THE WASHINGTON POST: Should awards season be cancelled? A quiet debate amid LA fires

Accepting his best actor award from the New York Film Critics Circle for “The Brutalist” Wednesday night, as fires engulfed Los Angeles, Adrien Brody had to pause to fight through tears.

He was standing on a podium in the Asian-fusion restaurant Tao, beneath a statue of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, and said: “I would be remiss not to mention the weight of what’s on all of our minds and in our hearts tonight. It’s been a heavy day for me.” He then apologising for crying, as his co-star Guy Pearce leaned forward to comfort him.

“It’s hard to accept something like this when there’s so much suffering in the world,” Brody continued, commending the bravery of the first responders.

“My heart goes out to all the families and the animals and our colleagues. ... This is our community.”

By that time, two Los Angeles neighbourhoods, Pacific Palisades and Altadena, had been burned to the ground, tens of thousands of people had been evacuated, thousands of families had lost their homes, and the rest of Hollywood had ground to a stop. At least 24 people have been killed. The fires still are far from contained and more hurricane-strength Santa Ana winds are expected this week.

Amid the destruction - and the heartening rescue and volunteer efforts - serious debates have arisen about whether the Hollywood awards season that is in full swing right now ought to continue and in what form.

“ATTENTION!” Jean Smart, the Emmy-winning star of “Hacks” wrote on Instagram. “With ALL due respect during Hollywood’s season of celebration. I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters.”

Many commenters pointed out that awards telecasts earn money through ad revenue, which networks would not collect without a broadcast. Wouldn’t the better move be to turn each of these massive shows into a fundraiser, like the benefit concert being planned at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood on Jan. 30? The landscape is still shifting, but a drastic reimagining is afoot.

Already, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has pushed back its announcement of Oscars nominations for a second time, now to Jan. 23. The voting window has also been delayed twice and is now ending on Jan. 17. Some academy members don’t have computers to vote on, let alone power. During the Sunset Fire in Hollywood, even the Dolby Theatre, home of the Oscars, was temporarily under evacuation orders. Four members of the Academy’s 55-person board of governors and its former CEO have lost their homes, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The Academy has occasionally had delays due to world events, but this one uniquely affects the lives of its members. In 1938, the Oscars delayed its ceremony a week because of a devastating flood in Los Angeles that killed 100 and caused $70 million in damage. The ceremony was also delayed for two days in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and for a day after the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, in addition to a two-month delay in 2021 during the pandemic.

“We are devastated by the impact of the fires and the profound losses experienced by so many in our community,” academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang wrote in a statement. They highlighted the academy’s role as “a unifying force” in the industry, and a need to “stand together in the face of hardship,” but also cited the difficulty of holding such a massive schedule of events when infrastructure and lodging in the city are stretched so thin and needed elsewhere.

The academy also cancelled its big annual nominees luncheon - where the traditional “class photo” is taken - and postponed its Science and Technical Awards, which had been scheduled for Feb. 18, to a later, as-yet-unannounced date. Will the Oscars push back its March 2 ceremony? The steady domino fall of events now makes that a distinct possibility.

It may seem frivolous to even be thinking about awards season at a time like this. Stars of films, and members of their families, have lost their homes and all their possessions. Moreover, many of the behind-the-scenes workers who run those expensive awards ceremonies are homeless and bereft.

Some notable Angelenos, including Jennifer Garner, the artist ambassador for Save the Children, have thrown themselves into volunteer efforts, even as the actress revealed she lost a friend who did not get out in time and was feeling “guilty” walking through her own home when she could name 100 families off the top of her head who were now displaced.

“It is hard to imagine that anyone could think about awards season right now,” Sarah Staudinger, co-founder and CEO of the chic Los Angeles-based fashion brand Staud, told The Washington Post.

“Whether or not you have been directly impacted by these fires, our city is in a complete state of emergency and that impacts all of us,” she continued. “I think all energy should be focused on putting these fires out and helping the 150,000-plus displaced people, animals and children get the support and resources they need.”

Staudinger, who’s married to Ari Emanuel, CEO of the talent agency Endeavor, is currently in crisis mode. Her mother’s house burned down in the Palisades, along with the homes of many family members and friends, according to Courtney Wittich, a representative for Staud.

