Rotten fruit: why it's time to give up on the Razzies

As someone who has sat confused, bored, restless, annoyed, depressed and entirely unaroused during two Fifty Shades movies, I can assure you that the only thing preventing me from falling into deep stage four REM sleep was Dakota Johnson.

Carelessly chucked a character who can be best described as “woman”, Johnson managed to somehow involve us in her journey from broke submissive sex slave to considerably less broke yet only slightly less submissive sex slave against all the odds. She was charming, vulnerable, funny, engaging and did something only the finest actors can do: she dug deep and found the good in the god-awful. Even Meryl would have struggled to do the same.

So this week, for her not-to-be-underestimated diligence in Fifty Shades Darker, she was rewarded with a worst actress nomination at the Razzies, just two years after winning the same award for her role in Fifty Shades of Grey (that year also saw her win worst screen combo with Jamie Dornan).

Look, I get it, it’s easy to take a dump all over the Fifty Shades franchise for its regressive sexual politics and unforgivably dull sex scenes but criticizing Johnson for her work is lazily inaccurate. On a similarly dim-witted note, this year’s set of nominees also included Jennifer Lawrence, up for worst actress for her hugely impressive work in Darren Aronofksy’s divisive, self-indulgent black comedy Mother! I didn’t care for the film but there’s no doubt that Lawrence gave it her all, carefully keeping us compelled to follow her even while everything around her descended into first-year film student chaos.

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Both nominations have ruffled Film Twitter feathers and have resurfaced a question that many of us have been asking for years: what exactly is the point of the Razzies?

The annual ceremony, deliberately scheduled near the Oscars, is designed to celebrate the very worst that Hollywood has to offer but for many years now, it’s felt more vendetta-led, focusing on easy targets regardless of their suitability. Did Susan Sarandon really deserve her two best supporting actress nominations for solid comic roles in Tammy and Bad Moms Christmas? Did Katherine Heigl truly earn her fourth nomination this year for her fun, vampy turn in Unforgettable? Why on earth did Halle Berry get nominated for her commandingly energetic work in well-received B-movie The Call other than the fact that she’s Halle Berry?

It’s not just the repetitive need to continue using certain actors as punching bags that’s grown tiring. It’s the need to blanket nominate every element of a film without rewarding those who manage to salvage something decent from a dud, an aforementioned skill that’s difficult to perfect. Sure Zoolander 2 was bad but giving Kristen Wiig a worst supporting actress award for her incredibly funny, scene-stealing turn makes no sense. Neither does nominating Charlize Theron for trying her very, very best with Seth MacFarlane’s misfiring comedy western A Million Ways to Die in the West.

While the very idea of hosting a ceremony to celebrate awfulness might have seemed gloriously punk rock 10 or 20 years ago, this rebellious edge has turned smooth over time. The downfall started when Halle Berry was smart enough to pick up her worst actress award in person for her role in Catwoman. Her willingness to face her critics head-on, followed five years later by Sandra Bullock doing the exact same thing, suddenly made it all seem a bit less counterculture. Where’s the fun in ridiculing stars that not only accept the ridicule but end up stealing the show?

The very idea of what constitutes a bad movie has also shifted since the Razzies started out in 1981. At the very first ceremony, Stanley Kubrick was nominated for worst director for The Shining, a film commonly considered one of the most effective horror films of all time. It wasn’t the only misjudgment made throughout the years, with Ennio Morricone’s faultless score for The Thing and 1999’s divisive yet undeniably scary game-changer The Blair Witch Project also picking up nods.

Even some of the bad films that have deservedly been heralded as such by the Razzies have gone on to have longer lives than many of the “great” films of those years. Showgirls won seven awards and has spawned an industry of sorts with merchandise, midnight screenings, an unofficial sequel, a special edition Blu-ray and even a stage show. Can the same passionate fervency be found for many best picture winners? Can anyone even really remember A Beautiful Mind?

The re-appreciation of films that were once deemed unworthy of such is another sign that the once-edgy awards have become redundant. We’re all in on the joke now, including the stars up for the awards, and even the Academy themselves. This year’s Oscar nominations include a best adapted screenplay nod for The Disaster Artist, a film about the making of a film so bad it would have swept the Razzies if anyone had seen it.

We’re also in a space surrounded by instant, smarter ways of taking apart bad movies. With the immediacy of post-screening Twitter reactions, the worst films have already been memed to death long before the nominees are even announced. The Snowman was unarguably 2017’s most staggering work of incompetence yet received zero nominations (we gave you all the clues) and while everyone is busy thinkpiecing about the many problems with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the Razzies are busy nominating Baywatch, a film that everyone has already forgotten about watching on a flight that time.

Dakota Johnson will continue to make great movies (she’s already been wonderful in A Bigger Splash and How to Be Single) but one of her greatest achievements will be rolling up her sleeves and getting on her hands and knees to polish the turd that is the Fifty Shades saga. The Razzies might have failed to notice this but with each year, the industry is also failing to notice the Razzies.