Human beings are flawed. We’re short sighted. Impulsive. Often unable to perceive the world beyond our established biases, even the self destructive ones. While many of us have difficulty evaluating our internal flaws, we have no problem pointing them out in others. Nowhere is that more evident than how we react to award shows. At one point long ago, the sole focus of awards like the Grammys and Oscars may have been to recognize the most inspiring art of the year, but today’s opinion driven news and social media culture has made “who’s been snubbed” to be just as big a discussion as who won. [efn_note] To be fair, I, myself, am not the biggest fan of award shows because I think it’s impossible to objectively compare art from different genres. The Godfather and Blazing Saddles have two almost opposing criteria for what makes their art “good.” [/efn_note]
While others see these snubs as deliberate attempts to undermine and purposeful disenfranchisement of a particular artist/genre, I see it as a natural and inevitable result of any human system aimed at evaluating worth. As I said before, we’re all flawed, short-sighted, impulsive and biased. Mistakes should be expected, accepted even. Let’s stop viewing award winners as art that will stand the test of time, but rather as time capsules that reflect what society valued at that particular time. Awards are less like a curated museum and more like an amateur sports draft. Let me give an example.
Michael Jordan is considered one of the best basketball players of all time. He’s a six-time NBA champion, first ballot Hall-of-Famer and a cultural icon. One of the few accomplishments missing from his loaded resume was being the number one draft pick when he came out of college in 1984. He was the third player drafted that year, which meant that not one but TWO teams passed up on the greatest player of all time. Being drafted third would suggest that he wasn’t the best player in college the previous year but that’s just not true. He was a two time All-American, that had already hit an iconic game winning shot to win a national championship. He was the reigning Naismith and Wooden Award winner for College Player of the Year. So why wasn’t he the consensus number one pick?
The short answer is that the two teams that passed on Jordan didn’t THINK they needed his skill set. In the 80s, tall, athletic centers were considered the ideal athletes to build your team around. Hall-of-Fame centers like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were cornerstones that could single handedly carry a team to a championship. In Jordan’s draft class, there were two centers that stood out[efn_note] Pun intended [/efn_note] above the rest, Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie. Once they were selected in the top two spots, Jordan was the best non-center left and the Bulls happily selected the best college player that would soon be the best basketball player PERIOD of all time. But who’s to say that the Bulls wouldn’t have made the same decision to draft a center if they had one of the first two picks? We’ll never know.
I took this detour into sports in a post about award shows because I want to highlight that award shows are JUST like the NBA draft. They aren’t objective conclusions that precisely evaluate the long term value of an asset, but rather they are short-term subjective guesses based on what people THINK they want in the moment.
An apt Micheal Jordan comparison in the world of film is Citizen Kane. A masterpiece by Orson Wells that the American Film Institute considered to be the greatest film in both their original list in 1998 and their updated list in 2007. As universally beloved as the film is and as iconic as the twist is, the one blemish on the movie’s stellar resume is that it didn’t win the Oscar for Outstanding Motion Picture in 1942. Instead, How Green Was My Valley emerged as the winner. A film I had never heard of until researching this post.
Eighty years after the decision, it is clear which film has stood the test of time with it’s critical and cultural impact. But that doesn’t mean that the nominating committee made a mistake per se. How Green Was My Valley is still a great film.[efn_note] To that same point Hakeem Olajuwon, the player selected first in Jordan’s draft was still a great pick. He’s a Hall of Famer that woe two NBA Championships and is top 15 all time in points and rebounds. [/efn_note] In 1990, the film was honored by being added to the National Film Registry and Clint Eastwood has named it as one of his favorite films ever. How Green Was My Valley was the right film for THAT time but we now see that Citizen Kane is the timeless movie.
Look. None of us are fortune tellers. No one has all the answers to life. And if someone tells you they do, it’s a 100% a grift. Ultimately, we’re all just making it up as we go and that means that we’ll all make mistakes, even the so-called “experts.” So the next time you see that The Big Lebowski wasn’t even nominated for any category at the 1999 Oscars, forgive them for their transgressions and move on. Who’s to say that you would do any better if you were the one in charge.
What’s more important is that when we see that we’ve made a mistake, we learn from it and build something that more closely resembles perfection. In 2001, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a revelation coming out of nowhere to be the first non-European forieng language film to ever be nominated for best Picture. While it didn’t win (which I believe it should, the other nominees were: Chocolat, Gladiator Erin Brokovich and Traffic), it opened the world to consider the quality of non-English films that didn’t feature white actors. Over the last twenty years, movies like Babel and Roma have seen varying levels of success at the awards but none won the ultimate prize until 2019’s Parasite. Was Parasite the best film of 2019? Only time will tell but the fact that it was nominated and won says a lot about how our values have changed for the better over the last 20 years.
Whether it’s the NBA draft, The Oscars, or a critical decision in your own life, it’s important that you treat your missteps as stepping stones toward a better version of yourself. As Michael Jordan once said “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Unsolicited Opinion 