YOU GET A MEDALLION WITH A RAINBOW RIBBON! YOU GET A MEDALLION WITH A RAINBOW RIBBON! I GET A MEDALLION WITH A RAINBOW RIBBON! The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has announced that its 2010 honorees for lifetime achievement in the performing arts are singer and songwriter Merle Haggard; composer and lyricist Jerry Herman; dancer, choreographer and director Bill T. Jones; songwriter and musician Paul McCartney; and producer, television host and actress Oprah Winfrey.
McCartney was first announced for the honor in 2002, but canceled to attend a family wedding. (Paul Simon replaced him.) In addition, this is the first year since 2006 that none of the honorees are best-known for acting, and I believe you have to go back to 2002 to find a year without a film director being honored.
[Much in our archives about these awards. I'll stick with my 2008 call of Woody Allen, Meryl Streep and James L. Brooks as the most-overdue honorees still outstanding.]
Woody Allen just isn't going to happen.
ReplyDeleteIf Chuck Berry can win, if Pete "I was doing research!" Townshend can win ...
ReplyDeleteAs much as Oprah's done lots of impressive and admirable work in her career, I just don't see how she even remotely qualifies as an honoree in the "performing arts." She's had perhaps a half-dozen acting roles; she's produced some TV, film, and Broadway shows; and she's been a long-running TV talk-show host. Everything else in the Harpo universe -- magazines, book clubs, philanthrophic projects -- is all fine and good but utterly irrelevant to this particular honor. Here's a hint: if your Kennedy Center bio has to resort to touting your voice work in Bee Movie and The Princess and the Frog, you're not really a performer.
ReplyDeleteYes, another talk-show host got the medallion in 1993, but I think we'd all recognize Johnny Carson's decades of hosting the Tonight Show as a brilliant "performance." The only honoree I could find who wasn't first and foremost an arts performer/creator/director was Roger L. Stevens in 1988 -- and he was the founding chairman of both the Kennedy Center and the National Council on the Arts.
Again, nothing against Oprah here. But it sure seems that the Kennedy Center was thinking more about ratings and celebrity than about finding a truly deserving honoree.
I feel that the pecadillos of Berry and Townsend are different from their music, but Allen's weirdness seems to affect perception of his films much more so. Marrying his step-daughter takes away the critical distance that is essential to see his movies as anything other than the neurotic rantings of a disturbed individual but as something funny or enjoyable. Berry and Townsend still rock, however.
ReplyDeleteOK, how does Oprah Winfrey even remotely deserve to be honored for her work in "the performing arts"? She has maybe a half-dozen acting credits; she's produced a few notable films, TV shows, and Broadway shows; and she's hosted a long-running TV talk show. That's it. Everything else Harpo -- magazine, book club, philanthropic work -- is utterly irrelevant for this particular honor. Here's a hint: if your official Kennedy Center Honors bio has to resort to touting your voice work in Bee Movie, you're not really a performer.
ReplyDeleteYes, talk-show host Johnny Carson got medallion'd in 1993, but he really was a performer on The Tonight Show. The only honoree I could find who wasn't first and foremos an arts performer, creator, or director was Roger L. Stevens in 1988 -- and he was the founding chairman of the Kennedy Center itself.
So kudos to Oprah for all she's accomplished in her life, but boo to the Kennedy Center for thinking more about ratings and celebrity than finding a truly deserving honoree.
In addition, she should be nowhere near any sort of honors for her TV work for the many hucksters and scam artists she had on her show, not to mention people touting medical advice that is useless at best and dangerous (if not life-threatening, when you consider anti-vaccine people) at worst.
ReplyDeleteI'll agree with you that the audience she gave to McCarthy and the rest of the anti-vaccine folks was not a plus, but she has also brought some good things--the spotlight on reading (the vast majority of the books she chose for her book club are quality stuff) and the political (though YMMV on that point) have been net plusses.
ReplyDeleteJames L. Brooks created/produced defining television (Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, Lou Grant, The Simpsons), wrote and directed a handful of defining films (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good as It Gets) and mentored the next generation of talent as the producer of Bottle Rocket, Jerry Maguire and pretty much every good character-driven comedy of the 90s and aughts. He's 70. I think he's more important than Jerry Herman.
ReplyDeleteEven if he's lost the ability to provide his films with meaningful titles. And I do hope the new one is good.
ReplyDeleteI can only think of him as James Hell Brooks.
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