And the Geezer is …

Once upon a time, in a much better world where Bluetooth was something you got from chewing Thrills, “the gum that tastes like soap,” and streaming was what happened when the teacher didn’t notice your hand signalling time for a bathroom break, award shows were a highlight of the year.

The Oscars were sacred, the Emmys were regal and the Golden Globes were drunk and unpredictable, like your favourite aunt at Thanksgiving. Or Jack Nicholson making that face from The Shining in the front row, year after year after year.

Watching them was easy: you knew the names, you’d seen at least some of the movies and you didn’t need cannabis gummies to understand the speeches.

Marlon Brando was going to send out pretendian Sasheen Little Feather in his stead and a streaker was going to give David Niven a chance to comment drolly on his “shortcomings.” Gwyneth Paltrow was going to have a tear-filled acceptance speech, dripping with sincerity. Will Smith was going to slap someone.

But then … gradually, almost imperceptibly ... you aged out.

Sitting down now to watch an award show like last night’s Emmys feels less like entertainment and more like a bizarre anthropological expedition into a land where everyone is famous for reasons you don’t understand and shows exist only in the quantum realm of streaming platforms you’ve never heard of.

You catch yourself saying things like, “Is that the same ample bosom with the beads of sweat that we saw before?”, “When is Lionel Hampton going to play the vibraphone?”, and “Why are they giving an Emmy to a Tic Tac?”

This is the curse of growing older: award shows become less of a celebration of shared cultural moments and more of a televised reminder that you are now deeply, profoundly out of touch.

(On the plus side, you can take some comfort in feeling very little pressure to flounce about in a giant tea cosy or to join the like-minded hordes desperate to express their individuality by getting a tattoo.)

Stranger Danger: The Winners

Remember when you could name every Best Actor nominee? Now you’re lucky if you recognize even one, and even then it’s only because they were in something you saw 12 years ago and thought had already been cancelled.

I got excited last night when Ray Romano and Robert Barone, TV brothers on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, were reunited to announce an award for Who Really Gives a Toss? Barone joked that the next time we’ll see him at the Emmys is likely to be during the In Memoriam segment, truly now my favourite part, and Romano assured him that he’d likely make the cut … if it’s a slow year. To me, that was funny. TV gold.

Now the nominees are mostly 23-year-olds with jawlines sharp enough to slice bread and names with letters rearranged from IKEA products. They all starred in shows you didn’t see because you’re still on cable and are pretty sure must have been made up anyway:

• “Bright Orange Plastic Molded Chairs” on Splotch+

• “Curious Passersby Gawk Into the Camera” on GooGooTV

• “Ezra Dances With Ghosts (Season 5: Rebirth)” on Crave or Covet whatever HBO is calling itself this year

  
  

Who are these people? What are these shows? And why is everyone thanking their “content strategist”?

The New Categories: Madness, Chaos, and Why Are We Rewarding Zoom?

Award shows used to have 24 awards, tops. Now, they hand out trophies for categories like:

• Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Docu-Series About Obsolete Technology, Sponsored by RadioShack

• Outstanding Achievement in Background Vaping

• Best Ensemble Performance in a Show With Fewer Than 200 Instagram Followers

• Most Emotionally Impactful Scene Featuring a CGI Dog

I don’t care what they say. “Best Performance in a Short-Form Interactive Narrative Experience” is not a TV show. It’s an escape room. For the viewer.

If your halfwit nephew uploads a video of himself scratching swollen lymph nodes while eating a mango and it goes viral on TikTok, he might be eligible for a Daytime Emmy now. We’re two years away from Best Performance in a Metaverse Sitcom Rendered Entirely in Microsoft Excel.

The Speeches: Who Are You People and Why Are You Crying (unless one of you is secretly Gwyneth Paltrow, a great entertainer, a great humanitarian and my dearest, dearest friend for 20 years)?

In the Golden Age of Ted Baxter and Hot Lips Houlihan, award speeches were reasonably concise, dignified — occasionally weepy and/or slurred. Jacqueline Bisset’s squiffy ramble at the 2014 Golden Globes was excruciatingly, gloriously cringeworthy. Encore! Encore!

Last night’s speeches included 11 thank-yous to personal stylists, three to “my Twitch community,” and one tearful dedication to the person’s former YouTube algorithm coach. You don’t even know who they’re thanking because half the names sound like gamer tags.

“This is for you, @Crumbly_Bear_XOXO! We made it!”

You sit there, clutching a lukewarm tea and adjusting your compression socks, wondering when Morgan Freeman is going to appear and restore order. Maybe Hugh Jackman will come out and say “fair dinkum” or something with an indecipherable array of diphthongs while working up a little dance number from The Music Man.

But no.

The End: Acceptance, or Strategic Napping

You’ve Googled. You’ve gone to the bathroom. Twice. You’ve even attempted to watch the shows. But after fifteen minutes of Much of a Muchness, you accidentally took a nap that lasted until spring.

The sad and inescapable truth is that growing older means gradually surrendering your once-iron grip on pop culture. It means accepting that award shows are no longer made for you — they’re made for Gen Z, Gen Alpha and suborned and superficial shills, I mean influencers, named Brie and Bryce and Rumble Honey who do makeup tutorials and star in prestige dramas like Crazy Ex-Sacroiliac Distress.

Every time I watch a show where rich celebrities applaud rich celebrities for doing what rich celebrities do to become rich celebrities, a classic Sunset Boulevard declaration uttered by fading silent film star Norma Desmond (in a brilliantly over-the-top performance by Gloria Swanson) comes to mind: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Norma was one banana short of a fruit salad, but how prophetic she was.

And yet.

If you’re someone who, like Chauncey Gardiner, just likes to watch, then steal a march on senility. Don’t worry about understanding what’s happening. Just clap when someone cries, laugh when someone trips and cheer if a name sounds even vaguely familiar.

And remember: If Judi Dench wins anything, that’s still your team. Maggie Smith was in last night’s In Memoriam bit, so you can give up trying to spot her in the back row, where the cast from Corner Gas has been waiting to be called to the stage since you could still remember who Stockwell Day was. (And no, that wasn’t him with the TV antennae coming out of his head in My Favorite Martian.)

Even if you found last night’s show disheartening, take heart (while it’s still beating). The 83rd Golden Globes are scheduled for Jan. 11. Keep your fingers crossed for your own category to come up: Best Performance by a Viewer Yelling “Who the Hell is That?!” at the Screen.

You’re long overdue.

All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my fadeout.

Now what time is Matlock on?