The ol’ razzle dazzle isn’t cutting it anymore.
The official nominations for the 37th Golden Raspberry Awards are in, which means it’s the least bonkers time of year to criticize the Razzies, the anti-Academy awards ceremony dedicated to (dis)honouring the worst Hollywood has to offer.
The Guardian’s Calum Marsh expertly summarizes the gist of Razzie criticism: “The Razzies…prefer simply to ratify popular impressions of failure rather than single them out for the first time.” According to The Guardian, it’s a stance built into the nomination process: the 1000-some odd voters are presented with a list of candidates assembled from budgets, box office results, IMDB user ratings, and Rotten Tomatoes freshness. By pointing to, and Nelson-Muntz-laughing at, widely accepted disasters rather than weighing actual merit, the Razzies act as an echo chamber that takes predictable cheap shots at low-hanging fruit. It’s a methodology that stales long term and short term, with flops thoroughly eviscerated on Twitter way before they ever make it into the laps of Razzie voters. As The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin puts it: “Punchlines aren’t much fun if you can see them coming six months away.”
As Indiewire points out, “hatred is a form of passion, and the lazy recirculation of usual suspects is anything but passionate.” Wilson, the Razzies’ founder, doesn’t necessarily object to this characterization: “[The Razzies] might mock, but they won’t rock the boat.”
Okay ‐ but what if they did?
That the Razzie’s aren’t doing more than uncritical heckling kills me. Hollywood, particularly the Awards circuit, is begging to be satirized. If the Razzies really want to punch up and pick at the polish of the industry, there’s more than enough material to choose from. They’re on to something with their occasional “Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel” award (which makes an appearance this year) ‐ it’s fun and points to a more complicated systemic problem than “hi, Zoolander 2 is bad and we’ve nominated it nine times.”
Here, let me spitball a few: A “Worst Colorblind Casting” award could call out any of the whitewashing we saw last year: from the yellow face in Doctor Strange and Absolutely Fabulous, to the aggressively white core cast of Gods of Egypt, to the colorism in Nina. A “Worst Film to Pass the Bechtel-Wallace Test” could showcase how even 2016 duds like Bad Moms, Suicide Squad, and Independence Day: Resurgence can meet the laughably low standards for female interaction that more critically acclaimed films fail to meet. And in the spirit of the “Worst Career Achievement Award,” I think a “Lifetime Achievement for Success in Spite of Sexual Assault Allegations,” would be hilarious (if extremely dark). We can only hope Woody Allen accepts, having had a critically well received film and an audience approved Amazon series in 2016…even when this doozy came out in the same year.
While it would be great if the only anti-awards show with national media coverage used their platform to meaningfully punch up at Hollywood, I have little faith in the Razzies, who historically have taken aim at the wrong targets.
Samantha Allen, writing for The Daily Dot, does an excellent job of outlining how “the problems run far deeper than the fact that [the Razzies’] jokes are starting to wear thin.” Allen notes how the Razzies proudly published a transphobic slur as a shorthand for a nominated film the year after Laverne Cox became the first openly trans actor to receive an Emmy nomination; how it is complicated and messy that Black entertainers have received more Razzies than Oscars for their work since 1980; and how the Razzies have “always seemed to dig into women with an inordinate amount of relish.” The Razzies posture as an equal-opportunity offender, but its troubling that they routinely mock folks already marginalized in an industry rife with inequality.
And sure, there’s a case to be made for not taking the Razzies so seriously. Levying critique against something that began as a living room awards-show piss-take and hasn’t evolved much since is somewhat of an exercise in futility. I also empathize with the desire to not turn everything into a political space. Sometimes you just want to chuckle about how much of a shit show Zoolander 2 was and that’s a fair thing to want.
But at some point, falling back on “it’s just for fun,” or “get your politics out of my cheap shots at Ben Affleck,” unfairly limits what an anti-awards show could potentially accomplish. I’m hungry for awards show satire, and if the Razzies wont rise to the occasion, and inch beyond paint-by-numbers mockery into more undermining derision, I hope someone else does.
Here are the official nominations for the 37th Razzie Awards. Note that all nine categories feature “an unprecedented 6 contenders,” rather than the regular 5, because “the crop of cinematic crap in 2016 was so extensive:”
WORST PICTURE
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Dirty Grandpa
Gods of Egypt
Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Independence Day: Resurgence
Zoolander 2
WORST ACTOR
Ben Affleck / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Gerard Butler / Gods of Egypt & London Has Fallen
Henry Cavill / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Robert de Niro / Dirty Grandpa
Dinesh D’Souza [as Himself] Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Ben Stiller / Zoolander 2
WORST ACTRESS
Megan Fox / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Tyler Perry / BOO! A Medea Halloween
Julia Roberts / Mother’s Day
Becky Turner [as Hillary Clinton] Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Naomi Watts / Divergent Series: Allegiant & Shut-In
Shailene Woodley / Divergent Series: Allegiant
WORST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Julianne Hough / Dirty Grandpa
Kate Hudson / Mother’s Day
Aubrey Plaza / Dirty Grandpa
Jane Seymour / Fifty Shades of Black
Sela Ward / Independence Day: Resurgence
Kristen Wiig / Zoolander 2
WORST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nicolas Cage / Snowden
Johnny Depp / Alice Through the Looking Glass
Will Ferrell / Zoolander 2
Jesse Eisenberg / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Jared Leto / Suicide Squad
Owen Wilson / Zoolander 2
WORST SCREEN COMBO
Ben Affleck & His BFF (Baddest Foe Forever) Henry Cavill / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Any 2 Egyptian Gods or Mortals / Gods of Egypt
Johnny Depp & His Vomitously Vibrant Costume / Alice Through the Looking Glass
The Entire Cast of Once Respected Actors / Collateral Beauty
Tyler Perry & That Same Old Worn Out Wig / BOO! A Medea Halloween
Ben Stiller and His BFF (Barely Funny Friend) Owen Wilson / Zoolander 2
WORST DIRECTOR
Dinesh D’Souza and Bruce Schooley / Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Roland Emmerich / Independence Day: Resurgence
Tyler Perry / BOO! A Medea Halloween
Alex Proyas / Gods of Egypt
Zack Snyder / Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Ben Stiller / Zoolander 2
WORST PREQUEL, REMAKE, RIP-OFF or SEQUEL
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Dawn of Justice
Fifty Shades of Black
Independence Day: Resurgence
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
Zoolander 2
WORST SCREENPLAY
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Dirty Grandpa
Gods of Egypt
Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party
Independence Day: Resurgence
Suicide Squad
NOMINATIONS PER PICTURE:
Zoolander 2 = 9
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice = 8
Dirty Grandpa = 6
Gods of Egypt = 5
Hillary’s America = 5
Independence Day: Resurgence = 5
Alice Through the Looking Glass = 3
Winners will be announced Saturday, February 25th.
Related Topics: Awards, Culture, Hollywood
