Hooray For Hollywood...

It' s Oscar© Time again, and you know what that means...
Hordes of Hollywood Stars being interviewed by plastic talking heads on the red carpet who can barely keep their names straight, featuring tons of stupid plugs for ugly designer fashions and awkward pauses followed by insincere well-wishing. To top it off, over a billion people will watch worldwide. Most of whom haven't seen but one of the nominated films, if that.

Don't even get me started on the gift bags. I have always loved the fact that nimrod businesses give jillions of dollars worth of free designer crap and meals away each year to the very people who are their target consumer...the wealthy. Just so MAYBE a camera or BOLDFACED TYPE columnist will show/mention said wealthy celeb using their product, wearing it, driving it, whatever, so that the millions of lemmings who watch EXTRA! or read THE STAR might run out to buy their very own widget because Clooney/Reese/Gwenyth has one, too. Puh-lease.
Give me a large personal break.
The argument is, the gift bags are necessary to keep people interested in presenting at awards shows. Right. Because the one rehearsal and nineteen seconds of reading a TelePrompter™ are THAT taxing on the glitterati, we need to bribe them so they don't (Gasp!) just stay home and watch on the couch in their pajamas like everyone else...

Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair, makes a good point when he says that Celebrity is at an all-time low in this country. I couldn't agree more. The latest SURVIVOR, Bill Rancic, Paris Hilton...how are these people famous? What about them is interesting to ANYONE? In old Hollywood, movie stars and singers had style, class, grace, and elegance. Cary Grant, Bogie, Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Ol' Blue Eyes...today, we've got Justin Timberlake dressed like a skater punk who hangs out at the Dadeland Mall, lil Kim jiggling her nasty boobs all over the place, and guys like Colin Farrell braggging about his drunken drug use, and Russell Crowe slamming concierges in the head with telephones. Not to mention those little sluts Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan running around taking ditziness to new heights (depths?).

Stay classy, Hollywood. Stay classy. Proud of you. Not.