The Chutzpah Awards

“And the award for the best supporting actress goes to…….”. As the show host glibly intoned these words, I suppressed a yawn. I was watching the Golden Globe awards ceremony, but NOT finding it terribly exciting. After all, there is a plethora of awards, the Oscars, the Tony’s the SAG’s, not to mention the Grammys and the Emmys, etc, etc. These shows are getting pretty routine. They show the same people over and over. You get to see a few pretty or handsome faces, plus a few good looking outfits, but that’s all. No drama, no humor, no excitement.

You know, for a democratic country, we have too much hero worship. You would think, from the way we laud or worship celebrities, that we were a feudal society, worshipping the chief of the clan or village. Many of these celebrities, while excelling in their field, are highly imbalanced personalities, often exhibiting anti-social or self destructive behavior. This is obvious from the number of celebrities that are in rehab or drug clinics. So they are not really deserving of adulation. In any case an obsession with excellence or fame is unhealthy; it divorces us from day to day life and from the appreciation of common pleasures.

So I got to thinking, (yes, I do that sometimes), should we not have awards for the worst performances in everything? After all, mediocrity is much more prevalent than excellence, and in a democratic sense, why should only the outperformers have all the fun; the underperformers should also have their day in the sun. That would be a celebration of real life, rather than of some unreachable ideal. In my opinion, the “worstest” (is there such a word?) performers in every field are just as unique as the “bestest”. Besides, this type of award would be much more enjoyable. In the American Idol, for example, the initial selection process, featuring the worst singers is much more fun than the later rounds. Celebrating the buffoons is better than worshipping the “Idols”.

For starters, I would like to see a “Chutzpah” award. Derived from the Yiddish language, Chutzpah is a word that means effrontery, impudence, and unmitigated gall. The classic definition (by Leo Rosten) is: "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." Between our politicians and Wall Street big wigs, we can easily find many, many deserving candidates for these awards.

How about the admirable chutzpah of a State Governor who attempts to sell a vacant Senate seat for cash? When exposed, he brazenly proclaims his innocence and mounts a media blitz, giving interviews to all the news channels. He would easily get my nomination.

A worthy competitor would be another State Governor, who arranged trysts with a 5 star call girl in Washington D.C. This was a man known for his probity, had been prosecuting several financial firms for their misdemeanors. He had probably not heard the saying that people who live in glass houses must not throw stones, and he must have made several enemies in his earlier days.

Still another would be a former President, whose shenanigans in the White House oral office (oops, I meant Oval Office) almost led to his impeachment, but who somehow escaped.

Let us not forget the Wall Street executive who lost $15 billion for his company and then asked for a 30 million dollar bonus, claiming that, if not for his efforts, the loss would have been much greater. He then proceeded to spend over a million dollars to redecorate his office. We could also commemorate the Fortune 500 bank that accepted a government bailout and then tried to send hundreds of it’s’ employees on a two week junket to Las Vegas, until public outrage forced it to cancel its’ plans.

Anyway, you get the picture; there is no shortage of “deserving” candidates for the Chutzpah awards. However, it is quite possible, or even likely, that these distinguished persons may not find time, or be too “modest” to attend the award ceremony. No problem, there are plenty of skilled impersonators who could be hired to walk up to the stage on their behalf.

What would the award trophy look like? Possibly two fists joined together, one with thumb down (for stupidity) and one with thumb up (for boldness).

After Chutzpah, we could have awards for “Foot in the mouth”, “Hall of Hubris” “Misquoter of the Year” and similar gaffes by public figures. The best thing is that these awards would do wonders for our self esteem; there is nothing that boosts our self worth more than seeing the stupidity of the famous. In any case, it is about time human failings like stupidity, greed and Chutzpah got the recognition and respect they deserve.