiest Man Alive” to the “Bachelor” and Bachelorette” to the “Apprentice” we honor “winners” of ridiculous “competitions.” Nor does it bode well for us as a society when our highest elected official and most public representative of our country craves attention and praise to such a degree that he actually lobbies to be the “Man of the Year” every year and to even win the Nobel Peace Prize.
The recent movie “The Wife” captures how obsessed we have become with recognition – a man is gleefully out of his mind for having been chosen for the Nobel Prize for Literature, even though he is fully aware that it was his wife, and not he, who actually wrote all of his books. It’s not that he’s so happy because of her accomplishment, but rather becomes so transfixed with the award that he somehow believes that he is the one who deserves the credit. I thought Glenn Close deserved that Academy Award.
