If you, like me, can't remember the last time you watched an awards show, you're not alone. Ratings have been crumbling for years, and now, the chickens have come home to roost. The navel-gazing Progressive Left and Social Justice Warriors stare, open-mouthed, at one another and ask themselves, "Why has this happened?" The answer is as easy to find as it is for them to ignore. The national and international arts crowd is out of touch with not only Middle America, but most of America.
They'll try to blame it on COVID, like they do so many other ills, but this has been happening, slow-motion for years. Elitist actors, directors, producers, recording artists and their hangers on in the media have just become too shrill in their voices, too preachy in their homilies, and too demanding of an audience they may have once owned. Voicing an opinion is one thing. But, in recent years, it's gone far beyond this, with a melding of Progressive Leftist political ideology infecting the arts scene, aided and abetted by the corporate media who is largely sympathetic with the talking points they regurgitate.
Combine this with their "in-your-face" ideal and attempting to pit America against anyone to their political and social right...which easily is a majority of Americans, and you have a perfect storm of irrelevance. Meanwhile, they eat their own with as much gusto, destroying long-known organizations instead of reforming them. That majority, and I'll bet even a good number of the people who actually agree with them, are interested in Robert DeNiro offering repeated epithets about the sitting President when on stage presenting or accepting an award. It showcases the worst in us; a "twitter-like rant, similar to that of a Junior High student while in their cloister of friends. "Bad Girls" is not a good look, and America has rejected it.
It has even leaked into athletics, and America is having little or none of that. Pushing back on major sports leagues and the NCAA morphed into tuning away from ESPN, because of the woke nature of their "reporting." Commentary is commentary, but far less than one-quarter of viewers are interested in the social justice viewpoint of commentators. They are interested on their opinion on whether the loss of the Packers' Offensive Coordinator, QB Coach and Passing Game Coordinators are the first dominoes indicating Aaron Rodgers is retiring. Viewers are interested in how the recent ESPN-Tom Brady retirement story come through the pipeline, and whether what looks like a delay by Brady is simply a ploy to capture a bonus.
Coming full circle, while the Academy Awards had once been used by Americans to create their "to see" list of different, interesting or 'arthouse" films they may never have been interested in, awards season has become a celebration of how far away from the mean a movie can be and still not initiate the gag reflex of the average American, let alone those in the business.
They can't get their prestige back. But it seems the reason is because they don't care to. Their navel gazing is far more important to them than your adulation. It's time for us to make our debit cards vote for our consciences.