The term award has held a positive connotation for quite some time now. We end up rewarded when we do good things, when we improve, and when were generally make lives better for others and ourselves.
However, there are some awards that exist to do the opposite, to draw attention to the worst rather than the best . That’s exactly what The Razzies do. Though, after some recent news, they have to pull back on some recent mocking they did.
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While most actors vie for an Oscar, some end up with a Razzie.
The Razzies, or The Golden Raspberry Awards, celebrate the absolute “worst in cinematic underachievement”. That’s right, they get handed out to the worst of the worst, and it’s often big names receiving them.
Names like Bruce Willis, who received somewhat of a special treatment at this year’s Razzies.
The show made a whole new category just for him titled “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie,” highlighting the fact that he starred in eight films last year. The winner, by the way, was his performance in Cosmic Sin.
This rib came at a not-great time, though, as days later, Willis’ family shared that Bruce had been diagnosed with aphasia.
The show’s co-founders, John Wilson and Mo Murphy, faced quite a bit of scrutiny in the wake of this. They originally expressed sadness towards the diagnosis, but didn’t seek to change anything, stoking the fires by tweeting, “Perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021.”
Of course, that sparked even more backlash.
The duo decided to backpedal and rescind the award, releasing a new statement that reads, “After much thought and consideration, the Razzies have made the decision to rescind the Razzie Award given to Bruce Willis, due to his recently disclosed diagnosis.”
In it, they also say that “if someone’s medical condition is a factor in their decision making and/or their performance, it is not appropriate to give them a Razzie.”
Alongside Willis, they rescinded another Razzie nomination for the same reason.
They took away Shelley Duvall’s nomination for the 1980 film The Shining , citing the well-known terrible treatment that Stanley Kubrick forced her to endure during the shooting of the movie.
It’s true that the Razzies are meant to be far more lighthearted than the award which it parodies, so it makes sense that they’d want to roll back some awards and nominations that look an awful lot like ableist bullying rather than a fun riff on an actor.
h/t: ScreenRant
