PARK: Award shows are not perfect, neither are artists who win

On Saturday, Harry Styles took home the Brit Award for Artist of the Year, along with three other Brit Awards. Just short of a week prior, the pop artist took home two awards at the 2023 Grammy Awards, making it a total of three Grammys he has won during his career. As these can be considered great feats for many musicians, he should be celebrating.

Later, though, the media flooded with articles and posts criticizing Styles for his live performance where a technical error occurred and critiquing his comment about white privilege during one of his Grammy speeches. While holding his Grammy for album of the year, he stated that "this doesn’t happen to people like me very often."

Now — what does "people like me" really mean? Stans on Twitter were quick to defend Styles, saying he grew up working as a baker as a kid with big dreams he did not think he could accomplish.

In reality, 32 white men have won a Grammy for Album of the Year, in contrast to only 11 Black artists who have won the title. The controversy sparked even brighter since Beyonce was nominated for the same category, one she has been nominated for four times and never won.

This is not the first time award show nominations and winners have been filled with the names of white men. Award shows are notoriously racially controversial.

In 2015, "#OscarsSoWhite" started to trend in response to the Academy Awards granting wins to only its white nominees. The hashtag became a social justice motion to fight back against the Academy. The Grammy Awards are most notably called the "#Scammys" on Twitter too.

Styles is not the face of nepotism like many other artists or actors might be. He auditioned for "The X Factor" and made it big in One Direction without big connections in the industry prior. But these accomplishments do not mean Styles will receive less criticism than his fellow musicians of different races.

At the Brit Awards, Styles swept each category he was nominated for. In his acceptance speech for best artist, the 29-year-old thanked his mother and his fellow One Direction bandmates and recognized that he is "very aware of my privilege up here tonight," and he dedicated the award to the female artists who were eligible to be nominated in the category but were not.

Diversity in award shows is not just a racial issue either. The Brit Awards merged male and female artists of the year into one category. As a result of this, there was not a single female nominee in this category. The Tony Awards have always split the categories for male and women nominees.

In the new Broadway musical, "& Juliet," actor Justin David Sullivan plays one of the supporting characters. As a trans nonbinary performer, they opted out from consideration for a Tony Award after the Award show's lack of response to the changing and growing nomination pool.

There is no denying that Styles has been at the top for the majority of his music career. From being the popular, curly-haired flirt of One Direction to writing and releasing three albums in five years, he has remained fairly mainstream, and his songs have hit the tops of the charts multiple times.

Coming from a huge fan of Styles, I think he is well deserving of every award and the recognition that he has received. It would not be far-fetched to say that I would consider him to be a personal idol. But beyond that, it is important not to put people like him on a pedestal.

He is not perfect. He will make mistakes, and that is okay. Recognizing where our celebrity icons go wrong and not being afraid of correcting them is important. You will only disappoint yourself otherwise.

Many teens and young adults have people that they look up to, idolize or perhaps obsess over. Having such role models is not a bad thing, but they are not to be seen as faultless. Styles has his faults. He has been accused of "queer baiting" and criticized for acting in films, an industry people say he does not belong in.

But he also has so much to be celebrated for. His journey from the sixteen-year-old contestant on "The X Factor" to selling out 15 shows at Madison Square Garden is impeccable, and even non-fans can admit that.

I will not defend any wrong that Styles has done or will do in the future. His music and character, for me, simply trump all, and this is clear to any person who has been to his concerts.

In the second half of each of his shows, he delivers a speech and always mentions how his fans are what keep him going and that he did not expect to ever grow to be this huge coming from a small town in Manchester, U.K.

He was surprised to win on Grammy night, maybe less so going into the Brit Awards after the week he had before. His Grammys speech started with a stunned, "Well sh*t."

Regardless of who did or did not deserve to win Album of the Year, Styles created a beautiful album with "Harry’s House." The reality is that winning Grammys and Brit Awards and getting recognition is exactly what happens to guys like Styles. Think about Justin Timberlake's success after he left NSYNC.

Let us not strip Styles of some of the biggest wins he has made in his recent career. But the Grammys, the Oscars, the Brit Awards and other award shows must be conscious of the overt amount of white, privileged men who still remain at the top of their respective categories.

Annabel Park is a sophomore at Rutgers Business School majoring in marketing and minoring in health administration. Her column, "The Queue," runs on alternate Tuesdays.

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