“Thank you! I just want to thank the academy, and all my fans. Without you all I wouldn’t be here today. And my parents, I really wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, mom and dad. Oh, and I can’t forget Whitney, Bobby, Molly, Billy, Fred and Justin! I wouldn’t be standing here if … oh shit, I already said that. This is incredible!”

During most awards shows, the above is a fairly accurate representation of a winner’s acceptance speech. I’m not sure if candidates lost the speeches that they scrawled on a napkin the night before, or if they’re actually all just dolts. Granted, it is thoughtful of them to forward their appreciation of their 18 closest friends to the rest of the world, but really, no one wants to hear it.

The Academy Awards, more popularly known as the Oscars, supposedly recognizes excellence in the film industry. The Grammys do music. Tonys hit up excellence in American theatre. Then there are the novelty shows, like the ESPYs (sports excellence), which are basically just a load of shit. Finally, there are the alternative awards shows, most notably the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) and the MTV Movie Awards. Why is the music television channel advertising crappy movies anyway? The commonality between all of these awards shows is that they are all marketing gimmicks. Some, such as the ESPYs or the MTV Movie Awards, never even attempt to be legitimate awards shows. Rather, their sole purpose is to rake in high ratings. And those illegitimate awards shows will always succeed, because the U.S. population can never resist seeing evidence that the U.S.A. really is the best at everything.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails once described the Grammys selection committee as “out of touch old men jacking each other off.” Even the mother of all U.S. awards shows, the Oscars, is completely corrupt. Instead of celebrating great world cinema of the past year, the selection committee is heavily influenced by lobbyists in big-money studios to hand nominations out to their works. Even when the Oscars dip out of Hollywood, they constantly fail to recognize foreign language films. Fact: no foreign film has ever won ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars, and only seven have been nominated for the distinction throughout history. Any competent film critic could name a dozen European films from every decade that are more deserving than winners such as Around the World in 80 Days (1956) or Shakespeare in Love (1998), two films that were lost in history three months after being honored.

Now that I’ve announced that the U.S.A. is full of self-congratulating, greedy bastards, I’d like to attack the quality of today’s awards shows. Take the VMAs for instance, which broadcasted just last week. It is clear that many awards shows are losing the respect of the very artists that they are trying to honor in the first place. These last VMAs were hosted by British comedian Russell Brand. Who is Russell Brand, you ask? He’s the really obscene rockstar in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. In my opinion, MTV brought in Russell Brand for two reasons. One, they needed someone who would make an asshole out of himself and create controversy — the gasoline to MTV’s motor. To make myself clear, I should mention that MTV had already booked Britney Spears, the queen of commotion at the VMAs (does making out with Madonna ring a bell?). The second reason MTV hired Russell Brand is that they couldn’t find anyone else. After Brand’s imbecilic and offensive program, I doubt that any actor, singer or popular comedian will dare take the stage to host the VMAs again. In his set, Brand’s only strength was his terrible British accent, and his many faults included denouncing chastity rings (because “what’s wrong with sex every once in a while?”). On this last point, even the presenters at the ceremony voiced their disgust: Jordin Sparks told Brand indirectly that it may be that the millions of teenage girls watching the show don’t want to act like sluts. The sad fact is that the VMAs, even if they have a future host who dips lower than Brand, will always hold the attention of a decent-sized audience.

Devoted to America’s growing obsession with celebrity, most U.S. awards shows are a disturbing hybrid of People magazine and tabloids. However, the baffling popularity of these programs only goes to show that the U.S. media is only too happy to define itself through the proliferation of superficial and mainstream trash.