They either performed, or they were treated to performances of their works by others and/or had famous people salute them with tearful speeches of awe and gratitude.
Who won this thing?
The first year, 1978, it was Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein
1979: Aaron Copland, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham and Tennessee Williams
1980: Leonard Bernstein, James Cagney, Agnes de Mille, Lynn Fontanne, and Leontyne Price
1981: Count Basie, Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Jerome Robbins, and Rudolf Serkin
You get the idea. They honored the best. The 80's honorees included Elia Kazan, Lillian Gish, Benny Goodman, Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Arthur Miller, Isaac Stern, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Lerner & Loewe, Ray Charles, Yehudi Menuhin, Sammy Davis Jr., Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert and Mary Martin. Among others.
In the 90's there were still plenty of famous names to honor, including Johnny Carson, Kirk Douglas, Edward Albee, Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, Jack Lemmon, Kander & Ebb, Sean Connery, Victor Borge, Neil Simon, Sidney Poitier, Shirley Temple Black, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Bill Cosby was honored but that honor has been withdrawn.
2000 to 2009 and STILL great names to choose from. It could be the best of any genre of music, but the BEST: Placido Domingo, Chuck Berry, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, James Brown, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, Brian Wilson, George Jones, Grace Bumbry, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Dave Brubeck. There were plenty of movie and TV stars, including James Earl Jones, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Steve Martin, Julie Andrews, Robert De Niro and Elizabeth Taylor. Also Baryshnikov, Mike Nichols and Martin Scorsese. And others.
Now? If Slim Pickens was still alive, he might get one, because it's slim pickings. For several years now, the "Honors" have mostly gone to whoever is trendy, whoever is part of ethnic diversity, and whoever is going to get TV ratings. The President didn't even show up last year. Was it that he didn't want to risk the boos of a liberal audience? Some say it was because Norman Lear (now in his 90's) finally got an award.
Can you even NAME the five winners in that picture? Squint hard. These are five people who contributed something IMPORTANT to America and the world? Something UNIQUE? Material that will, if not live forever, at least live past a few decades? Norman Lear, in the middle, achieved fame through groundbreaking TV shows, most notably "All in the Family." Thats ONE in FIVE. But look at the picture. Happily, there was only ONE white person.
This year? Trump can stay home again. The list is just as ludicrous. One token white, and he got in (Philip Glass) because they needed SOME kind of "classical" composer to honor.
They left out Dick Van Dyke, Betty White and Bob Newhart...but hey, they made sure LL Cool J got in a few years ago. Sorry they made him wait at all.
Just why the Kennedy Honors doesn't seem to honor people who aren't singers or actors, I have no idea. They toss in a conductor or a director now and then. They honored Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams...but they wouldn't think of honoring novelists? Isn't that a form of entertainment? Hey, Herman Wouk is over 100 years old. If it helps, most of his novels were made into MOVIES. Or is it that the TV ratings wouldn't be so good if an old Jew in a wheelchair waved to the camera? So who DID they choose this time around, and how well did they avoid honoring any white male?
You might argue that CHER is a legend of some kind. A gay icon, certainly. She's no Carol Burnett. Her comedy/variety series didn't last too long, and nobody's studying "The Sonny and Cher Show" either. Disco songs with vocoder? The voice that became an almost laughable musical impression for people likening her vibrato to a sink backing up? "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" was catchy.
Reba. Just another country singer, really. She's had a TV show. People like her. Most of the country could care less. You talk about Loretta Lynn or George Jones, and you're talking about pioneers. Reba followed in a lot of footsteps. Wayne Shorter? While we don't necessarily believe awards should go to people that are well known...hardly anyone outside the jazz world could tell you who this guy is. Philip Glass? Same thing. Anyone actually listen to this music? You've heard Glass because Paul Simon used a bit of his instrumental music during a break in the song "The Late Great Johnny Ace." You know who died without getting an award? Neil Hefti. Vic Mizzy. Clark Terry. A whole lot of good guys who played sax, drums, flute, etc. etc. Doc Severinsen is still around and he brought Big Band music to millions who never heard it, and he was a brilliant session man long before Carson.
Last and least, the fabulous cast of "Hamilton," the greatest musical in the history of Broadway. What "Tommy" or "Jesus Christ Superstar" is to rock opera, "Hamilton" is to rap. Why, it's such a gigantic achievement, it's beyond rap. It's a whole new category. President Obama went to see it. It was sold out at astronomical prices. And...best of all...it's reverse racist. No whites in the cast, but the show is all about white people. Like Alexander Hamilton.
We live in an age when Scarlett Johansson is forced to quit a movie because she is NOT transgender. We live in an age where Johnny Depp nearly lost out on playing Tonto until he managed to claim some kind of Native American blood in his drugged up veins. We've seen Charlie Chan movies banned from TV re-runs and Al Jolson ("the Greatest Entertainer" of the 20th Century) reduced to a footnote. But it's ok for people "of color" (as opposed to "colored people") to prance around in 18th century white peoples' clothes and spout rap dialect and nursery-rhyme funk nonsense. It is what it is. And there's a black woman playing Joan of Arc on Broadway, when we all know that there's NO way a white could play Harriet Tubman in a play. NO way. Some guy in England was nearly run into the Thames because he played Michael Jackson on some dumb TV show. "He can't do that, he's not black!" Yeah? He was playing Michael Jackson after all the surgeries and whitening, when Jackson didn't look black, either.
This is a pretty motley bunch for one of the supposedly highest honors one can get...in this country that seems to spend most of its time honoring people (Golden Globes, Emmy, Oscar, Tony, Grammy, People's Choice, blah, blah and blah).
I'd have to agree with The Donald if he Tweeted that he was skipping this thing because it was "FAKE AWARDS."
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