What’s wrong with watching a little fluff on the red carpet?
L’Oréal tries to elevate preshow chatter at Golden Globes, but it’s supposed to be breezy and dumb
Brace yourself for a smarter red carpet.
During the Golden Globes on Sunday, L’Oréal Paris is launching its #WorthSaying campaign. Similar to recent social initiatives (#AskHerMore, #SmartGirlsAsk), the goal is to elevate the preshow chatter and encourage “women on the carpet — and off — to share words they believe are truly worth saying.”
This raises a question: What is worth saying on the red carpet? For years, we have mocked the vapid interrogations — “Are you nervous?” “Are you excited?” “Do you have any rituals?” — that pass as award-show “interviews.”
Now I fear we’ve been too hard on the poor idiots holding the mics.
Let’s start with the most ridiculed query of all, “Who are you wearing?” This will be asked about 243 times on Sunday. “Who are you wearing?” has become an opening line, similar to the “Did you have anything to drink tonight?” at a RIDE spot check. It’s practically a salutation.
It’s easy to dismiss it as asinine. But we should remember the context.
There is an established nexus between fashion and Hollywood. There is also a reason designers give — and sometimes pay — celebrities to wear their clothing on the red carpet. The exposure translates into big sales.
This isn’t an act of charity. It’s product placement. It’s mutually beneficial.
So when E!’s Giuliana Rancic asks Cate Blanchett the question, as she did at the SAG Awards in 2014, is she a dim-wit? Or is she merely fulfilling her role in a system of material excess and giving everyone — designers, publicists, viewers and even the dubiously put-upon stars — exactly what they want?
You know what happened six years ago when Ryan Seacrest avoided the question during preshow coverage of the Academy Awards? He was excoriated by for being “more interested in the celebrities and their careers.” The poor idiots can’t win. L’Oréal’s #WorthSaying is also #MakingAssumptions, not least of which is that red carpet banter is inherently sexist. It’s not. The idiocy is doled out to both genders. It just takes on different forms of stupid. The only reason men are not quizzed about their grooming regimens is because, generally speaking, they have none.
Not long ago, Elle launched a “Flip the Script” challenge to draw attention to the inane questions hurled at female celebrities by hurling those same questions at male stars.
All they proved is that the Hollywood man is strikingly similar to any man in the free world, which is to say one toothbrush away from being a slob.
How did Tito Ortiz primp and preen for the MTV Movie Awards?
“I took a shower, shaved, put on my underwear, put on my socks and looked for what suit I was going to wear tonight. Once I picked my suit, I put my pants on first, my shirt on second, tied my tie, put my vest on, put my watch on, sprayed a little cologne on, brushed my teeth and walked out the door.”
That response would chew up most of the 90 seconds allotted for a red carpet chat.
It would also trigger mass narco- lepsy as viewers face-splat into their guacamole and then switch over to PBS for livelier programming.
It’s great that Hollywood is finally doing some soul searching and shining a spotlight on issues such as sexism, racism, ageism and income equality. But is it possible the noble spirit of these debates has no real place on the red carpet?
Those conversations are supposed to be light and breezy and dumb. This isn’t an emergency meeting of the United Nations. They are handing out entertainment awards. From start to finish, this is an exercise in mindless fluff.
So, yes, please, tell me about that dazzling gown I’ll never see in real life. How do you get your skin to glow like that? I wish my skin glowed like that. I don’t want to hear Leonardo DiCaprio prattle on about climate change. He already does that at the United Nations! So instead, why not tell us what it was like to walk around in bear grease and a 100-pound fur in The Revenant?
The Golden Globes is a guilty pleasure. The red carpet is the guiltiest part of that pleasure.
If celebrities don’t want to be asked about what they are wearing, they should show up in paper bags, or band together and buy the same off-the-rack outfit. And if a beauty company wants to hijack social movements elsewhere in the culture with a dubious marketing campaign, it should at least be honest about the intent to sell more cosmetics.
Now that would be #WorthSaying. vmenon@thestar.ca