Watching last night’s mockery of an awards ceremony I couldn’t help but wonder who the people voting for the People’s Choice Awards were? What demographic would choose Sandra Bullock as their Favorite Movie Actress and Twilight as their favorite movie? The latter seems like teen girls but does Sandra Bullock have a large fan base of teens that I was unaware of? More thoughts after the jump.
Upon a little digging I was able to uncover several problems with the way winners are chosen for the People’s Choice Awards. This year’s nominees were determined with the help of a 3rd party organization, Visible Measures. The company is a market research group specializing in internet trending and behavior. Immediately, this narrows the amount of data compiled to determine who should be nominated, and in turn who should win. But, honestly, the nominees weren’t even the more egregious part of the ceremony. This year’s show banked entirely on product integration, going so far as to interrupt the cast of Glee’s win with a DiGiorno Pizza Party. Not to be upstaged CVS ran a mini infomercial that actually had other products built into it. By the time host Queen Latifah asked me to donate to Children’s Safe Drinking Water I was pretty certain that it too must be an example of product integration rather than an act of kindness.
The show also provided us with two unnecessary musical numbers and a slew of commercials packaged as world premieres. Mary J. Blige performed “I Am” for what seems like the ten thousandth time. The song is bland and the performance didn’t help. Later in the show Cobra Starship “treated” us to a medley of “Hot Mess” and “Good Girls Go Bad” but, from what I gather, Leighton Meester was unavailable so Nicole Scherzinger filled in for her. I’m not sure if “the people” had been demanding such a team up but it was awful. As for the world premiere commercials, it’s worth noting that the trailers for Clash of the Titans and Robin Hood are both weeks old.
Going back to the winners for a second, they were very suspect. I have no problem with Johnny Depp wining a Lifetime Achievement Award but did he really deserve Favorite Movie Actor for Public Enemies? Then again, look at who he was nominated against… Ryan Reynolds for The Proposal, Hugh Jackman for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Fear not Wolverine fans, I guess there must be some, Jackman won Favorite Action Star. Jim Carey won Favorite Comedian though his only film in 2009 was A Christmas Carol. I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it is that Miley Cyrus won Breakout Female Star given that she’s been around for several years now. Even with all these silly victories, surely The Hangover won for Best Comedy, right? No, that went to The Proposal!
The TV winners weren’t much better. Yes, House won for Best Drama and Hugh Laurie won Best Actor Drama. But, Katharine Heigel won Best Actress Drama in a year where she’s defected from Grey’s Anatomy twice and Glee won Best Comedy though it’s yet to make me laugh once. I was just glad Steve Carell won so I could hear someone funny speak. I was also glad that The Vampire Diaries won Best New TV Drama because any win for The CW is a big win.
Most of the music categories were done off air to save time, which was fine with me because the show was long enough at 2 hours. From what they did show, I’ve concluded that America is indecisive. They gave Carrie Underwood Best Country Artist over Taylor Swift but then Swift won Best Female Artist, presumably a more prestigious award. Mariah Carey won Best R&B Artist and struggled to get up to the stage but thankfully her assistant Nick Cannon was there to help.
All in all the show was a shameful mess that I’d rather forget. I don’t know when MTV’s Award Shows became more legitimate than the People’s Choice Awards but it seemed that way last night. Hopefully CBS learned their lesson and they overhaul the show’s format next year, but my hopes aren’t high.
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