Here we have the "BET Awards 2012", an awards show from over 5 years ago already, in which Black American honored its finest from the world of entertainment, most of all music. Director was once more thhe highly prolific award show director Glenn Weiss and as he has over 10 Emmys already, it should not surprise anybody that this event here received awards recognition too, even if not at the Emmys. Needless to say that one and only nomination came from another award show that focuses almost exclusively on nominating and awarding Black Americans. I personally think it is a travesty, but everybody needs to decide for themselves what they think of the concept of award shows shutting out potential nominees because they do not have the right skin color or ethnicity. Back in 2012, it was especially bad though as they gave their perhaps most prestigious award to Reverend Al Sharpton and again, everybody needs to decide for themselves what they think of that too. I personally think it is quite a scandal. Anyway, as for the basics, the show ran for almost 3 hours and that does not even include commercials, so it was really long. I am usually a big Samuel L. Jackson fan, but I found him relatively bland and uninspiring as a host. As for the nominees and winners, there were many that I must say I don't think I have ever heard of, but then again I am not an expert on Black music to be honest. Still, it's fine to see the likes of Beyoncé and Jay-Z still make an impact after all these years. They certainly are some kind of legend already. Another legend got a big tribute as this show aired a few months after the untimely death of Whitney Houston and their tribute was perhaps the best moment of the night. Shame you had to sit through 2.5 hours of what cannot even be called meciocrity before that with the exception of Frankie Beverly who rocked the house more than most people half his age. These are the only pros I guess. I just cannot take an award show seriously that hands trophies to the likes of Nicki Minaj and basically all the performance were really underwhelming, some clearly mixing up obscenity with creativity (Minaj again) in their desperate attempts to make the headlines through outrageous material as obviously they cannot do so with their skills or talent. Oh yeah and another repetitive cringeworthy moment were all the ways in which they brought in advertizing. They are not handing out envelopes, they are presenting winners on some kind of tablet proudly sponsored by a certain big company. Coca Cola got their name in again too and there were others. Many. I think it's really classless to constantly fill the show with this kind of stuff to be honest as it's not as if they did not show commercials or anything. Here in Germany we would call it a "Dauerwerbesendung". Oh yeah, and another criticism applies once more too that is a common problem with music awards shows these days, namely that the night is filled with stage performances so much that the essential, the awards given out, became basically a sub-plot. And this wasn't even a music awards show by definition. And finally, also especially with Sharpton around, you get all the emphasis on Obama being the Black President and nothing about the (not too many) good things he has done in his (then) first four years. So yeah, the entire event here was a failure. Whitney clearly deserves better than this. Her love is outr love. But no love from me for the BET Awards 2012. Highly not recommended.
1 Review
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
