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Amanda Keller: Gold Logie wasn’t a joke to me…

Amanda Keller responds to Tom Gleeson's Gold Logie acceptance speech.

In her first day back on radio following a holiday after the Logie Awards, Amanda Keller has responded to Tom Gleeson’s Gold acceptance speech.

While she appreciated his comedy campaign, she was less enthusiastic about Gleeson’s speech.

“Hand on heart, to be nominated, meant a lot to me. It really, really did. And all the support of everyone meant such a big deal to me,” she said on WSFM.

“But this year felt particularly difficult and that’s because of the nature of Tom. He’s a comedian and I get what he was doing, which was trying to subvert the result. Good luck to him, he did. That’s how it goes, and I have no problem at all with that.

“But I think in his speech when he said, ‘Everyone who works in TV, if you want to win this you’re a big w*nker’, pretty much. And that kind of upset me because he was mean to Grant (Denyer) I felt. He said ‘Yeah I won it last year for Grant, and sucko, now I’ve done it on my own for me.’

“That’s not fair to Grant, he won that last year on his own two feet.

“And people who’ve have won in the past… Carrie Bickmore changed the world, she’s raised ten million dollars for brain cancer research. Grant spoke about redemption. Waleed Aly spoke about inclusiveness.

“I get that Tom’s thing is comedy, so he wanted to turn it into a joke, that’s what he wanted to do.

“And I like Tom, we saw him the next day at the airport, you and I. No problem with Tom.

“But (his speech) gave everyone permission to say, ‘Yeah you’re all up yourselves, and this is all a big joke’. And it wasn’t a joke to me,” she insisted.

“I don’t know why in television we’re embarrassed to be proud of our work. The tourism industry has awards, the restaurant industry has awards…”

Keller continued, “He got to a point where he said, ‘Sucko for wanting this, you know it’s all a dumb joke’ — and that’s what made me feel bad, because to the other nominees, it wasn’t.

“We were all worthy, but I don’t think we should be embarrassed for being worthy.”

She added, “I was proud to be nominated.”

18 Responses

  1. Oh for crying out loud, come on. Unlike those other industries, top tier television and radio personalities are constantly celebrated, publicly lauded, paid lots of money, given free stuff, sent to the front of the queue, recognised daily for their special talents, pampered, protected from criticism, patted on the back, and rewarded in countless other ways. How much recognition is enough?
    When the fact that a comedian doesn’t take the Gold Logie seriously upsets you, an award that’s famously been corrupted in a hundred different ways since its inception, because it prevents you from obtaining one more piece of proof of your own exceptionalness, maybe Tom’s not the problem.
    Nothing but love, for real, and there is no one more exceptional than you Amanda, but the Gold Logie isn’t proof of anything but one individual’s harnessing of the zeitgeist. That’s all it’s ever been. It…

    1. Find it hard to take seriously when on the one hand you’re suggesting Amanda is needy in wanting some extra validation and then in the next breath commenting how Amanda is in fact exceptional. To me Amanda’s comments showed someone quite humble – not someone who would be seeking all those perks you suggest are readily available.

  2. i don’t have a problem with what Tom did so much as what he said, i feel he did cross the line a bit in things he said that were quite mean spirited. A joke is only funny if people are laughing & at that point further along in the speech where he was basically crapping all over the awards and anyone who ever cared about them, i couldn’t see alot of people laughing. And if they were it was a very uncomfortable fake ‘get me out of here’ laugh. Sounds like at least a good thing thats come out of it is the voting system will be revamped.

  3. >> That’s not fair to Grant, he won that last year on his own two feet.

    I don’t think Amanda is operating in the same universe as the rest of us in this instant.

  4. The Gold Logie has been a joke for years, especially when you see some of the winners. The ‘campaigns’ have only started going into to overdrive since the voting regs were tightened up. It is now much harder to buy 100,000 votes from India or the Philipines. But the whole concept of popularity over quality/achievement has always been a bit of a joke and over rated. Finally in this era of the end of traditional fta, the GL is becoming irrelevant.

  5. As others have said, both her and in other forums, Amanda is spot on with these comments, made on Sydney radio. The whole ‘Gleeson thing’ got a bit out of hard in my opinion too, and that doesn’t make her a ‘sense of humour failure’ person for saying it either. After a long and proud history, the Logies have had a v shaky few years and comprehensive reform of how shows/stars are nominated/win is now required; without it, credibility & relevance will continue to slowly but surely drain away… In my opinion as a viewer, it needs to be closer to an Oscars/Bafta type show in terms of nomination/decision process, maybe with some categories decided by a slightly more ‘governed’ public vote. Also, and separately, the show is way too long, plus needs better production and entertainment value to restore its position as a ‘must watch’ for the casual Aussie viewer.

  6. I think the biggest joke are the people who are nominated!

    Amanda Keller is barely on TV compared to reality show judges, breakfast tv hosts, a current affairs hosts.

    As an example… How has David Koch never been nominated considering the success Sunrise has had over the last 15 years?

    1. It doesn’t matter how many hours of airtime a person does each week, it’s whether they resonate with the audience enough to make them want to nominate/vote for them. Amanda was well received by audience and critics alike as host of DWTS, and is very popular ad host of TLR.

    2. You do realise that Amanda hosts the Living Room every week don’t you?

      Reason David Koch hasn’t been nominated….. it’s an award for Most Popular Personality. He’s not that popular and the personality part is debatable too.

  7. The problem isn’t the Gold Logie itself, which should be about public appreciation for a notable celebrity. But campaigning for an award is contradictory to that, it becomes less about recognition of achievement and more about a prize for convincing enough voters.

  8. Even if Amanda Keller didn’t win, it doesn’t take away from the respect and recognition of her contribution.

    If you know your work that has been done, there can still be pride without recognition. Though, a lot of hard work by many people goes thankless and without deserved recognition, and sometimes it’s even compounded with criticism.

  9. Isn’t this like all industry awards? We secretly want to be nominated as validation of ourselves, but when we don’t win, then we can see fault in the result. She is upset that the awards are being hijacked; and Tom is poking fun at something that was ripe for satire and ridicule. But again, you see this taking yourself and your industry far too seriously across all different industry sectors.

    For me, the big difference is that we, Joe and Jane Public, are invited into this world and we become invested in this industry. So much so that we vote to choose the winner and that is where the “trouble” lies. We voted for Tom and not Amanda – why? I don’t know, but they obviously voted the way they did because either: they saw a comedic talent they appreciated; or they saw someone taking the proverbial that they thought – yeah I agree. If you invite the public in to vote, then you…

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