On the irrelevance of awards

Forrest Gump (1994) is about a somewhat idiotic guy, but he fools the viewer into thinking he's completely clueless. In Erich Roth's magical script, any idea conceived by the protagonist's dreamy mind works, and anyone is capable of being astonished by such a curious creature. At a certain point in the story, he decides to run away without direction; he spends "three years, two months, fourteen days and sixteen hours" doing just that: running. And what do the curious journalists and the bewildered devotees do? They chase after him.

That same year, an original and intriguing film was released, full of bizarre situations and disjointed stories. Pulp Fiction competed with Forrest Gump in the "Best Picture" category at the 1995 Oscars. Who do you think took home the little statuette?

Regarding the irrelevance of the Oscars, this is what the people from the "Qualquer Cinema" segment, which used to air on Revista 100,9 on Cultura FM radio, said: "Protruding breasts, full lips, Armani suits, and free-flowing booze. Despite the smell of manipulation hanging in the air, the Hollywood machine and its complex of bribed journalists, critics, and editors gorge themselves at the big ceremonies. (Off-screen: they drink excessively, have sex without the slightest criteria or discernment; in other words, they're all there scantily clad, drunk, with slow reflexes, nobody taking anything seriously). The paparazzi fodder that fuels a multi-billion dollar entertainment complex is nothing more than a mere resource for easy profit. The multimillion-dollar investment in publicity and the hunches of producers seduced by the Oscars seem to work. Titanic (1997) and The Return of the King (2003), both with advertising injections greater than the GDP of some countries, won eleven statuettes." Each one. Discussing the artistic and authorial merit of each of these bombs is irrelevant, but Avatar (2009), for example, proved that every penny invested to satisfy the Academy's desires has a guaranteed effect.

Beyond the Oscar laureates, many people raise their little figurine as if it were a big deal, cry, and brandish their Palme d'Or, Bear, Lion, Kikito, or Candango as if they were less mortal than others. Given the level of awards we've reached, receiving certain honors can even be a source of embarrassment. If even the Nobel Prize is sometimes unfair – Jorge Luis Borges never received it, Philip Roth is still waiting for his – what to say about certain awards concocted by certain media outlets? According to Multishow, for example, the band Restart was responsible for the "best album of the year." One of the beauties of democracy is the plurality of opinions, so I insist on expressing mine: this television channel spat in the face of Brazilian society and mocked with refined vileness the poor musicians who spend hours toiling at their instruments or composing minimally intelligent phrases.

Of course, awards can occasionally be well-deserved, but in the end, history shows who "left their fingerprint on the world" (an expression coined by Raul Seixas referring to figures like Nero, Schopenhauer, Caligula, and Jesus Christ). Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) won a meager Oscar for special effects, but that doesn't stop it from taking the viewer beyond infinity, past Jupiter's last moon. The reasons why Tata Amaral's film Hoje (2011) was chosen as the winner of the Brasília Film Festival are also unfathomable. Amidst so much subjective evaluation, it's worth remembering the truism that if an idiot runs away, you don't necessarily have to go with him.