Lux Style Awards has been a prestigious event for over a decade. With its 20th ceremony coming up, it has made a name for itself due to the credibility of its jury. Recently, however, they have come under a lot of fire.
The integrity of the jury is being questioned with accusations of biases after some major snubs. ARY, one of, if not the biggest drama channels of our country, pulled out from the awards due to this same reason.
The issue at hand, however, is how the awards have been completely ignoring content from any channel that isn’t one of the big three i.e. ARY, HUM TV or GEO. While shows like ‘Baaghi’, which aired on Urdu1, have taken home some major awards, we never see any such variety anymore.
Lack of Integrity
This situation should be alarming for LSA. Entire channels and a number of actors are questioning their credibility. Amidst all of this, they are still ignoring other channels and the slew of versatile and amazing content that they provide.
It is clear that the award show only cares about as much clout as it can generate by nominating shows with the highest ratings and biggest names. But that’s what the viewers’ choice awards are for. Those can still cater to all the huge fandoms for actors meanwhile the jury awards need to be more inclusive and with a better representation of our drama industry, which is more than just the big three channels. Especially when the quality of the dramas from other channels is steadily improving and prominent actors are choosing to work there as well.
The responsibility also lies on the other channels to submit their shows for consideration to at least and be in the running. Quality content with big names getting ignored like this cannot keep going for too long.
Some Needed Change
Award shows are all about politics. Whether it’s the Oscars or the Emmys, they all try to be as diplomatic as possible while handing out awards. Studios throw a lot of money into their award campaigns because getting said awards is a huge deal.
Our award shows, albeit way smaller in scale than the ones mentioned above, should still maintain their credibility if they want to be taken seriously by the talent and the viewers. If it really is just a huge marketing scheme to sell their soap then it cannot sustain for long.
Either the LSA gains back the trust of its audience and participants or this will only result in more talent pulling out their content. Some other award shows might also try to swoop in and take their spot.
Credible, authentic awards only inspire the talent to do better while creating content. It gives them something more than ratings or box office to strive for. Better award shows will only benefit everyone involved so let’s hope that these issues are resolved in the near future.
