Golden Raspberry Awards

The Golden Raspberry Awards or Razzies were created by John Wilson in 1980, intended to complement the Academy Awards by dishonoring the worst acting, screenwriting, songwriting, directing, and films that the film industry had to offer. Current awards are voted upon by the membership of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation (GRAF). Traditionally, nominations are announced one day before the Motion Picture Academy announces its Oscar nominations, and the awards are presented one day before the Oscar ceremony.

The term "raspberry" is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry."

Notable inductees
Many quite distinguished actors, directors and producers have received the recognition of a Golden Raspberry. However, due to the nature of the award, it is typically not picked up by its recipients. In fact, this has only happened a handful of times in the history of the awards:


 * 1988: Bill Cosby "won" three Razzie Awards for Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Screenplay for Leonard Part 6, a botched spoof of spy flicks that Cosby himself had condemned on several talk shows. Cosby became the first person to personally accept his Razzies, which he did a few weeks after the actual ceremony on Fox's The Late Show. He did request, though, that his trophies be a "deluxe" version of the usual Razzies. They were made out of 24-carat gold and Italian marble, at a cost of $27,000 - paid by the network. (The regular award consists of a fake raspberry atop a Super 8 film reel that's been spray-painted gold. The Golden Raspberry Awards Foundation estimates its value to be $4.97.)


 * 1996: Paul Verhoeven was the first person to accept a Razzie in person at the awards ceremony when he accepted Worst Director for Showgirls.


 * 1998: Screenwriter Brian Helgeland became the first person to win a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year - in fact, on the same weekend. His Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award was for L.A. Confidential, and it came the day after he "won" the Razzie for Worst Screenplay for Kevin Costner's The Postman. While Helgeland did not attend the Razzie ceremony, he did express a wish to get his dishonor and display it next to his Oscar to remind him of "the Quixotic nature" of Hollywood. Soon after, he was indeed officially presented his Razzie at his offices on the Warner Bros. lot.


 * 2002: Tom Green accepted all five of his Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture, for Freddy Got Fingered. He declared "I want to say I didn't deserve this... dear god, I want to say that."  He turned up in a white Cadillac, bringing his own length of cheap red carpet.  Green's speech included a never-ending piece of music played on the harmonica, for which he eventually had to be dragged off stage by the organizers.


 * 2004: Ben Affleck, after winning Worst Actor for his work in Gigli, Daredevil and Paycheck, asked why he did not get his trophy. He was presented the Razzie live on Larry King Live a week later, which he promptly broke. The broken Razzie sold on eBay for enough money to cover the hall rental for the next year's ceremonies.


 * 2005: Halle Berry surprised Hollywood by giving a mock breathless acceptance speech at the Razzie ceremony, clutching her Oscar in one hand and her Razzie in the other. Berry had won the award for worst actress for her performance in Catwoman, which also won in three other categories. Shortly after this incident, John Wilson released a statement to the press praising Halle Berry's other performances and stating that he looks forward to Berry giving other Oscar-worthy performances.

The only two actors to be nominated for an Oscar and Razzie for the same performance are James Coco for Only When I Laugh in 1982 and Amy Irving for Yentl in 1984. Neither won either award.

The only actors to have won both a Razzie and an Oscar for acting are Faye Dunaway, Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, Roberto Benigni, Halle Berry, and Liza Minnelli. Sofia Coppola, Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, and Prince are also Oscar winners, but for non-acting awards.

Types of Awards
Over the years the Golden Raspberry Awards have had three different awards.

Razzie Award
The most famous award. It usually takes the form of a raspberry on a plastic base and is spray painted gold. It was first awarded in 1981.

Worst Career Achievement Award
This award was only awarded from 1982 to 1987.

Governor's Award
This is a special award given by Razzie Award governor John Wilson to an individual whose achievements are not covered by the Razzie's other categories. It was awarded in 2003 to Travis Payne for "Distinguished Under-Achievement in Choreography" in the film From Justin to Kelly.

Criticism

 * Some believe that the Razzies give out "awards" based on hype, instead of judging on film quality, or lack thereof. Examples included George W. Bush being "awarded" worst actor in 2004 for appearing in the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. The GRAF apparently addressed this in 2006, when it handed out four Razzies to Dirty Love, a film in which the official GRAF press release announcing the 2005 winners proclaimed as "...a little stinker that no one but... [Razzie voters] ...even seem to know existed."


 * The nominating of Bush and others in his cabinet for their brief appearances in the Michael Moore documentary signaled what some believe was the Razzies' "jumping the shark" moment. They followed in 2006 (awarding the worst of 2005) with a new category criticizing Tom Cruise for his odd behavior during media appearances, most notably jumping up and down on a couch on the Oprah Winfrey talk show. Head Razzberry John Wilson acknowledged that the Cruise-dominated nods in the new Razzie category of Most Tiresome Tabloid Targets was the Razzies' way of offering social satire. But critics felt the Razzies had again crossed the line out of the movie domain.

Competition

 * The Razzies' main competitor is the lesser-known Stinkers Bad Movie Awards. This group, also based in Los Angeles, promotes itself as "the creators of the world's most comprehensive annual bad movie ballot." Indeed, the Stinkers' categories are more clever than what can be found on a Razzies ballot -- Worst Fake Accent, Most Painfully Unfunny Comedy, and Least 'Special' Special Effects are a few of the choice categories. Unlike the Razzies, the Stinkers do not do an actual awards ceremony. The Stinkers' first ballots were handed out to the public in 1997. In the years that have followed, the Razzies and Stinkers have rarely agreed on a list of nominees or "winners."