The 38th annual Bessie Awards are on for May 24. The website of the Television Bureau of Canada, which manages the show, proclaims the Bessies ‘salute the best in Canadian advertising.’ The awards come seven months after On The Spot’s Top Spots and two months after the Marketing Awards. Our culture can’t seem to get enough of doling out plaques and statuettes.

Not only do we have trophies for film, TV, music, commercials and broadcast design, but each of these industries spins off multiple awards shows covering identical turf. In addition to the Oscars and the enigmatic Golden Globes, we are inundated with the Independent Spirit Awards, Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, People’s Choice Awards and on and on.

Perhaps the most forthright of the bunch are the MTV Movie Awards, which recognize such categories as best kiss and best action sequence (not to be confused with best fight sequence) and The Golden Raspberry Awards, which reward the putrid.

The trend with many of the awards shows is to let the public decide. But at the Bessies, the judges are VIPs from the production and agency communities. Trouble is, since the success of a spot or campaign is measured primarily by its public reception, doesn’t it end up still being a popularity contest?

Which brings me to Molson Canadian’s ‘The Rant,’ directed by Kevin Donovan out of Mad Films for Bensimon Byrne & D’Arcy. Industry insiders tap this spot as likely to clean up. Disqualified from Top Spots (because the director is, in perfect irony, American), ‘The Rant’ triumphed at the Marketing Awards.

When more than one award show recognizes the same accomplishment, the potential for an Emperor’s New Clothes scenario looms large. The Golden Globes, voted on by the mysterious Hollywood Foreign Press Association, this year crowned Gladiator as best dramatic film. The fact it was merely an update of Spartacus with twice the gore and half the story seems secondary to the $187 million box office. Then the film claimed Oscar, and the Academy loses credibility for choosing the popular over the better (Traffic).

Which is not to suggest ‘The Rant’ is the Gladiator of ads. The spot’s technical proficiency and initial impact are irrefutable. It transcended its commercial status to become a cultural phenom, with the beloved/reviled Joe performing his schtick at public events, including the Molson Indy in Toronto.

While I got patriotic goosebumps the first time I saw it, later I started to cringe at the national inferiority complex so blazingly on display. Not to mention the fact the piece self-consciously borrows its style from Patton, a U.S. film wherein George C. Scott gives a rah-rah speech about the red, white and blue.

If the pundits are right and ‘The Rant’ takes home some gold at the Bessies, the more power to it and its producers. If only its victory didn’t seem so darn inevitable.