In 41 years of existence, the Razzie Awards have celebrated the worst in cinema with assumed bad taste. There is nevertheless a nomination that the creators of this ceremony like no other regret…
There are the Oscars, the high mass of American cinema. And then there are the Razzies, their schoolboy opposite, who have been celebrating the worst of the Hollywood industry for 41 years. With an assumed bad taste, not always very fine, but often quite pleasing and ultimately unavoidable.
While the 2022 Razzie Awards have just celebrated LeBron James for his role in Space Jam 2, Jared Leto for his performance in House of Gucci or Bruce Willis, who had the “honor” of a category just for him, it is interesting to note that the creators of the ceremony feel regret in more than four decades of celebrating the worst. A regret linked to a great classic.
Maureen Murphy, co-founder of the Razzies with John JB Wilson, regrets today having nominated Shelley Duvall in the Worst Actress category for her role as Wendy Torrance in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. “Knowing what happened, the way Stanley Kubrick destroyed it, I would withdraw this nomination”Murphy told the Vulture site microphone. The very demanding filmmaker had indeed terrorized Duvall on the set of the film, to the point of impacting the mental and physical health of the actress.
For John JB Wilson, however, there is no question of reconsidering Kubrick’s nomination as Worst Director during what was, in 1981, the very first edition of the Razzie Awards. “(…) We didn’t like what he did with Stephen King’s novel. The novel was much more visually stunning, much more terrifying, much more captivating”he declares, seeing in Kubrick a filmmaker “overrated”.
In the end, in the categories concerned, it was Brooke Shields, for her role in The Blue Lagoon, and Robert Geenwald, the director of Xanadu, who were awarded at the 1981 Razzie Awards.
Did you notice the small hidden details of “Shining”?