THE PRIZE

We do live in a world of awards and their respective ceremonies. As if I am the first to discover this fact; but, of course, I am speaking of myself when I say that often when I fire-up the internet there is someone's mug in photo form accompanied by text which reads something like, "(so-and-so) wins award for (whatever)". Be it music, film, television, or whatever, there is an award to match. In fact, in these cases, those of the arts, there are many, many awards to be doled out. What the criteria is, probably no one knows or even cares; afterall, the prestige of being an award is just as great. There are few films or television programs that truly deserve awards of any kind, including the charity variety. Most television series, certainly the prime-time kind (sitcoms or drama) deserve an award just for getting on the air, period. Obtaining a time slot is award enough. As for most mainstream feature films, the only thing worse than the films themselves are the advertising campaigns designed to push them. As composer Charles Ives once said, "Prizes are the badges of mediocrity".