Like millions of other people across Britain, this evening I put the kettle on and watched the Brit awards – the largest music awards show in the United Kingdom. After watching many talented artists perform and receive awards, we arrive at the ‘Brit Award for International Male Solo’ where, like every award before, we see each of the nominees, followed by a couple of seconds of suspense, and finally the winner is revealed. Normally there are gaps between categories but for some reason, all of this is abandoned and the presenter hurriedly mentions that Beyonce is the winner of the ‘Brit Award for International Female’. Without showing or even having a reference to any of the nominees.
Now, this is firstly problematic because the male category has been given all of this time, suspense and has been built up whilst the female category is not given time or any attention. Are female musicians not important enough to be shown? Is it that the males deserve the spotlight? Because there evidently wasn’t a shortage of time; the nominees for the ‘Best British Video’ were shown many times over the night. Not to mention the fact that many of the performers were given an excess of time and also that the show finished at 7 minutes to 10, 7 minutes which were filled with both highlights with the sound of a performance from earlier in the night and adverts. Surely if they have time to show things the audience have already seen, there is enough time to show something the audience wasn’t shown – the nominees?
Each of the nominees in the category were very talented and had worked extremely hard to be nominated for the award, so it doesn’t really seem fair that their achievement of being nominated for such a valued award can’t even be acknowledged at the ceremony, especially when their male counterparts were celebrated for the same achievement.
So Brit awards, because you seem so interested in shouting awful people out, (note the performance and replay of said performance over the night of ‘Shoutout to my ex’ by Little Mix) here is your shout out – for being sexist and blatantly disrespectful to such talented artists. If you are going to invite people to an event, make sure to recognize their existence at said event.
And to Beyonce, Rihanna, Sia, Solange and Christine and the Queens – keep slaying and fighting. You deserved so much more.
