George C. Scott’s famous words on not accepting his Best Actor award in 1971.
Besides him and Marlon Brando I’m kind of suprised more serious actors don’t share this attitude.
Taking a personal/serious form of art and turning it into an annual awards competiion kind of dirtys the art. You wouldn’t see Picasso, Dali, and O’Keefe getting all dolled up to accept “painting of the year”.
So why don’t more actors reject the idea of the Oscars?
Why are so many of them hung up on the approval of their peers?
Oh wow. Totally speculative, but I’d bet my kidneys that those three artists would DEFINITELY get all dolled up to accept “painting of the year.”
I don’t know enough about Picasso or O’Keefe to say, but Dali? Oh, he certainly would.
(For variant definitions of ‘dolled up’, of course. This IS Dali, we’re talking about.)
Here is a picture of Sean Penn.
Oh, I thought this was a thread about Brazilian BBQ, aka the “Meat Parade”.
Because acting, as a profession, tends to attract narcissists.
It also means a bigger paycheck. Scott certainly benefited by winning the Oscar, even if he rejected it. The best of both worlds – you can strike a blow for artistic integrity and still cash in on it.
But there are few people in any field who turn down awards. Consider the Pulitzer or Nobel prizes (the latter is big bucks, so it’s have to be a big principle to turn it down). It’s the same for industry awards; if you’re named something like “Software developer of the Year,” you’re going to accept it. People in general like recognition for their work.
I have a hard time seeing the Oscars as a competition, since the honorees don’t actually compete for anything.
No, but their studios and publicists sure as hell do.
That’s not the Op was asking, now, is it?
That’s why I quoted your post, to make it clear that I was responding directly to it and not to the OP.
Sorry. I guess I don’t take your point then.
And, FWIW, I *was *responding to the OP, and it seemed like your response was a counter to mine, so you can understand my confusion.
I don’t begrudge the film and television having awards ceremonies.
I do begrudge being told that these awards mean anything, that the ceremony itself is worth watching, and that we should judge their product in relation to how many awards they did or didn’t get.
Man, if there was such a thing as the Academy Awards for painters, I could definitely see Dali getting dolled up and making a ten minute long acceptance speech until someone had to drag him offstage. Meanwhile, Picasso would make pissy little comments in every interview for weeks afterward about what a hack Dali is and how he was Picasso and he had been robbed.
O’Keeffe would smile politely in the audience and then go and console herself with the five other awards she’d received in previous years, until 1970 when her career came back with a vengeance.
…so what was the question?
Bigger than any that Sinclair Lewis had, though he had earlier declined the Pulitzer.
If you look through any list of awards over the years, you’ll find very few people turning them down. The Nebula Awards, for instance, has been around since the mid-60s in at least four different categories a year, and I only know of one case where someone turned it down*. And this is an award that has only a slight financial boost.
*Lisa Tuttle for “The Bone Flute.” She objected to the campaigning and, most specifically, to the fact that the editor of F&SF sent copies of another author’s story to all voters but didn’t mail out hers. She didn’t feel it right that one author be given that advantage over another.
Well, for one thing, because people enjoy accolades. Remember that these are people who’ve dreamt and worked of making it big in movies, and now other movie stars are voting for them to win the big award.
For another, remember, this is an industry awards show. It’s movie people giving awards to movie people. It matters to them because they’re hyping their own business. The Oscars are a big PR coup for that business, and the members of the industry sort of EXPECT each other to participate in the event, because it’s their job to support the industry.
EVERY industry has this stuff. Even my business hands out awards to top performers. If you “turned down” an award people would think you were an ass-hat. I can understand George C. Scott’s personal feeling on the matter, but he could have done what George Clooney did; gotten up, thanked the Academy, and said something to the effect of “This is great, but you know, you can’t really compare actors playing different roles.”
I’m also not crazy about the definition of actors as “artists”.
Directors and screenwriters can be artists. Costume and set deisgners, too. Actors, though? Actors are entertainers. They’re showpeople, performers, and their job is to perform before an audience - like at the Oscars.
My sister and I (back when we lived in the same area) always watched the Oscars together. We saw a great many films together and made it a point to see all the ones that were reviewed as ‘Oscar-worthy’. When the nominations were announced we would scramble to see anything up for a major award that we hadn’t seen yet–in the theater if possible, or on tape if not.
It was amazing how often we were able to predict the winners when we had actually seen all the nominees. The “best film” award generally goes to the best film, etc.
All this is to say that IMHO these awards do mean something. They mean that these films are pretty good, and if you want to see a good film, here’s a bunch of good choices.
Ah, but Alessan, GOOD performing is an art form – a **different ** art than that of the writer/director/designer but still a creative endeavour. Thousands of performers go through the motions of singing/dancing/acting out a script competently but uninspiringly. Good performers don’t just perform, but interpret the music/script/choreography and the director’s instructions in such a manner that it more effectively reaches the audience.
That said, the entertainment awards are in-industry events with as much or less real significance than who wins gadget of the year at CES or Motor Trend Car of the Year; it’s juts that it’s the industry that is based on selling entertainment to the public so they get the big publicity. Futhermore, these are people who work for applause almost as much as for money.
Oh, and Dali would start his own awards show and award himself Painting of the Year every year even if he did NOT paint that year…