SPOTLIGHT: TRIUMPH OF THE SPECTACLE
The Lux Style Awards 2017 happened last week to much media hype but not exactly much fanfare. They won’t be televised until May 20. Fans did, however, get a chance to vote for, among other things, what they considered to be the best television play of the last year. They didn’t get to vote for any of the fashion categories, or best film. Does this system seem a bit arbitrary? Well, it gets better.
Most of the jury panels themselves have commercial rivalries or partnerships with the people they have to judge. Perhaps the most straightforward example of this is Hassan Sheharyar Yasin, also known as HSY, being both the director of the show and a nominee in the Best Menswear category. The host, Atif Aslam, was both nominee and winner in the Best Male Singer in Film award. Sadaf Kanwal in her victory tweet after winning best model named four brands that did her wardrobe and styling. Meanwhile Saba Qamar, an actress nominated three times, boycotted the entire thing because she felt the nominations had been unfair to her, and many others, in the past.
One thing the LSA 2017 did get right compared to all the previous ones — all of which were directed by Frieha Altaf, and there was unsurprisingly much controversy in the shift from her to HSY, some allegations so far-flung we can’t even print here — was that it started mercifully on time. Well not on time, but with just a two-hour delay compared to the four to six hour one usually, and the event ending exactly at midnight, when a lot of the lavish gowns inside turned back into rag and the Pajeros outside into pumpkins.
LSAs are billed as award shows, but are there any credible awards in Pakistan free of political or commercial biases?
I have nothing against fancy dress parties, but you know you’ve messed it up when you have to tell photographers not just who you’re wearing, but how you’re wearing them. It was a good thing many of the outlandish gowns didn’t have to come on stage to collect trophies, because I don’t think they would have made it up those steps without a wardrobe malfunction.
Even for the well-dressed nominees and winners, the LSAs were all about branding and commercial interests — earrings by Dior, bangles by Kiran Fine Jewellery, dress by Lebanese designer Rania Khem, makeup by Nabila, gown by Nomi Ansari, clown by Ali Xeeshan etc.
The awards really do take a backstage to all the high fashion grandstanding, and when they are finally given out it’s not without a slew of complaints about how the awards are structured. While jurors at the LSA argue that a viewers’ choice award becomes a popularity contest, which might ramp up viewership ratings for the televised event and make organisers happier, it eschews merit; on the other hand, a panel of expert jurors is just as capable of ignoring merit and simply voting along loyalty lines or against competitors.
Which brings us to the main point: are there any credible awards in Pakistan free of political or commercial biases?
Lux is a ‘luxury’ soap brand by Unilever, and its award show started off very much as a television spectacle for the brand, hosted by Lux girl Reema, and involving many other Lux girls such as Aaminah Haq, instead of a merit-based award show. Then there are award shows like the ARY Film Awards. In the 2016 iteration, it lavished 18 awards on ARY’s own production, Yeh Jawani Phir Nahin Aani, while Geo’s Manto only picked up two.