Sasha Frere Jone’s New Yorker article about Drive’s Academy Award Nomination snub (ahem: disqualification, sorry) for best score got me thinking.

For many people, especially those in the creative fields, winning an award for your work is that validation you feel you’ve been working for your whole life. Forget the fact that you’ve created something people enjoy, and that you are getting paid a living to do what you love. That award, that Oscar, means you really made it.

And I enjoy the Oscars. But this years lineup all around has gotten me disappointed. And I will never forget when Crash won best picture. That was bullshit.

You start to wonder, why does any of it really matter if you’re doing amazing work?

It doesn’t.

Especially when you learn that the people choosing these winners are 94% white, 77% male with a median age of 62.

This doesn’t apply solely to people in the film industry. We all have our own “award” that we think will give us validation: getting married before you’re 30, getting featured in Vogue before you’re 27, making $100,000 a year before you’re 21. 

When I began studying fashion design, I had big aspirations. Coming out with a full 20+ look collection during fashion week, being featured in magazines and sold at major department stores.  But I know people that have done all that and still don’t feel like they’ve made it. And now I’ve been working on one single jacket and I’m loving it. Because I’m focusing on making something great, instead of being taken over by the fear that some 60 year old white male might not validate how great I think it is.

Does Drive not being nominated make its score any less amazing?

Of course not.

If anything, it just shows how bullshit “awards” are.