Grammys and Oscars

I’m not normally a watcher of awards shows.  I’m more of a googler of award show results the next day.  But this year, for some reason, I watched both the Grammys and the Oscars.  They made for some entertainment, some good performances and some bad ones, some triumphs and some falls (literally and figuratively).  But after watching both of these ceremonies in the same year for the first time in a long time, I noticed something very interesting about the attitudes of those presenting and those receiving awards.

It seemed to me that at the Grammys, everybody understood that they got to sing songs for a living.  They were happy that they had a hit that year, and win or lose everybody seemed to be having a good time.  They knew that they had achieved something this year in their art, but they didn’t seem to take themselves too seriously.

Those who won Oscars, on the other hand, genuinely believed that they were changing the world.  While we look at them and see spoiled stars that get to play pretend for a living, they saw themselves as the purist of artists, descending from on high to receive accolades for their multitude of humanitarian accomplishments through the filmed cinema.  So nice of them to grace our television sets for an evening, although it would be so far beneath them to be on a television any other night of the year.  These were not stars, these were artists.  They don’t make movies, they make films.

I haven’t seen Argo yet, but I assume it probably won’t change my life any more than “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” did.  This is entertainment, people.  And while it is art and it’s good to make statements through your art, let us not forget what it is really about.  Those who won Grammys did so because they made music that the people enjoyed.  Those who won Oscars did so because they made movies (oops, I mean films) that nobody watched but the critics enjoyed. 

And while it’s easy to judge everyone but Quvenzhané Wallis, we do the same thing ourselves.  We view our own lives more highly than we ought.  We do this in business, in family life, and in church too.  We get attached to accomplishments, philosophies, ministries, or anything else that we can use to make ourselves feel important.  What our world needs is not a pack of self-important people on mission to change other people’s perspective of us, but rather a humble group who believe that God and His will are more important than anything.  That is what will really change the world.