We Give Awards to Bad People Because They WIN. That’s Life Kids.

By:  H.T., Website:  Rogue Black Nerd

In light of Harvey Weinstein’s recent public revelations of what can only be described as sexual assault to outright rape, the question is raised:  why do we as a society allow certifiably shitty people to maintain being people of stature and prestige in society?  The answer is very simple, but not very politically correct.  See, the only thing worse than everyone getting a trophy is having the best player go home empty handed because he said something offensive or has beliefs that might offend some of the fans, but the guy who did likely nowhere near the same level of work gets rewarded simply because he didn’t piss off the wrong people.  This is the specter that many institutions face when they are pressured to not only not reward individuals who are problematic, but completely defrock them of their awards.

Yes, Floyd Mayweather hits women, R Kelly has sex with underage girls, Michael Vick let his house be used for dog fights; plenty of actors and directors have either in the past or recently been accused of deplorable acts.  However, in seeking justice, I do not believe we can accomplish it by retroactively taking away awards from athletes who accomplish great feats and artists who make great works.  At that point, it is no longer about justice but revenge.

“But if we keep rewarding them, what incentive will bad people have to stop doing bad things?” – A millennial that learned morality from adults during the Bush years

See, what you gotta understand is that if we enacted this sort of moral clause in something like say the Oscars or the NFL, you could quash out all the moral issues as of present standing in one fell swoop.  You’d ALSO cause those entities to start rewarding mediocre athletes and films because the people or people attached didn’t meet a moral barometer by some arbitrary standard.  When it comes to athletes, if we couldn’t give endorsements or even just praise in the media to the ones who deserve it because they said the wrong thing, or did not do the right thing in a situation, the NFL would be ruined in a matter of a season or two.  None of the marquee players on any team would get press coverage, thus the fans would feel like their demands no longer matter, thus causing fans to tune out.  And keep in mind, by the logic of the people pushing this narrative, not only would say a guy like Roethlisberger would go unrewarded, but Dez Bryant who decided to openly oppose kneeling would fall under this too.

With the Oscars and ultimately the Grammys, as I said before, pushing a certain narrative in the end is both counterproductive and in the end can actually keep deserving art from winning on its own merit.  At the same time, it’s safe to say that the Oscars and the Grammys have their own agendas they’re trying to push but what doesn’t help things is when one agenda gets pushed and all it gets is an undeserving “movie wins best picture”.  This is why I stopped being a fan of sites  like Blavity and Son Of Baldwin as it was ineffective millennial prattling about how white culture doesn’t fuck with them but love to talk about how great it is that their favorite artists and movies are getting white recognition.  Intellectual dishonesty at its finest really.  But with the idea that films should lose awards then and now because the director or the producer or even just the writer did or said something problematic is a sign that, at best you have a very naive sense of justice that has far reaching consequences than is within their young scope of life.  At worst, these are social Marxists, people who believe that the system of art that is held above others by way of awards rather than artistic merit is why we allow such lacking pieces of art to be held above truly adventurous films to occur.  The tie to human vice is that art is a reflection of society as are artists.  The belief being that by taking away awards, we set up a deterrent for these actions and that ultimately this will lead to the men in power that commit these offenses speaking out against them, causing society to turn away from these actions.

What these millennials don’t understand is that such an action, IF COMMITTED, wouldn’t look like a revolution against awful acts.  Instead, it would look like one unpopular group got ahold of power and started writing the rules.  And again, this would only lead to the entities that enacted these rules being unpopular with most of society.

“So society’s okay with fucking rapists and murderers getting rewards?  This is why men are so trash.” – a millennial that likely still indulges in trash mens’ company

Yes, men are trash, what of it?  I’m sorry, but this idea that we need to purge society of every human being, especially men, that do bad things isn’t healthy as it just screams cult logic.  You know why the tech field is full of men, and so few women?  It’s not because women are inferior to men, but because it’s a field that can’t rely on fulfilling a quota when It just needs people who can do the goddamn job.  Yes, James Damore was a dick in saying Google preferred women over other groups, but if you read the memo he wrote, the guy clearly was ATTEMPTING to make a point till he got to “genetic differences” keeping women out of tech.  If anything, him being fired made sense as actions like that could open the door for solid lawsuits about discrimination.

“So a guy gets fired for being a sexist but you can’t rationalize taking an award from a rapist?” – someone who probably has the music of a problematic artist on their phone

The difference between firing Damore and still giving an Oscar to say, Woody Allen, is that Damore’s actions were tied to his JOB.  With Allen, his issues were with his family.  If we punished every man who had issues with his family, however bad, society would collapse.  The point I’m trying to make is simply that bad people get the trophies when they don’t cheat because they were better.  Years of movies like the mighty ducks and the like have convinced this generation that just being pure of heart is enough to win the game.  It’s not.  And never will be.  So next time you wonder why that douchebag in your office gets promoted more than you and your friends it’s not because they’re white, or a man, or straight or good looking.  It’s because they recognized the game they’re in and decided to play to win.  

“You know why people don’t like liberals?  Because they lose.  If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?” – Will McAvoy, The Newsroom