Award season is officially coming to an end with February upon us. The time when celebrities join each other in celebrating their accomplishments while the majority of our society worries about skyrocketing prices of everyday essentials is coming to a close. With this means we will be seeing fewer red-carpet disasters, online arguments over who deserved which award, and fortunately, significantly fewer chances of Hollywood royalty using their influence to further drive a wedge between our mainstream media and common moral sense. Award shows are known to be highly corrupt and unfair, causing many to wonder, how things got this way and why we can’t stop feeding into it. 

The Emmy Awards acknowledge the hottest television programs of the year. They are awarded by an organization known as the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences. This academy consists of highly experienced television officials. There are 31 areas of television in which you can work to make you eligible to join. Animators, stunt coordinators, casters, writers, directors, etc. can vote on who receives an Emmy. over twenty-five thousand people hold membership to this academy. With this vast amount of people held responsible for the selection, the only way of ensuring integrity when it comes to voting is the lovely honor system. In 2021 a reported 133 drama series, 68 comedies, and 41 limited series were released. Essentially, you cannot expect every voter to have watched and considered every show eligible for an Emmy. This has caused many deserving shows to be overlooked in the award process. This is what many call being “snubbed”. Additionally, with so many shows competing for so few awards, many attempts to rig the system in their favor. 

Severe corruption can also be found in the Golden Globes. Aside from the Globes being a complete Joke compared to other award shows, due to its reputation as the award show with the most liquor involved. Typically, shows like the Oscars, Emmy awards, etc. let loose at afterparties, but attendees of the Golden Globes have notoriously been known to drink heavily during the show itself. In 2021, Moet Chandon, a luxury champagne brand, handed out fifteen hundred miniature bottles of their product for free at the Globes. A reported seventy-five hundred glasses of Champagne are additionally served yearly to those in attendance. This does not include any additional cocktails, attendees can personally order. From the start, the Globes are made out to be a drunken sham. On top of that, behind a façade of tipsy leisure lies a scene of corruption and bribery. 

The Globes are run by a group of entertainment journalists known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Opposed to the twenty-five thousand voters in the Emmy Awards, the HFPA only houses roughly one hundred members. Not much information is known about the organization or its members. The original concept for this group was to share information and contacts regarding Hollywood media news. Essentially this group was a gossip circle about movies. What’s interesting is the fact that a group as exclusive and influential as the HFPA is never talked about. The only real news about this group is the always-present gossip surrounding actors flirting with members to get their projects in the running for Globe nominations. When compared to the Emmy Awards, it’s easy to see how one would rather bribe one hundred people than twenty-five thousand. In 2021, a television show took advantage of this. A Netflix original show called “Emily In Paris” was nominated for a Globe. The show told a campy story about an American girl who lived in, obviously, Paris France. Many were surprised to see that the show was nominated. Critics called the show “Bad and not in a fun way”. The show also causes severe backlash from actual French citizens. One major French writer stated the show was “ Embarrassing, completely wrong, deplorable and badly acted”. One would understand why this show’s nomination for Television Show of the Year would be shocking. What’s worse is this program beat out a show titled “I May Destroy You” for a nomination. People claimed this show was fantastic. Viewers stated this show featured dark themes with added humor, powerful messages, and heartbreaking levels of realism. It tackled heavy subjects like sexual assault and was one of the most critically acclaimed shows of the year. The New York Times called it “ the perfect show for an anxious world”. So how did a show like “Emily In Paris” get a nomination when one like “ I May Destroy You” doesn’t? In 2021 an investigation exposed a huge amount of bribery in the Golden Globes. One member of the HPFA was caught selling tickets to the show for thirsty nine thousand dollars a piece. Nearly one-third of the members were gifted a full vacation to the Emily in Paris set in France, including a stay at a nearby luxury resort. The nomination makes sense now. 

The award for the most corrupt award show goes to the Academy Awards. Better known as the Oscars, the most iconic award show was only started because a man wanted a beach house. Louis B. Mayer was the head of Metro Goldwyn Marey studios. If you ever see a title card play before a film or television program with a lion roaring inside a golden ring, that’s the one. MGM produced hits like “Gone With the Wind”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “Singing in the Rain” etc. and had brought Louis Mayer much success. Mayer planned to build a lavish mansion on the beach. At this time workers’ unions began to form, throwing a fork in Mayer’s construction plans. A union known as the international alliance of theatrical stage employees caused Mayer to worry about his production of both film and his Mansion. Mayer starts a union in response to this, retaining his control over the industry. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science was created to oversee all aspects of publicity and production, eliminating any threats posed by Unions. The five main categories of this organization include Writers, directors, actors, producers, and technicians. Soon an idea for awarding people from each branch was brought up. Mayer loved this idea saying “ I’ve found that the best way to handle filmmakers was to hang medals all over them. If I got them cups and awards they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted and that’s why the academy award was created”. So in full, the creation of the Oscars was not entirely to fund a beach house, but to inflate one man’s ego overall. To this day, Mayer’s mansion is still standing at a worth of 10.7 million dollars. Legendary names like Douglas Fairbanks, May west, and Samuel Goldwyn (the G in “MGM”) were known to attend outrageous parties on this property. This “House of ill repute” was said to be the site of many secretive meetings between Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. 

