The Golden Raspberry Awards have always attracted backlash. Their first year the awards body, which honors purportedly bad cinema, had the stones to nominate master filmmakers Stanley Kubrick (for The Shining), Brian De Palma (for Dressed to Kill), and William Friedkin (for Cruising). Last year they did the unthinkable: They apologized and retracted an entire category dedicated to low-rent Bruce Willis movies, which they awarded shortly before it was revealed he suffers from aphasia. Now they’ve had to say sorry again after being too mean.
As per Variety, the Razzies have backpedaled on one of this year’s nominees: Firestarter star Ryan Kiera Armstrong. The problem? Armstrong is 12 years old. She was 11 when she filmed it. The nomination caught a lot of people’s eyes and, rather than double down, they not only apologized and axed the nom; they also enacted an age limit, so that anyone under 18 can’t be razzed for some movie they did.
“Sometimes, you do things without thinking, Then you are called out for it. Then you get it. It’s why the Razzies were created in the first place,” Razzies founder John Wilson (not the guy from the excellent HBO show) told Variety. “We have never intended to bury anyone’s career. It is why our Redeemer Award was created. We all make mistakes, very much us included.”
Last year the Razzies also retroactively cancelled another nomination: the one Shelley Duvall accrued for The Shining. It’s long been known that the shoot was difficult for her, and a behind-the-scenes documentary, made by Kubrick’s daughter Vivian, features him haranguing her in front of the crew after missing a cue. They have yet to apologize for nominating Ben Affleck’s hilarious work in The Last Duel last year — or for repeatedly trashing Tom Hanks this year, because who would ever do that to Tom Hanks?
(Via Variety)