6 years ago: Zuzu’s petals

December 18, 2007, here on slacktivist: Zuzu’s petals

Last year, a Special Lifetime Faith & Values Crystal Teddy Bear Award for Dedication to Redeeming the Values of the Mass Media of Entertainment was given to Pat Boone.

I don’t know if they refer to this as the F&VCTBADRVMME for short, or if they just refer to it as the “Crystal Teddy Bear.” (I tried Googling “crystal” + “teddy” + “bear,” but all I got was a bunch of stories about Ted Haggard.) The actual award itself is, in fact, a Lucite teddy-bear statuette — cuddly, but in a hard and brittle kind of way.

Imagine we were assigned as a committee to design an artistic award. Our instructions for this design would be to create something so hideously tasteless and aesthetically maladroit that it would signal to all the world, unambiguously, that neither the presenter nor the recipient should ever be allowed to have anything to do with or say about the arts. After rejecting the rhinestone-encrusted Thomas Kinkade painting in the gold-plated frame as not quite ugly enough, someone on the committee suggests a teddy bear statuette. A crystal teddy bear statuette. We would all sit silent for a moment, picturing such a thing in our heads. And then we’d all laugh and move on, trying to come up with something a little less over the top.

So again, let me just repeat that this was something that really happened: Last year, Movieguide presented Pat Boone with a Special Lifetime Faith & Values Crystal Teddy Bear Award for Dedication to Redeeming the Values of the Mass Media of Entertainment.