There’s virtually no excitement in this virtual awards season and it won’t be easy for awards givers to recover.
What’s missing amid the pandemic is all the glamor that created want-to-see and drove TV ratings. It wasn’t the awards that attracted viewers, it was the red carpet coverage. What viewers cared about wasn’t, “Tell me about your movie.” It was, “Who are you wearing?”
The forced move to virtual shows meant no red carpet gowns + borrowed jewels for +25F viewers to drool over, no nail cams with loaned rings to stare at and no hairstyles to imitate. What we’ve seen on the Golden Globes & Critics Choice virtual shows are familiar faces in unfamiliar at-home settings with low quality webcams and bad audio connections.
It’s no surprise that audience interest in the noms & wins, as seen in the shows’ poor ratings, has been minimal. With theatres mostly shuttered the past year, moviegoing hasn’t been possible. Although some nominated films were streaming, not everyone has access or cared enough to watch them.
None of this augers well for the 93rd Oscars (pictured – Oscar statuette ©AMPAS®) if they, too, wind up having to go virtual 4/25.