The Family Entertainment Awards have somehow been around for ten years, and to celebrate their Tin (or Aluminum) Anniversary, the FEAs apparently decided to dispense with the whole nominees, statuettes, and awards ceremony thing altogether and just have the rapidly aging kid from Everybody Loves Chris intro pre-taped overly earnest acceptance speeches on the CW for an hour. If that sounds incredibly awkward, not to mention pointless, wait until you you see Blake "awkward, not to mention pointless" Lively accept an award for Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2, which won "Best Feature Film"
So, what makes something worthy of a Family Entertainment Award? Judging by the winners–The Ghost Whisperer, Tyler Perry's House Of Payne, Michael Phelps' mom (seriously), some big cancer charity TV special, America's Got Talent–the entertainment in question has to have a lot of lame mom and/or preacher appeal, with ideally at least one moment where said lame mom or preacher can exclaim, "Isn't that cute?"
But according to the FEA website, the winning shows and movies have to have something else: advertiser appeal:
The 2008 Family Entertainment Awards honorees have been selected by the Association of National Advertisers, and reflect the mission of the ANA Alliance for Family Entertainmentsm, which is to promote and support the development of high quality content the whole family can enjoy together.
In other words, the advertisers are just looking for some non-offensive, milquetoast filler to help lull people of all demographics into buying their products. You know, "high-quality" shows and movies. It's a great day for all the Entertainmentsm!
All of this helps to explain the evening's most puzzling winner, Wii. That's right, they gave an award–not a physical award, because there were no actual awards at the FEAs, just the idea of awards–to a video game system. Who accepted it? Mario Lopez, Jennie Garth, and Dancing With The Stars, because that makes sense:
I know what you're thinking: if they're giving an award to the Wii because it's a wholesome way to bring families together, why don't they give an award to the concept of eating dinner together, or, say, backyards in general? It's simple: Wii can be a conduit for advertising, and unfortunately until they come up with dining tables with built-in, flat-screen digital billboards, the concept of eating dinner together can't deliver the advertising required to be considered "high-quality" family entertainmentsm.