The Velvet Light Trap Issue #89, "Media Awards: Beyond the EGOT," has
extended its deadline! We will now be accepting submissions until February
28th. If more time is needed beyond that, please email the editors at
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The full CFP is below, and in the following pdf
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sG8ecgx95Qye2wjfnOINJFcKINgOULPw/view?usp=drivesdk>.
Please send submissions to [log in to unmask] We understand the delays and
frustrations inherent to working during a pandemic, and will be as
accommodating as possible to your requests. We look forward to reading your
work!

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The Velvet Light Trap #89

Media Awards: Beyond the EGOT

The “big four” American entertainment awards—the Emmy for television, the
Grammy for music, the Oscar for film, and the Tony for theater, often
referred to by the “EGOT” acronym—have long served as a barometer of
mainstream taste cultures in their respective fields. While literature on
media awards is not completely absent, its scope has been narrow. Popular
press works on the somewhat standardized journalistic narratives
surrounding the EGOT, particularly the Oscars. Scholarly literature has
largely focused on awards as they pertain to the international art cinema
circuit and its attached film festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival.
This call, while respecting the literature that addresses these familiar
narratives, intends to reimagine and reinvigorate discussion of
entertainment awards and their meaning within the media industries.



Awards are a near-ubiquitous feature of media cultures across mediums,
narrative forms, industrial roles, and both geopolitical and virtual
spaces: The Nolly Awards, for the span of a few years, recognized
achievement in Nollywood films, i.e. the cinema of Nigeria; TikTok user
Ashley Hufford (@ashleyhufford) recently sought to establish the “Tik Tok
Tony Awards”; The Ursa Major Awards is awarded for “the furry arts.” What
purpose do these and other awards serve for their respective communities,
beyond the oft-stated objective of recognizing excellence? In what cases do
awards recognize achievement in areas beyond the media text? In what
aspects of the media industries are awards rarely given, but excellence
still expected? When is the stated purpose or ultimate effect of an award
something distinctly separate from excellence?



Furthermore, we are interested in the intersection of awards with critical
discourse on political, social, and identity-based issues. Media award
shows have long served as a locus for the discussion of issues through
sartorial statements, protests on and off the red carpet, and political
statements in acceptance speeches or other awards forums. Recent
conversations about inclusion and equity for marginalized communities in
nominations and organizational membership have served to highlight the
institutionalized bigotry of the media industries and media cultures more
generally. This advocacy has come from many perspectives, both within those
industries, from cultural intermediaries in the fourth estate, and from
vocal audience members. Such discussions have been accompanied by some
change, including the establishment of the Academy Inclusion Standards in
2020, and the 2019 Tony for Best Musical Revival going to Oklahoma!, a
production which transformed the traditional work into an allegory for
racism and intolerance in contemporary America. It remains to be seen,
however, whether these gestures signal a larger, permanent shift towards
equity, or whether they will remain largely symbolic events. Media awards
thus provide a microcosm of larger representational concerns, one that can
serve as a rich point of study for scholarly inquiry.



The Velvet Light Trap #89 seeks to challenge and expand our understanding
of media awards so that we may better understand the media ecologies that
support such events. These awards bridge media criticism, sociocultural
issues, national and international politics, and cultures of art and
entertainment into discourses both in and outside of the mainstream. We
welcome submissions that push the boundaries of current media awards
literature, use media award contexts as key case studies, or exploring any
of the following themes:

● Reimagining our approach to or conception of major awards, ‘awards
seasons,’ and their attendant discourses, including the Oscars, Tonys,
Emmys, and Grammys

● Media awards outside North American and Anglophone contexts

● The various meanings of entertainment and media award shows in relation
to the local, national, and global contexts.

● Historical media awards (defunct or still ongoing), particularly situated
within sociocultural contexts

● Explorations of the various cultural intermediaries that enable and
coordinate the hubbub of “awards seasons,” including critics, culture
writers, and so on.

● Recognition of technical, below-the-line, organizational, or corporate
achievement

● Recognition of achievement for communities of color and marginalized
groups (e.g. NAACP Image Awards, the Unforgettable Gala)

● Recognition of achievement in marginalized groups (e.g. the GLAAD Media
Awards, the Mental Health Media Awards, the Media Access Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in media subcultures, communities, or genres
(e.g. the Ursa Major Awards, the Saturn Awards, the r/Aww Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in pornography (e.g. the PornHub Awards, the
GayVN Awards)

● Recognition of social media and digital content achievement (e.g. the
American Influencer Awards, the Webby Awards, the Streamy Awards, the
Shorty Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in video games (e.g. the Game Awards, the Game
Critics Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in comics and animation (e.g. the Annie
Awards, the Eisner Awards)

● Recognition of achievement in understudied, under-recognized or niche
media types

● Intentionally subversive media-related awards (e.g. the Razzies)

● Recognition of achievement in relation to conventions and/or
fandom-specific contexts

● Controversies related to a specific media-related award, award show, or
win/loss



Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words, formatted in Chicago
Style. Please

submit an electronic copy of the paper along with a separate one-page
abstract, both saved as Microsoft Word files. Remove any identifying
information so that the submission is suitable for anonymous review.
Quotations not in English should be accompanied by translations. Please
send your submissions to [log in to unmask] by February 28th, 2021. If
additional time is necessary, please email us to discuss.



About the Journal

TVLT is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal of film, television, and new
media. The journal draw on a variety of theoretical and historiographical
approaches from the humanities and social sciences and welcomes any effort
that will help foster the ongoing processes of evaluation and negotiation
in media history and criticism. While TVLT maintains its traditional
commitment to the study of American film, it also expands its scope to
television and other media, to adjacent institutions, and to other nations'
media. The journal encourages both approaches and objects of study that
have been neglected or excluded in past scholarship.



Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the
University of Texas at Austin coordinate issues in alternation, and each
issue is devoted to a particular theme. TVLT's Editorial Advisory Board
includes such notable scholars as Ben Aslinger, Caitlin Benson-Allott,
Lauren S. Berliner, Dolores Inés Casillas, Aymar Jean Christian, Lisa
Dombrowski, Raquel Gates, Dan Herbert, Deborah Jaramillo, Lori Morimoto,
Meenasarani (Linde) Murugan, Safia Noble, Bob Rehak, Debra Ramsay, Bonnie
Ruberg, Avi Santo, Samantha Noelle Sheppard, Dan Streible, Neil Verma, and
Alyx Vesey. TVLT's graduate student editors are assisted by their local
faculty advisors: Mary Beltrán, Ben Brewster, Jonathan Gray, Lea Jacobs,
Derek Johnson, Shanti Kumar, Charles Ramírez Berg, Thomas Schatz, and Janet
Staiger (emeritus).

*Hyun Jung Stephany Noh* |* Eric Forthun*
Submissions Editors, *The Velvet Light Trap*
*University of Texas at Austin*

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