At last week's Critics' Choice Awards, the critics apparently chose not to make choices.
Because there was not just one, there were two ties. And not the neckwear kind, like the bow ties sported by host Taye Diggs and best supporting actor Mahershala Ali. I mean tie as in a draw.
It happened when it was time to announce the winner for best actress in a limited series or movie made for television. Amy Adams won for Sharp Objects ... and Patricia Arquette won for Escape at Dannemora. Adams said, "I actually can't think of a more beautiful thing than a tie, because there isn't a winner when we get to do such great work and we have such wonderful opportunities." The two seemed entirely too accepting as they gave their joint acceptance speech.
And then it happened again. For best actress in a motion picture, there was another tie: Glenn Close won for The Wife ... and Lady Gaga won for A Star Is Born. Close said, "The world kind of pits us against each other in this profession ... and I think I can speak for all the women in this room, we celebrate each other. We are proud to be in this room together." Gaga told Close, "I'm so very happy that you won this this evening. This is a tremendous honor."
And a tremendous bore.
Talk about "Everyone gets a trophy."
Because there are still plenty of awards shows this season, we need to come up with a better system to ensure there's only one winner. So therefore I'm proposing some possible tie-breakers that can be used at next Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Feb. 10 Grammy Awards and the Feb. 24 Academy Awards.
• Dice. Settle things the way my Bunko group does. Have a roll-off. Whoever rolls a six first wins. Or, consider this more Hollywood alternative: Whoever shows up more on the New York Post's "Page Six" wins.
• Flossing challenge. Have a contest involving the arm-swinging dance craze of the moment. Or just have a dental flossing challenge. Whoever has less plaque gets, well, the plaque -- or statuette.
• Water challenge. Whoever can chug a plastic bottle full of water first wins. This could take place at a moment's notice at any awards ceremony, as professional photobomber Aqua Fina Girl is sure to be standing right there at the ready.
• The age challenge. Lately everyone on Facebook is participating in "THE 'HOW HARD DID AGING HIT YOU' CHALLENGE" that directs users to "Upload your 'first' ever profile pic and your most recent selfie right next to it." Give the award to whichever celebrity has aged the least. Never mind, with all the work they have had done, no aging will be detectable.
• The Instagram tally. Whoever has the most liked social media picture gets the award. The winner still won't come anywhere close to @world_record_egg -- a picture of a humble egg -- that last week became the "official world record holders of the most liked picture on Instagram" and finally accomplished its one goal: "Let's set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this." They got this and then some. As of our deadline, it had 41,201,395 likes. No yolking!
• The runoff. Settle things as we did here in Little Rock when none of the mayoral candidates received 40 percent of the vote. Start over. Have the top two candidates campaign. Make everybody vote a second time. Have another event. Stars would love it; after all, they'd get to dress up, ride in limos, strut the red carpet and pose for photos and be congratulated yet again.
• Bird Box challenge. Whoever can get to the stage, up the stairs and grab the award -- while avoiding the evil, destructive force, wearing a blindfold and while guiding two kids wearing blindfolds -- wins.
Inbox challenge:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
Spin Cycle is a weekly smirk at pop culture.
Style on 01/20/2019