Jan 15, 2015 4 min read

I cringed my way through a few minutes of the Golden Globes Sunday night. I don’t live for “awards season” like it seems the rest of the world does. But it’s fun to see what the women are wearing and what they did with their hair for the night.

But these shows leave me wondering what’s the point of getting dolled up when you then unravel it all in those few seconds at the podium? I’m talking about the stupid chitchat between the stars who present the awards.

The foolish comment Jeremy Renner made about Jennifer Lopez’s breasts is getting a lot of attention. He referenced her “globes,” and got a nervous laugh from the crowd. It was immature and unfunny, but at least it was over quickly. On the cringe scale, a two-second slimy remark isn’t as painful as 30 seconds of fake, forced banter we must endure when presenters try to be cute and funny.

I’m not talking about hosts. Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are funny enough, and that’s mostly because they and their writers had about a year to come up with a script. Why, then, do the producers of these shows think it’s OK to expect movie stars, many of whom met each other for the first time backstage, to be witty and charming without the benefit of professional writers?

It’s not what’s on the teleprompter that’s the problem. It’s what these pretty people try to do to fill the time between when the scripted part ends and where they open the envelope and announce the winner. Really, how hard is it to open an envelope that isn’t even licked shut?

Best I can see, the envelopes have little round wax or golden seals on them. Just pull off the dang seal, people. Why all the debate, on live television, about who will open it and say the name of the winner? Every last one of those women was at the nail salon earlier that day. So, they have long and probably pointy nails. It should be award policy from now on that the one with the manicure opens the envelope.

Instead, we get 15 seconds of celebrities struggling to solve the dilemma of the envelope. This might have been funny during the first televised awards show, say, when Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin famously hijacked the show while holding drinks and cigarettes. By now, though, we’ve all sat through enough of these snooze-fests to know whatever stars will present the award for Best Actress, he and she will walk out looking as perfect as no people in real life ever looked, face the cameras, squint at the teleprompter and start a small squabble about who gets to open the envelope. It’s not fair to the nominees you just named, all of whom are sitting out there, sweating off the secret tape that’s holding up their dresses.

Through my work as a television journalist, I’ve been at many awards programs, and most are rather boring. But the producers of smaller, local awards shows learned something important: Keep the action moving. The people out there in the seats are tired, and they want to know if they won. And those who already lost just want to know when they can go to the bar. At local awards programs, there are single presenters, no forced banter and, amazingly, no drama with the envelopes.

I know because I’ve been a presenter. And each time I stood up there and said, “And the winner is … ” the envelope opened right up. Maybe I didn’t look like a movie star, but at least nobody cringed.