This just doesn’t seem right. I mean, sure, he was kinda funny on SNL, and his movies all make a butt-load of money. But The Goddamn Mark Twain Prize for American Humor? It seems to me that Sandler’s brand of ‘humor’ doesn’t really seem to merit this kind of recognition. Seems like the bar has been lowered a few notches. It made him very rich, and that should be enough.
I got nothing against the guy, and good for him and all his massive wealth. I’m probably just jealous. But he ain’t no George Carlin or Bob Newhart.
Come to think of it, I’m not a big fan of Twain, either.
I would agree that Adam Sandler doesn’t merit a humor award named for Mark Twain. But I don’t know that much about the award. What organization awards it? Who are some past winners? (I suppose I could look it up, but I’m just feeling too lazy at the moment.)
Maybe they’ve already given it to everyone who is truly deserving, and now they’re just scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I’d not heard of it, either, until a few years ago, when our local PBS station started running videos of the awards ceremonies.
FWIW, I don’t generally find Sandler to be funny, but I have come to realize (or maybe just “come to decide”) that my sense of humor may be dated; there are many comedians and comic actors from the last couple of decades whom I don’t get, either.
The award is “presented to individuals who have ‘had an impact on American society in ways similar to’ Twain.”
Looking over the list of past recipients, I think this is more true about all of them than it is about Sandler. I’m not saying he’s undeserving—I enjoy and appreciate some of his work—but he’s certainly not the most obvious choice.
I’m not a fan of most of Sandler’s stuff, but I do think lowbrow humor deserves more critical recognition than it gets. If I was stuck in a room with all of the previous participants, I’ll bet Sandler is the one who would get the most off-the-cuff laughs.
His humor has certainly impacted society. It may not be to everyone’s liking, but I think Twain would have approved and looked askance at elitist notions of humor. I don’t know that he would have enjoyed Sandler’s style of humor himself, but I feel certain he had tolerated worse in his own lifetime.
I am reminded that giving awards for the arts may lead to strange bedfellows as in the case of Ursula Martinez’ act:
" In 2009, La Clique won the Olivier award for Best Entertainment. Accepting the award, Brett Haylock, La Clique’s creative producer, said 'Who could have ever imagined that a show that involved a woman pulling a hankie out of her vagina would ever win an Olivier Award.[4
Her award winning routine Hanky Panky is easy to find online.
The Prize was originally intended to reward people who wrote or created humor, not comic actors per se.
I assume Will Farrell got in mostly for creating Funny or Die in 2007. Carol Burnett was the outlier two years later, a true comic actor. Julia Louis-Dreyfus was in the same position: not a writer but the force behind several hit shows.
Adam Sandler has written more than a dozen hit movies. Sure they seem to get worse every worse - The Ridiculous Six has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes - but… I seem to have lost my train of thought. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts probably makes its budget off of what they get for television rights. Or Sandler has photos.