To Mayer’s credit, the Oscars today costs over forty million dollars to produce due to its major success. It started small, however, in 1929 when the first ceremony was held in a press-free hotel and only lasted fifteen minutes. The winners were announced a few months earlier so if one was nominated and didn’t win, there was no pressure to attend. This ensured high morale. Today it’s more about appearances. Red carpets, press events, and afterparties are the real reason people tune in. Even attendees are known to come for what is called a “Swag Bag”. This is a somewhat party favor filled with high-end items for those who attend. The 2022 swag bag was reportedly worth one-hundred thirty-eight thousand dollars. The original ceremony only awarded a free dinner to a luxurious restaurant. The academy selected one judge to represent each field of work the academy covered. That judge would select ten candidates to be awarded for their work. Once the candidates were chosen, every member of the academy would vote for their field’s candidate. However, this did not hold because the first Oscar for best actor was awarded to a dog. Rin Tin Tin won the award but at the end of the day, high-ups decided the first-ever actor should go to a human. So these officials changed the choice to an actor named Emil Jannings. turns out Jennings was a literal Nazi. he had his trophy mailed to him in advance because he would be in Germany during the actual ceremony. He worked there making Nazi propaganda films. Not only was the ceremony rigged from the start, but this rigging also gave accolades to someone who perpetuated Nazi propaganda that inflated support for Hitler’s cause. Soon, everyone in Hollywood wanted an Oscar. The story goes that the name “Oscar” comes from when famous actress, Bette Davis was overheard comparing the physique of the golden trophy to that of her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. A well-known actress named Mary Pickford had been acting since the silent film era. She was known for her many roles as a sweet, pure, childish girl. When she grew up, that all changed. Pickford wished to be seen as an adult, rather than some sweet little girl. She worked toward this by starring in a movie called “Coquette”. Reviews for this film stated that she was simply adequate. Nonetheless, Pickford decided she wanted an Oscar. Her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, was a founding member of the academy, giving her access to several high-ups. All members were invited to the couple’s Los Angeles estate for a dinner party, where they were convinced that Mary Pickford would be their choice for Best Actress. Rumors stir surrounding Mary’s methods of convincing but they have never been confirmed. She won the Oscar in 1930 but was exposed for her bribery. The community protested the Oscars due to their severe lack of integrity. 

Now there are seventeen categories of filmmakers in the academy, compared to the original five, and the 40 original members have grown to over ten thousand. The identities of which have remained mostly a secret. While all the founders have died, along with their corrupt crimes against cinema, there is still one man who holds a tight grip over the film industry today. Having used his fame, wealth, and influence to ruin the careers and lives of many, Harvey Weinstein is one of the prime examples of Hollywood corruption plaguing award shows. Weinstein was a sexual predator who used his power to control women in the filmmaking industry. For years, he was a quite popular movie producer. He was Mentioned the same amount of times as God in award speeches, showing how influential this man has been in the industry itself. Weinstein’s production company, Miramax is responsible for hits like “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love”. He also founded a company with his brother where they produced more successful films like “Silver Linings Playbook” And “Django Unchained”. To this day Weinstein is one of the most nominated producers of all time but he was notorious for invading the Oscar process. He would verbally abuse employees of the Academy, threaten to pull funding from projects, and even threaten to buy out whole films just to prevent them from hitting the big screen. He would harass Academy voters and scare people into voting for his films. Millions of dollars were spent on his Oscar campaigns along with his smear campaigns. When “Slumdog Millionaire” was up against his movie, Weinstein started a rumor claiming the film mistreated young Indian actors and used child labor. The same thing happened the following year when he paid real-life soldiers to claim that a military-themed film that competed against his film was highly inaccurate. 

The Academy has claimed to be making efforts to increase reliability. In doing so they have improved diversity efforts as well. 2022 features a deaf actor taking home an Oscar while 2021 showcased the first woman of color to win Best Director, Cloe Zhao. Unfortunately, these efforts are not enough to erase the decades of lies, and exclusivity. Only 1.6 percent of all Oscars awarded have gone to black Americans and .3 percent have gone to Asian Americans. .1 percent have gone to Hispanic Americans and only one single Oscar has been awarded to a Native American. This issue must be resolved to promote more inclusive storytelling in Hollywood. Most Americans may not see the importance of who wins what award but the principle of acknowledging people’s accomplishments on an equal playing field is what truly matters.