The Mediocrity of the 2021 Awards Season is Worse Than Usual
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
I’m going to keep this short, because we all know this already. Every awards season has its share of mediocrity, whether it’s a bad film with a good original song, an acting vehicle meant to win Meryl Streep her umpteenth award, or some campaign politics that won the academy over. Of course, this pool is bigger than usual in 2021, thanks to the pandemic and the thinly spread pool of films to pick from. Now, what I mean is that these films are mediocre. Again, often times a great performance, or some great production designing (and the like) gets rewarded when they’re attached to not great films. Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones is a great example of this. That’s what is happening a lot already. I’m looking at Jared Leto getting a few nominations for the lukewarmly received The Little Things, or Amy Adams and Glenn Close getting recognized for the awful Hillbilly Elegy. I’m still unsure how to feel about Maria Bakalova, since her performance in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm is fantastic, but, well, a Borat film might be a frontrunner to win in a specific category. It’s all surreal.
I don’t think I need to keep going into my negativities surrounding this, because I think you all get my point already. I do think there is a silver lining here, outside of the obvious ability to celebrate good stuff in films (even the bad ones). Maybe it’s a clear indication about the separate elements of film, for budding cinephiles or those who want to dive deeper into the many categories of awards shows outside of the big five or six. Why is this performance in this film strong enough to surpass the work it came from? Am I loving a well shot film because of how it looks, and what makes it bad if it’s considered so (and can I disagree)? We all knew this year was going to be a bit wonky, but the fact that we can still celebrate film on such a level warms my heart. Of course, awards seasons are only a superficial way of appreciating the medium, but I can’t help but get wrapped up in this nonsense every year (and I know some of you feel the same way).
As stated before, I’ll be trying to cover every single Academy Award nominee, and part of that challenge is trying to predict what will be nominated ahead of time. The Golden Globes and Screen Actor Guild Awards have already announced their nominees, in a one-two punch of reveals this week. This is a partial warning that you will be finding — most likely — a number of shoulder shrugs of reviews for films down the road, but that’s okay. We still have a lot to celebrate with the actual nominees themselves, especially if they are well deserved. Let’s ride this weird train out, because it’s already gotten even more peculiar than the last time I released one of these awards season updates, and I can only guess that things will get stranger.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.