The instant that Lady Gaga emerged from the fog atop the “Fame Factory” with emerald shoulder pads the size of watermelons, I thought I had made the right decision to watch the Grammys on Sunday night. And after she got thrown into a fiery vat of Fame potion and emerged a glittering disco praying mantis, I knew that I had made the right decision to watch the Grammys.
Tuesday’s Nielsen figures revealed that the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards was the most watched of all its shows since 2004, attracting 25.8 million viewers on Sunday night. According to The New York Times, the Grammy telecast scored higher than the Golden Globes (17 million viewers) and the Emmys (13.5 million), and even beat out NFL Sunday night prime-time football games this season on NBC, and Game Four of the World Series, another Sunday night spectacle . However, The New York Times failed to mention that the Grammys also beat out a “Jersey Shore” rerun. Shoddy reporting, as usual.
While the Grammys are the most successful of the awards shows, the other big ones have also seen an improvement in ratings. Last month, the Golden Globes’ ratings rose in viewership by 14 percent from the 2009 show. The most recent Emmy awards show in August also saw an increase in ratings of 19 percent.
Why is this? It’s not as if the average conscious human being actually wants to see already glorified celebrities get glorified even more, which is what awards shows really are. If you’re a fan of independent music or films, it’s not hard to see why these awards shows would be a nauseating, extravagant paean to mindless pop cultural consumption.
But sometimes I like submitting to mindlessness; it makes me feel more zen. And I can say without shame that there were some moments of the Grammys that were more entertaining than anything since the faraway NBC late-night war of January 2010. Even though I was pretty grossed out with the nude-suit Pink acrobatics, it was mesmerizing in a shrooming-at-Cirque-du-Soleil-in-“Knocked Up” kind of way. And by that, I mean horrifying.
My personal Jesus (and some might say celebrity doppelgänger) Beyonce absolutely killed it with her medley/mash-up of “If I Were A Boy” and Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.” There was the typical Beyonce girl power/amazing voice/slammin’ bod shtick, but what made the performance even greater (if such a thing were possible), was seeing the warmly ecstatic reaction of her husband Jay-Z after she finished. We’ve got to remember that Beyonce is an actress (kind of), so it’s hard to say if she genuinely felt humble, but this single performance followed a dramatic arc like that of any other television show: Sasha Fierce intro, dramatic build-up, slight stumble, Alanis climax, Jay-Z smiles, happy ending. The range of emotions I felt in those few minutes was like watching an episode of Oprah, but way sexier.
I’m not saying that the Grammys were good television in the sense that “Mad Men” or “Dexter” or for that matter “Jersey Shore” are good television. But the entertainment value of the Grammys is superior to that of other awards shows.
Some people like watching them for the beautiful or tacky getups worn by attendees. For some, it’s a genuine competitive interest in the awards themselves and a tangible way of measuring success. And for others, it’s a way to pass a lazy Sunday night and an excuse to drink. How could you not toast to Drake, who has not only miraculously learned to walk since being on “Degrassi,” but also can now kind of rap?
Each award show has a different vibe to it, and for this reason, are watchable for different reasons. At the Golden Globes, actors get drunk and annoying and make terrible speeches about having to pee (I shake my fist at you, James Cameron), and the Emmys are a poor man’s Oscars. The Oscars are the classiest, most traditional event to watch, and for this reason, definitely the most boring. Gravitas shmavitas, I want explosions and drunk celebs!
The Grammys can be a breeding ground for freak shows and ensemble performances geared toward younger audiences. After all, it’s this younger age bracket that’s listening to and illegally downloading the music up for awards, anyway. But I realized as I was watching that were we to put an awards show into a time capsule, the Grammys would be the most accurate pop cultural encompassment of the times we’re living in, and certainly the most entertaining.
If you too reached out to grab the 3D sparkles from the MJ tribute, e-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.