‘Full crisis’ — is it time to rethink awards season?

Awards season: it’s enough to make you want to slap someone in the face, as Will Smith knows all too well. After some headline-making bust-ups in recent years, 2023’s glamorous annual music and film industry bashes are once again competing for who can have the biggest meltdown. What’s going on? And is there a way to avoid all the public hand-wringing?

First, pity poor British actor Andrea Riseborough. Her first Oscars nomination for Best Actress last month should have been a career highlight. Riseborough plays a struggling alcoholic in To Leslie, a performance that drew rave reviews from critics. It’s been less loved by audiences, who didn’t flock to see it. So, without studio backing, well-connected director Michael Morris reportedly asked famous friends in the industry for help. Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Winslet posted on social media supporting Riseborough’s performance. Riseborough got her surprise Oscar nod.

Then, the backlash. Some in Hollywood decided that Morris’s campaign wasn’t fair. It didn’t help that Riseborough’s nomination was then caught up in a race row: none of the best actress nominees were black, despite Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler being highly tipped for their roles in The Woman King and Till respectively. In an interview this week, Deadwyler said the film industry is “deeply impacted by systemic racism”. Meanwhile, UK actor Michaela Coel told the Standard it was “really weird and a bit depressing” that “phenomenal” and well-reviewed African historical action film The Woman King got no recognition.

Riseborough’s co-star Marc Maron spoke out in his colleague’s defence, saying the studios were only upset that their own Oscar campaigns had got knocked off course. And the Academy review swiftly found in her favour, saying the nomination would stand despite “social media and outreach campaigning tactics” which had “caused concern”. The general sense remains that yet again the Oscars are tainted with an argument long before the start of the ceremony next month.

Perhaps even more controversial in the UK have been music’s Brit Awards, which are this Saturday at the O2. In 2021, the Brits decided to do away with separate Female Solo and Male Solo artist awards, replacing them with a new gender-neutral category. That way, acts like Sam Smith, who is non-binary, could be up for the prize.

The first time the category was used, it seemed to go well. Adele took home the award last year — though she did say on stage “I love being a female artist”, hinting at some disquiet at the change. This year it’s different. When nominations came out in January, there were no women or non-binary people up for the gong. Instead, jostling were five men, including Harry Styles, Stormzy and George Ezra.

There followed righteous anger from both Right and Left, and artists too. Singer-songwriter Lauren Aquilina wrote online: “This is so disappointing... they couldn’t come up with a single woman who might be deserving of this award?” Tim Burgess, of indie band The Charlatans, added: “One step forward, three steps back.” The awards themselves tried to explain that it was voted for by music industry insiders, and this year had been a quiet “cycle” for big female pop acts. But one Guardian music journalist said it showed a “wider music industry sickness”.

Some have sympathy for the Brits, which get criticised whatever it does. It tried to modernise, but got unstuck. Its voting panel — half of whom are women — voted for the male acts, but they didn’t have a level playing field to choose from. Of the 71 artists who did well enough in the charts to be eligible for the gender-neutral award, only 13 were female or non-binary. Whatever the reasons, we were left in another knotty mess.

It’s hard for those making the decisions, says one industry insider. “It must be really difficult for them, as they can’t win either way. If they stick to the old ways of doing it, they are accused of not really moving with the times and risk making people feel excluded. But of course if there are changes and you don’t have specific representation, and the voting academy democratically only vote for men in one particular category, then you are left in a tough position.”

But it doesn’t impress some onlookers. “Awards shows are in full crisis,” says former showbiz columnist turned PR Dean Piper, who has been attending bashes for years and calls the Brits drama “a big fail”. “Not only because of feminism, but because the men are not as interesting,” he laughs. Piper puts most recent bust-ups down to attempts to modernise that go wrong. “Because of social media people don’t want to sit through some stuffy awards show.” Instead, awards need to be more diverse, and recognise influencers as well as more traditional stars, but don’t always succeed. “Nobody really knows what they are doing, and I don’t think that anybody has got it quite right yet.”

He adds: “Most of these awards shows are run by a load of old men that can’t see the future production wise, and until somebody cracks that... they are kind of just stuck in this limbo phase.” It doesn’t help, of course, that “there’s always going to be someone that’s going to be pissed off about what the decisions are”.

The “limbo” phase might be with us a while yet. Since before #MeToo, the entertainment industry has been a lightning rod for wider public debates about sexism and racism.

At first, the way to deal with that seemed to be to accept the ridiculousness of it all, while not appearing to really change anything. Ricky Gervais’s turns at the Golden Globes, where he gave a room of starry names a very public dressing down over subjects like turning a blind eye to Harvey Weinstein, seemed to be the best example.

But they realised that modernisation was needed too. The nomination panels for awards such as the Oscars and Brits have all been updated to include more women and people of colour in recent years. But still, the problems remain.

As well as no black star being up for Best Actress, there are no female directors nominated for an Oscar in 2023, and all of the artists up for Best Pop/R&B Act at the Brit Awards are more Pop than R&B. So the fight will go on, until the industries themselves are more representative.

Hollywood has attempted its tried and tested way out of the quagmire: with a hopeful redemption story, as seen at the Golden Globes this year. Just over a year ago, an exposé at the Globes revealed there were no black members in its 87-strong voting body. A boycott meant no stars turned up to the show, it wasn’t aired on television and the ceremony was instead held privately.

This year, it managed to win people back with some heart-warming winners. Picking up a prize for Everything Everywhere All At Once, former Indiana Jones child star Ke Huy Quan drew tears when he said: “I was afraid I had nothing more to offer, that no matter what I did, I would never surpass what I achieved as a kid.” Actor Jennifer Coolidge too gave a hopeful and hilarious message as she won for White Lotus, about not giving up on your dreams even during hard times. There seems to have been real change: Michelle Yeoh became only the second Asian performer ever to win the Best Comedy/Musical Actress award.

As battles rage, what is the future for the Oscars, Brits and other glitzy awards like it? One thing seems for sure: debates are likely to continue while glaring representation problems remain, so the limbo period will go on until the industries themselves change. That may take some time.

One radical option could be to call the whole awards season off and name everyone a winner. At this year’s Critics Choice Awards, actor Cate Blanchett slammed the “patriarchal pyramid” of handing out prizes and said: “Why don’t we just… stop the televised horse race of it all?”. It sounds good Cate — but that, one fears, would only cause an argument too.