Honoring "The Las Culturistas Culture Awards"

Award shows haven't been doing well over the past few years.  Their ratings have been sinking and their cultural cachet has plummeted.  Therefore, it's the perfect time for  a satirical awards show to rear its head.  It's time for the "Las Culturistas Culture Awards 2025," honoring the best of pop culture.

Hosted by the "Las Culturistas" podcast hosts, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, the ceremony runs an efficient ninety minutes, the winners have all been notified in advance, and all the boring parts of the ceremony have been effectively curtailed, leaving all the bits of an award show that the majority of people care about - spotting celebrities, fun musical numbers, well-edited clip packages, and zippy presenter banter.  It helps that Rogers and Yang are comedians, and able to both land a joke and pull off a song-and-dance number with enthusiasm and flair.  Everyone involved is aware that the awards are totally arbitrary, and the point is just to enjoy themselves and the spectacle of it all.  Will the award for "Most Amazing Impact in Film" be awarded to shirtless Jeff Goldblum in the thirty year-old "Jurassic Park" just to get him to come to the ceremony?  Yes it will.  Will the obvious product placement (Dunkin, Volkswagen) and promotional appearances (Jamie Lee Curtis for "Freakier Friday," in theaters August 8th) be delivered with a knowing wink at the audience?  Yes, it will.  

I haven't listened to "Las Culturistas" much beyond clips of a few random interviews, as I figured out quickly that the show is not for me.  It's obsessed with the pop part of pop culture to a degree that I will never be, and is especially focused on all the drama and gossip that I try my best to avoid.  However, I appreciate that it's so unapologetic about serving its audience of women and members of the LGBT community.  The "Culture Awards" came about from a bit on the show, where the hosts would randomly announce nominees for silly categories like "The Creatine Award for Straight Male Excellence" or "Tiny Woman, Huge Impact."  Whoever decided to let them take over the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles and do the same thing with all the pageantry and glitz of a real awards show is a genius.  The best thing about the "Culture Awards" is that it makes no attempt to appeal to everybody, the way too many other awards shows have.  There were a couple of geek-adjacent categories for me, like "Best Batman Woman," where the winner was a fake Riddler henchgirl, but most of the focus was on fashion, music, and lots of celebrities I had never heard of.  And I didn't mind at all, because the show was so entertaining.  

And this is a valuable thing.  The woman-centric parts of pop culture have too often been framed as existing in opposition to the male-centric parts of pop culture, and the played up rivalry is simply tiresome and not necessary.  Aside from a vague mention of terrible things happening in the country right now, the "Culture Awards" sidesteps all politics, and leans into the celebration of all that is fabulous and iconic.  Lisa Rinna is called on to model all the Outfit of the Year categories, and walks away with the trophy (a spray painted West Elm doorstop).  Matt and Bowen dancing to Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra" and substituting the "In Memoriam" montage with an "In Absentia" montage of all the celebrities who passed on participating is fabulous stuff.  The point of view provided by "Las Culturistas" exists in reaction to nothing else except the pop culture that it adores, and the awards show stands on its own without bothering to justify itself or explain itself.  

The "Culture Awards" ceremony aired on Bravo in August, and may be the most interesting thing they've produced in years.  It's currently available on Peacock.    

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