Yet Another Confession

Bless me Hilary Swank for I have sinned.....

It is 9 PM on the High Holy Day of Hollywood, and my heresy is showing.

I am not a practitioner of the great American religion of celebrity; although I'm entertained by the process of becoming one, I have no interest in anyone once they -are-. I watch American Idol, yet I don't think I could name more than one Kelly Clarkson song, I wouldn't recognize Ruben if I heard him on the radio, and I tend to turn the station when Fantasia's new song comes on. I was a fan of all three, while they were going through the whole process; once they got there, though, I was decidedly uninterested.

And that's just in the world of music--supposedly something I care about. Movies, to me, are less art-form and more pleasant-way-to-spend-a-couple-of-hours. I could count on the fingers of one hand the movies I actually love--and with the possible exception of Apocalypse Now, none of them is really considered "art". And so I have absolutely no interest in what the movie community considers award-worthy.

Even less than that, however, am I interested in the whole "who's your date/whose dress are you wearing" ritual that seems to whip the worshippers into such a religious ecstasy. I don't get it, I don't want to get it, I don't care that I don't get it. I find it deadly boring, probably because my grasp of fashion is such that I can't often tell the best-dressed from the worst-dressed, or either group from the in-between.

I'd like to cram something large and porous into Joan Rivers' mouth, and her little daughter Toto too. A boxing glove, maybe, although a super-sized eclair would do, if it would shut her up for a while. That VOICE, my GOD.

Also, you know what REALLY chaps my hide? All the Academoids get these whompin' big goody-bags full of tens of thousands of dollars of brand-name foo-foo crap. Apparently, all the product pimps are convinced that if a "celeb" gives their particular piece of foo-foo crap a shout-out, swarming hordes of penitents who don't yet own said foo-foo crap will knock each other over running out to the boutiques to purchase it, because a "celeb" said it was a good idea. Why didn't these same swarming penitential hordes listen to the celebs when it was actually a GOOD idea, like when they said Dubya was making a mess of things and it was time for him to go?

In fact, from what I understand, the non-winning nominees apparently get a SECOND goody-bag, even more opulent than the first. The winners, I guess, just get to win. If I was a celebrity I'd have to sit down and think about which one would interest me more. Little gold statue vs. $30,000 worth of stuff....I'd be undecided. But that just shows my undeveloped sense of proportion, I guess.

I'm not interested in the celebrities; I'm not interested in the clothes; I'm not interested in the movies themselves or which one is supposedly so much more worthy than the rest. I am bored to tears by the media coverage, both before and after. Were it not for my little stack of CDs, I would dread the ride to work tomorrow, because even the stations that I LIKE would be yammering on about Best Supporting Actress In A Drama Less Than Three Hours Long Featuring An Animal That Isn't A Caribou, or whatever. I think THAT award will be given around 1:20 AM, somewhere in with the documentaries--which, by the way, are the only movies that interest me, other than the animateds. (Incidentally: "Shark Tale" is an actual nominee? What the hell is the rest of the field like?)

Oh, and Chris Rock? Would make it worth watching, if there was a chance in hell that he would actually get to BE Chris Rock, which...not even a little bit. Justin and Janet made sure THAT wouldn't be an option.

And so I sit here, the last unchurched woman in America, watching--oddly enough--Apocalypse Now, except it's on AMC which means they've cut out all the swears. This leaves approximately thirty minutes of unbowdlerized footage, which is demoralizing in the extreme.

Oscar night. The...horror.