I don't care if corporations want to make up their own events/prizes/charities/whatever.
Ronald McDonald Children's Hospital is fine by me as long as they keep funding it and hopefully have enough sense not to feed sick kids their un-nutritious fast food and stick to handing out the happy meal toys and decorating the rooms à la Hamburglar and friends. The US got some of their best artistic venues (Carnegie Hall, etc.) that way from turn-of-the-century railroad robber barons and other such nouveau riche magnates who were socially pressured into funding stuff if they wanted to fit in with the existing upper class.
But no, I don't like it when a corporation appears to visibly parasitize an existing established thing in order to get their own name out.
If "this program was paid for by a generous grant from the XXY Foundation, the YYZ Foundation, and Viewers Like You" was good enough for umpteen years, then why does "Masterpiece Theatre" now need to be "ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre"? It looks like a crass attempt to get the public thinking that ExxonMobil has been behind Masterpiece Theatre all along. And what happens when ExxonMobil's PR department starts thinking that Masterpiece Theatre no longer appeals to their desired demographic and goes shopping around for another venue?
The Giller Prize has apparently existed for 17 years. Scotiabank has been sponsoring it since 2005. Maybe they'll keep it up for the next 17 years, maybe one day they'll decide to cut their losses and run. I just don't think it's a good idea to rename the prize for a mere 5 years' funding infusion unless Scotiabank really intends on ponying up all the dough in perpetuity and essentially co-running the thing to boot.
I'm pleased with corporations funding existing cultural/charity stuff instead of hoarding all their money except where tax-deductible, and perfectly fine with getting their names put in very prominently as sponsor, but not taking over the "brand". It actually makes me think worse of them for pressuring the original to "sell out", which is probably the reverse of what's intended.
Something like "The 2010 Giller Prize, made possible by a generous grant from our partner Scotiabank", would be far preferable to "Scotiabank Giller 2010 Prize", in my opinion.
As for literary prize bleakness, that's par for the course. The Hugo Award nominees this year were mainly for really depressing stuff which all starts to look the same after awhile. There seems to be a meme going around that the more of a downer the read is, the more "worthy" it is.
Except for those books where it's a downer with an "uplifting" message about how human suffering and tragedy lead to self-realization and happiness. Eventually. At the very end. In the last five pages or so.
Bet on those to be the prizewinners and/or end up on Oprah's Book Club.
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