After spending most of the day refusing to backtrack on their decision to give Bruce Willis a Golden Raspberry Award category of his own, the Razzie Awards founders have now backtracked on their stance and rescinded the award following news of the actor’s aphasia diagnosis yesterday. Given the storm on social media surrounding their initial decision to stick to their guns, it seemed like only a matter of time before something had to give. While they were feeling in the mood for making retractions, they also revealed that they are also striking the Razzie nomination given to Shelley Duvall for The Shining, which follows up on comments recently about the actress’s treatment during filming by director Stanley Kubrick.
Following the announcement of Willis’ retirement due to his diagnosis, the Razzies immediately found themselves trending on social media as people called them out for the Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in 2021 Award, which was awarded at the weekend along with this year’s other “honors.” Perhaps the fallout would not have been quite as bad had founders Mo Murphy and John Wilson not posted a tweet saying that they were sorry for the actor’s diagnosis, and “perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021.”
However, after being given some very strong words by Twitter users and a little time to think things through, they put out a new statement, which read, “After much thought and consideration, the Razzies have made the decision to rescind the Razzie Award given to Bruce Willis, due to his recently disclosed diagnosis. If someone’s medical condition is a factor in their decision making and/or their performance, we acknowledge that it is not appropriate to give them a Razzie.”
Murphy and Wilson Also Felt That Retracting Shelley Duvall’s Award Nomination Was Appropriate
Back in February, it was reported in an interview with Vulture that Murphy had been feeling bad about the nomination given to Shelley Duvall for her harrowing performance in The Shining. While many consider the movie one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Duvall was given the nod for her performance as the wife of Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance. At the time, Murphy commented, “Knowing the backstory and the way that Stanley Kubrick kind of pulverized her, I would take that back.”
When the interview was published, there was no actual movement by the duo to do that. Still, following the backlash of the last 24 hours, it seems that they have attempted to court some favor by also rescinding Duvall’s nomination. “As we recently mentioned in a Vulture Interview, extenuating circumstances also apply to Shelley Duvall in ‘The Shining.’ We have since discovered that Duvall’s performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of her throughout the production. We would like to take this opportunity to rescind that nomination as well.”
The Razzies were developed as being a parody of the Oscars, and have often led to differences of opinions. Their mantra is to offer mostly successful stars the option of “owning their mistakes,” but some have often seen them as being cruel and unnecessary. Although they did not remove their original statement or apologize for it, they will be hoping they have now done enough to allow everyone to move on from this.