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Announcing the Winners of the The 2019 Peely Awards for the Worst in Pop Culture

wolfmanjew

CATS CR: Universal Pictures

We’ve nominated and debated, voted and quoted. Now I, Wolfman Jew Vs. the Panopticon of Sin, am ready to reveal the winners of the 2019 Peely Awards for the Worst of Pop Culture! We had a wide variety of frustrating, bad, inexplicable, and incomprehensible works over the past twelve months, along with a tiring and aggravating discourse about them. It initially seemed like this was Cats’ year to lose, given its train of anti-hype, asinine directorial pedigree, and hideous special effects. And it did win a boatload of awards. But it wasn’t the only one. The Rise of Skywalker didn’t even come near the most painful awards, but its overreaching crowd pleasing swipes netted it a number of disappointing ones. The final season of Game of Thrones got more votes than virtually every past Peely’s winner, and even it didn’t get the highest number of votes for a nominee this year. Absurd films like Serenity, The Fanatic (itself an accidental sort of follow-up to John Travolta’s Peely’s dominating Gotti from last year), and Richard Jewell fought for representation in category after category, while terrible business practices in the games industry charted out its own space. Plenty of celebrities and public figures said some damn foolish things. And Sonic the Hedgehog’s upcoming movie didn’t even need to come out for its trailer to earn a place on people’s “worst of the year” lists, this one included.

It was also a year with a wide array of unique nominees. It’s a Peely’s tradition for some award to be utterly dominated by a single contender, and we did have that – thanks, holiday films Star Wars and Cats – but not entirely. There were well over a hundred separate nominees put forth just in these “winners,” all from different parts of the entertainment industry and general morass of popular culture. Whether it was would-be blockbusters, would-be critical darlings, or actually-were terrible vanity projects, all sorts of things can be found in the list below. When I started doing these, one thing I wanted to avoid was to fall into the trap of being like the Razzies: lazy, mean-spirited, and with a banal approach to entertainment. They are bad. We’ve proven ourselves above that, as we have each year of this series.

Here are the winners, along with the top four nominees – or top nine, in the case of our coveted Worst Film award, the crown jewel of the year. Though that’s a misnomer, as that award spilled over due to enough equal votes at the lower end of nominees. Same’s true with several of the other nominees. And really, why shouldn’t we share the love? I should also note that in the case of certain major plot points or upsetting content, in lieu of writing down the nominee I’ve given a vague description and linked to the nomination itself. Sadly, the only spoiler tag we’ll be able to use is the one for the votes themselves.

A huge thanks to Lovely Bones, who helped with the editing, organization, tallying, and writing of this year’s awards. And an additional thanks to everyone who participated whether through nominating, voting, or just plain commenting. While there were fewer comments this year than Round II of last year, there were almost certainly more voters than ever judging by how many votes some winners got.

Votes – the final tally was recorded at 3 AM EST. My apologies if your last votes came under the wire, but Disqus’s issues are a hassle.

[spoiler title=’Winners and Runners Up’ style=’default’ collapse_link=’true’]

1. Most Disappointing Piece of (New) Pop Culture (Otakunomike)

2. Most Poorly Narrated, Presented, and Conceived Trailer (Owen1120)

3 The Judd Apatow Award for Movie that Could have Been 45 Minutes Shorter (upvote moneydog, Pits Winner!)

4. The Shot-for-Shot Award for Least Essential Revival of an Existing Property (A Dopehead in a Santa Hat)

5. The Embarrassing Us All Award for Worst Actor (gender-neutral) (Owen1120)

6. The Malcolm McDowell Honorary Award for Best Actor in a Pile of Garbage (Owen1120)

7. Worst Line of Dialogue (Owen1120)

8. The Lootbox Award for Worst New Idea From The Gaming Industry (Lyssie)

9. Worst Blockbuster (or the Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom) Award (Eric Lampton)

10. The Rock Dog Award for This Should be Direct to Video (kajigger desu)

11. The Sam Worthington Award For Blandest White Male Protagonist (A Dopehead in a Santa Hat)

12. The Vulture Capital Award for Worst Squandering of a Website Takeover (kajigger desu)

13. Worst (Advertisement related; we’re all friends here) Poster (Owen1120) [NOTE: as opposed to past years, this year all nominees will be included as a single image]

14. The EA Spouse Memorial Award for Worst Labour Abuse in the Entertainment Industry (Merve)

15. The 2019 Foot-In-Mouth Award  (kevzero)

16. The J.K. Rowling Memorial Award for Worst Retcon (Merve)

17. The 7 / 10 Award for Most Unremarkable Piece of Media (Merve)

18. The Bemused Perused Award for Worst Thinkpiece (Wolfman Jew) [NOTE: I will not be linking to these articles here]

19. The Lurking Red Logo Award for Worst Netflix Movie of 2019 (Wes Lawson)

20. The Cats Award for Worst CGI in a Movie, Television Series, or Game (Armando)

21. Not Getting a Wacky Title, the Award for the Worst Thing the Avocado Watched in Full in Rabbit in 2019 (Wolfman Jew)

22. The Quiet Memorial Award for Most Egregious Fanservice (Sexual Division) (Merve)

23. The Stormtrooper in Fortnite Award for Most Egregious Fanservice (Non-Sexual Division) (Wolfman Jew)

24. The That’s So Fetch Award for Worst Media That People Wanted to Make a Thing (kajigger)

25. The Dinesh D’Souza Memorial Award for Most Specious Argument in a Piece of Pop Culture (Merve)

26. The “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” Memorial Award for Most Inappropriate Musical Cue in a Film, Series, or Game (Merve)

27. The Kevin Spacey Memorial Award for Most Unjustified Arrogance (Merve)

28. The Worst, Most Shoehorned-in Performative “Wokeness” Award (Owen1120)

29. The Sigh in Resignation Award for Worst Part of an Otherwise Good Piece of Pop Culture (Owen1120)

30. The “Wow, Serenity Was Kind of Great At Points?” Award for Worst Moment that’s Still Satisfying in a Lizard-Brain Kind of Way (El Santo)

31. The Doolittle Award for Thing That Most Overstayed Its Welcome (Lyssie)

32. Worst “Joke” in a “Comedy”

33. The Unavoidable Award for the Most Overblown Piece of Pop Culture Clickbait (upvote moneydog, Pits Winner!)

34. The “The Internet Was a Mistake” Award for Worst Fanbase or Fan Behavior

35. The Heat Death of the GIF Award for Worst Meme (Owen1120)

36. Worst Pop Culture Merch (Merve)

37. The Tragically Ignorant Uncle Award for the Most Accidentally Offensive Thing (Owen1120)

38. Underpaid and Over-Budget: The Worst Animation Award (Merve)

39. Worst Title for an Eric Roberts Movie Released in 2019 [Bones Note: I want it on record that It Wants Blood! is an underrated one]

40. Worst Moral (Owen1120)

41. Worst Video Game of 2019

42. Worst Album of 2019

43. Worst Television Season of 2019

44. Worst Book of 2019

45. Worst Film of 2019

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