The company was donating to an evolving list of organizations, starting with the LAFD Emergency Fund, Pasadena Humane Society and Feed the Streets LA. Staffers are working from home and, “as a company who loves pets,” Wittich said, Staud would be working with animal relief groups to donate proceeds of specific products to specific sites. They were also partnering with stylists Chris Horan and Lindsey Hartman to organise clothing drives.

Cancelling awards season would match the sombre tone of what Los Angeles is enduring, but can that town endure another blow to its economy, after covid and after the historic actors and writers strikes?

“I keep saying, it’s a gig economy,” says Marc Malkin, senior editor of culture and events at Variety. “It’s not people who are full-time staffers somewhere. It’s really just a freelance basis. And if the jobs are not there, the jobs are just not there.”

Take away the awards shows and you’re putting makeup artists, valets, drivers, hairstylists, production assistants, lighting crews, couriers and security guards out of work. Will hotels be filled, without the infusion of Oscars business, once displaced Angelenos move on? What about restaurants? How will tipped worker whose entire year is hinging on the busiest two months of the year make do? And, then, what if those workers have also lost everything in the fires? Every premiere cancellation, every awards show delay, comes with a cost.

Small movies rely on awards recognition to find audiences, without which they can’t make back their budgets. Demi Moore giving a killer speech at the Golden Globes spikes interest in “The Substance,” the challenging body horror film for which she was being honoured - its production company is rereleasing it in theaters on Jan. 17. Without awards shows, that bump never happens, and it becomes harder to justify the cost of making small movies in the future.

While not on the same awards circuit, the 67th Grammys, too, are affected. In an email sent to Recording Academy members Monday morning and obtained by The Post, leaders reiterated that the ceremony would continue as scheduled on Feb. 2 at the Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles. This city is our home and we mourn the loss of life and destruction that have come to it in recent days,” wrote Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy and MusiCares, and Tammy Hurt, chair of the board of trustees.

They’d launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort last week, giving an initial donation of $1 million to support members of the music industry, and had already distributed $2 million of emergency relief, with the help of additional contributions.

“This year’s show, however, will carry a renewed sense of purpose: raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts and honouring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect ours,” Mason and Hurt continued.

Meanwhile, the Sundance Film Festival, an annual industry event that draws many Angelenos during the third week of January, is also continuing unabated in Park City, Utah. The festival is starting three days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and festival organisers said they wanted to fulfill their mission of uplifting artists, amid the festival’s 41-year history of intersecting with harrowing national events. “We know that coming together as a community can be both healing and catalytic,” organisers wrote in a statement.

The effects are being felt on the East Coast, too. The NYFCC had carried on because its winners and presenters happened to be in New York already, and its ceremony is known to be small and intimate, with long, thoughtful speeches. But Thursday, the New York premiere of Cameron Diaz’s return to movies, the spy comedy “Back in Action” with Jamie Foxx, was cancelled, despite being 3,000 miles from the fires. No one wants to see stars celebrating on a red carpet right now, and no star wants to be that person celebrating.

Hollywood knows how to pivot. It did so after the 9/11 attacks, and during the covid pandemic and the strikes. Bette Davis, president of the Academy during World War II, tried to turn the Oscars into a Red Cross fundraiser, proposing moving the awards from a banquet hall to an auditorium and allowing the public to buy tickets. The plan was rejected, but the awards became more austere. An informal dinner. Men in suits or military dress, if enlisted. Women in sensible dress with the finery left at home. No dancing. A 1944 ceremony that was attended by uniformed men and women and transmitted by radio to United Nations troops. Even the Oscars themselves were reimagined: plaster painted gold, due to the metal shortages.

“Hollywood is going to bounce back emotionally - maybe that’s a strong word,” says Malkin, who was a gossip reporter in New York after 9/11 and wondered whether his career was over, and a red carpet reporter during covid when the pandemic benched him and his colleagues for a year.

“But, economically, this town is going to hurt,” he continued. “I am talking about the person who is relying on that premiere that was going to happen for that check to feed their kid. If they don’t have that job, they just don’t have it.”

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