Award Shows

With the Academy Awards and Grammy's upon us, and the Golden Globes and SAG awards just behind us, I thought it appropriate to add my two cents on award shows in general. And, your faithful blogger has the inside scoop because although I could give a flaming you-know-what about these shows, my wife sees those dates as somewhere just south of her birthday and just north of our wedding anniversary in terms of important events in her life. If I even suggest that we watch something else or - God forbid - be out of the house on the date and time that these shows air, she looks at me with the same shocked expression as if I suggested we sell one of our kids. (Note: That conversation, of course, never happened. Well, I might have gently suggested it one time, but it was a vague reference and I got right off the subject when I saw it wasn't going anywhere. I mean, I would NEVER sell one of my kids and I'm shocked, SHOCKED that you would even think I would.... But just so we nail this down once and for all, in fairness I did get a very good offer for one of them and we really can use a nice wall-mounted flat screen tv so that we can watch important television like...The Academy Awards! See how that all dovetails nicely? Man, I can weave a story - you never saw that coming for a minute before - BAM! - its right there, tied up in a nice little bow. But I digress.)

If the Academy Awards show is the "Super Bowl for Women", then the Golden Globes, Emmys, SAG Awards, people's Choice Awards and, to a lesser extent, the Grammys are the Playoffs for Women" (personally, I prefer the Grammys for three reasons: 1. because of the great music you can hear/watch performed, 2. because the female music stars and the wives/girlfriends of male music stars are not afraid to slut it up a little wardrobe-wise in a way that would make an academy award-nominated actress throw up her quarter tablespoon of rice cake dinner, and 3. the music stars who don't fit into the previous category can be counted on to set a new bar on the comedy scale for the outfits they wear - from lavender tuxedos to hardcore rock outfits to headwear and clothing a New York socialite wouldn't put on her poodle. I'm telling you, its the gift that keeps on giving. Second place would be the Golden Globes because they don't seems to take themselves too seriously, they get right to the awards, and there is drinking at the table, so you have a very good chance to someone saying something funny, stupid, or controversial - paging Dr. Washington, Dr. Isaiah Washington.)

And, jumping back to my Superbowl analogy, the parallels of sports to award shows are amazingly similar - with so many channels on cable now, all of the entertainment channels have a pre-game show - interviews with the stars as they get ready, interviews with stars in their limos as they wait their turn to hit the red carpet, interviews with the stars as they get their botox injections, silicone implant adjustments, spray-on tans, pre-dress fitting vomit sessions, smile and wave practice, posing and pouty-lips-look practice, I'm-too-cool-to-care-look practice, oh-shit-I-didn't-win-and-that-bitch-did-but-the-camera-might-be-on-me-so-I-have-to-look-gracious-and-thrilled-that-someone-I-hate-won-look practice. And in addition to star interviews, we are now treated to teams of 'analysts' - from fashion people, to film critics, to talking heads of the entertainment world, who offer criticisms, witticisms (and I use that term loosely - hell, I'm not even sure I spelled it correctly, so we're talking very loosely), and predictions about how the night will go. So, you have a big event, several competing pregame shows, interviews, analysts, odds makers, post game shows, and the follow up magazine blitz - all you are missing is a ball of some sort and you could be talking about sports. I think we have to take this to the next level and start to market Hollywood trading cards and Hollywood video games, and instead of buying the jersey of your favorite teams, you could buy faux-Vera Wang, size zero gowns with the names of your favorite stars emblazoned on the back (unless it is a backless gown, then I don't know what we'll do - damn this is falling apart already!). Oh well, enjoy the shows!