Award culture: power and shame

As consumers we seem to be presented with an ever diminishing personal responsibility. No more must we rely on individual preference, expert advice or friendly recommendations to guide us toward a particular product, rather, we can turn to any number of industry awards, whether methodically and sincerely conducted by international panels of experts or shamelessly cobbled together by amoral, cosmetic peddling, self-proclaimed re-inventers of statistical theory like Cosmopolitan.

One way or the other, from cars, to lip-gloss, to accountants, the public has at its fingertips a veritable index of ‘bests’ and ‘of the years’ to refer to when the process of purchasing becomes too much. As a culture we seem obsessed more than at any time in human history with passing systematic judgement on anything and everything available for general consumption. Top 100 Biscuits, The Nation’s Favourite Fruit all seem credible endeavours in the current climate.

Yet where does the authority reside, that can make these often seemingly arbitrary decisions? What systems are engaged in the selection process? It seems baffling to me, for instance, that the Vauxhall Insignia managed to scoop the Car of the Year title by just one point from the Ford Fiesta, whilst the Volkswagen Golf trailed by some one-hundred points in third position. Is anything so easily quantifiable as that? More importantly, is the Vauxhall Insignia really a better car than the Ferrari F430? I’m admittedly not an ‘expert’, but what were the criteria involved in that decision? Worryingly, this most noble of accolades, this automotive Athenian laurel, will doubtless induce a huge increase in sales figures, whilst the poor Fiesta, which remember, is apparently just one-point the inferior, will probably experience no such bump. Second is as good as last. To whom are these panels accountable? Who moderates their ever burgeoning market power?

Nevertheless, as one could rightly argue, these awards can sometimes provide useful advice and information. Not all panels are intellectually bankrupt market insiders, but most are. Yet what really bothers me is the way that in the last century or so these values have been projected onto the world of artistic endeavour. The criteria may just exist to judge one drain cleaner as more effective than another, but to what immortal standard of reference do panellists refer when they judge one painting to be ‘better’ than another? Whilst the artistic community may not ostensibly be as willing to rank works in the same way as the automotive industry, they are effectively guilty of the same ridiculous process, with shortlists and long lists functioning as second and third tiers. ‘Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize’ has become a common epithet upon dust jackets recently, a statement effectively proclaiming a book’s not-quite-good-enoughness; its, only minimal, inadequacy.

The Booker Prize is indeed an interesting institution. The 2008 winner, ‘White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga is currently placed number 10 in the Amazon.co.uk bestseller charts, whilst none of the other shortlisted novels feature at all in the top 100. Such is the unmitigated power of such awards, yet no-one questions these institutions’ lazy, self-proclaimed legitimacy.

Sue Perkins , star of ‘Supersizers Go Edwardian’ and other such televisual classics features as a panellist on this year’s committee. The same Sue Perkins who was famously outed as a lesbian after her former partner revealed all on Celebrity Love Island. She, of all people, has a precious vote in the process which arrogantly assumes it has the incredible ability to proclaim one novel better than another. Are they taking the piss? Our country’s most esteemed literary prize, to which is attributed the greatest artistic and intellectual respect, seems to be the latest victim to have fallen with that most virulent and hateful of infections, celebrity fever.

The invariable futility of the award system is painfully displayed by their conflicting judgements. Not once for instance, in their decades of existence, have The Whitbread Award (now the Costa Award) and the Booker Prize nominated the same novelist. The Galaxy Award, even goes as far as to name a ‘Best Book’ and a ‘Best Author’, quite distinctly from one another. Once again, at no point in its existence has it awarded both to the same recipient. One would have thought, that having written the best novel of the year that, that that probably meant you would be the best author of the year too. Not in the logically bankrupt world of the awards system. Indeed, rather than existing for artistic merit, it seems to me that the only reason for having so many different and potentially conflicting awards is to increase your market power. Having split best author from best Book, an institution can effectively double the number of awards they can hand out.

These problems are of course not limited to the publishing business. In terms of pomp and spectacle, the film industry’s awards trump all others. Indeed, such is the furore swept up by these awards, that they have been designated a ‘season’. An entire ‘season’ of awards, including, by no means exclusively, the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Critic’s Awards, the National Board of Review, the British Academy Awards and the Guild Awards. There is of course a hierarchy within this vast body of accolades. When was the last time you saw ‘Winner of 2 Guild Awards’ plastered onto the cover of a DVD case?

The Academy Awards, or ‘Oscars’, are simultaneously the most prestigious and most ridiculous of all these jumped-up ‘well-done’ stickers. One only has to glance at the Best Picture award winners and their corresponding failed nominees to glean the feckless arrogance and inadequacy of the Academy. First there are the true travesties, such as the 1998 Best Film title, awarded to Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and Elizabeth to name but one.

Secondly, as an international institution, the Academy’s designation of an award for Foreign Language Films is disgustingly condescending. Nevertheless, it was not until 2008 that, for me, the death knell sounded for the Academy. In an almost self-consciously ironic gesture, the Best Actress Award was given to Kate Winslet for her role in The Reader, a film, put very simply, about the holocaust. This, after Winslet, playing herself in an Episode of Extras, famously satirically stated: ‘I’ve noticed that if you do a film about the holocaust, you’re guaranteed an Oscar’.

Even the most esteemed of awarding bodies are deserving of interrogation, perhaps even more so. Take the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish committee’s heavy bias toward Scandinavian writers, particularly those from their own country smacks of impartiality. Indeed, Sweden alone has six times as many literary laureates as the whole of Asia. Once again, much like the Oscars, the Nobel Prize for Literature has an extremely chequered past, fraught with terrible decisions. There are perhaps too many to name, but one exceptional example should illustrate the level of bias involved. In deciding the recipient for the 1974 prize, the panel rejected in turn, Graham Green, Vladimir Nabokov, and Saul Bellow, in favour of Eyvind Johnson, and Harry Martinson, to whom a joint prize was awarded. This decision seems criminal even before you find out that both Eyvind and Harry were panellists themselves. Yet regardless of bias, the Nobel Prizes attract a huge amount of public interest. Recipients are venerated as demi-gods. Vast amounts of power reside in the hands of a very influential few.

I’m not arguing that awards of this kind have no value. If they can stimulate the public at large to greater artistic consumption and heightened intellectual discourse, then all the better. That said, the power of such bodies is self-evident. More awards almost always equals more esteem and sales. Yet no-one cares to interrogate the flimsy authority upon which these decisions are based. Do you really want to decide which book to spend your time and money on, based on the judgement of Sue Perkins or Michael Portillo?

There is, however, light at the end of the literary tunnel. The book-award market is certainly destined for saturation. When everyone from the Guardian, to Doncaster Council to Blue Peter has their own niche honours to bestow, the situation is surely rapidly approaching farce. One can only hope that such reckless competitiveness will eventually devalue awards to such an extent that they will be no longer viable. Just as an addendum: the fact that there is a set of national awards for Britain’s soaps, and its soaps alone, and that the ceremony is broadcast live in all its incestuous televisual shame, never fails to amuse me.

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