Have our Award functions become a Joke

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart… As the New Year begins each year, so does the Season of Awards. This year we have already seen 4 major award functions in Bollywood starting with Zee Cine Awards followed by Colors Screen Awards, Filmfare Awards and Stardust Awards. However if one takes a look at the list of winners in 4 major categories (Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress) across these award functions, it does throw some rather interesting and diverse results.

Best Film

Zee Cine Awards didn't feel like taking sides so it gave Barfi the award based on jury decision and Kahaani the award based on viewer's choice (popular). Stardust Awards went a step further when it awarded Vicky Donor the Best Film and Barfi – the 'Film of the Year' (could someone explain the difference please!) Colors Screen Awards was comparatively better as they awarded Paan Singh Tomar the Best Film while Gangs of Wasseypur was given the Ramnath Goenka Award for a film that defies the stereotype. Last but not the least, the oldest film awards Filmfare awarded Barfi the Best Film while the Critics Award for Best Film went to Gangs Of Wasseypur.

Best Director

Again Zee Cine Awards seems confused on whom to give the Best Director Award. So you have both Sujoy Ghosh (Kahaani) and Anurag Basu (Barfi) being awarded the Best Director Award. Stardust Awards again took the cake in this category as well. While it awarded Shoojit Sircar (Vicky Donor) the Best Director award, it also gave Karan Johar (Student of the Year) an award for 'Dream Director' (wonder what that means). Wait…there's more…Kabir Khan won an award for 'Hottest New Filmmaker' for his film Ek Tha Tiger. Hasn't Kabir Khan already made films like Kabul Express and New York prior to this? How does that make him a New Filmmaker? At the Colors Screen Awards, thankfully there was just one winner- Anurag Basu (Barfi) and even at the Filmfare Awards it was Sujoy Ghosh (Kahaani) who won the Best Director award. However, all the award functions also had a category called Best Debut Director and thankfully it was Gauri Shinde (English Vinglish) who uniformly won this award across all the award functions thus far.

Best Actor

Now this category is really special! Needless to say it was Ranbir Kapoor who was expected to win for his stupendous performance in Barfi. While RK did win at all the awards, the award functions kept other actors happy too by creating modified versions of the Best Actor category. Zee Cine Awards gave Best Actor to Ranbir (Barfi) but they also gave Best Actor (Popular Choice) to Salman Khan (Dabangg 2). What's more, Salman was even given an award for Best Use of Digital Media (now what does that mean?). Not wanting to rub SRK the wrong way, Zee Cine Awards presented Shah Rukh Khan with the International Icon award. Colors Screen Awards couldn't really pick a single winner so it gave both Ranbir and Irrfan Khan (Paan Singh Tomar) the Best Actor award. Screen also gave Salman Khan the Popular Choice Award for Best Actor (based on user votes). Filmfare Awards too gave Ranbir the Best Actor award while Irrfan took home the Best Actor (Critics) award. Yet again it was Stardust Awards that really came up with hilarious categories to please all the actors possible. Hold your breath…Best Actor was shared by Ayushmann (Vicky Donor) and Manoj Bajpayee (Gangs of Wasseypur); Best Actor (Editor's Choice) went to Shah Rukh Khan (Jab Tak Hai Jaan); Best Actor (Drama) went to Hrithik Roshan (Agneepath); Best Actor (Comedy / Romance) went to Abhishek Bachchan (Bol Bachchan); Best Actor (Action / Thriller) went to Akshay Kumar (Rowdy Rathore / Khiladi 786). If that wasn't enough, they honoured Shah Rukh Khan with the 'Star of the Year' award and Amitabh Bachchan with the 'Star of the Century' award. Phew!

Best Actress

Yet another category that was keenly looked forward to considering there were 3 strong contenders- Vidya Balan (Kahaani), Priyanka Chopra (Barfi) and Sridevi (English Vinglish). Zee Cine Awards couldn't pick a single winner…so Vidya bagged the Jury's Award for Best Actress while PC won the Popular Choice Award for Best Actress. They couldn't really give Katrina Kaif the Best Actress award so they gave her International Icon award. Colors Screen Awards gave just Vidya Balan the Best Actress award; however they did give Katrina Kaif the Popular Choice award for Best Actress (based on user votes). Filmfare Awards too gave Vidya the Best Actress award and in a rather surprising moment gave Richa Chadda (Gangs of Wasseypur) the Best Actress (Critics) award. Needless to say Stardust Awards took the cake when it came to awarding anyone and everyone possible. So Best Actress went to Farah Khan (Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi); Best Actress (Editor's Choice) went to Kareena Kapoor (Heroine); Best Actress (Drama) went to both Sridevi (English Vinglish) and Priyanka Chopra (Barfi); Best Actress (Comedy / Romance) went to Anushka Sharma (Jab Tak Hai Jaan); Best Actress (Action / Thriller) went to Vidya Balan (Kahaani). Last but not the least there were 2 more random awards given which were 'Star of the Year' to Priyanka Chopra and 'Best Style Icon of the Year' to Bipasha Basu. Sigh!

In far contrast, Bollywood Hungama too had the Surfer's Choice Movie Awards where there was no jury and the results were purely based on votes by the surfers of Bollywood Hungama. Interestingly, it was Barfi which got maximum votes across all the top 4 categories namely Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress at the Bollywood Hungama Surfer's Choice Movie Awards.

Do share your feedback on what you feel about the nature of award functions in Bollywood?

Article written by staff at Bollywood Hungama. Read more