As I’m feeling the need for some diverting cynicism, what better place to look than a dose of Marina Hyde‘s Lost in Showbiz column?
In an age where the beautiful people consider a product launch a perfectly edifying way to spend an evening, it’s fair to say it was the parties that got small. But even by the standards of modern celebrity, some events feel auto-parodic.
And so to Celebrity Spectacle Wearer of the Year – an annual ceremony held in one guise or another for the past 17 years, which this week took place in a lavish blowout at the Royal Opera House. Hundreds were in attendance.
You might think that being pictured on this particular red carpet would constitute a resignation from the entertainment industry, justifiable only if the star in question claimed their presence was a piece of performance art. Yet there they all were. Host Gok Wan, Mel C, Rylan Clark, C-list Zelig Donna Air, Vanessa Feltz – whose gentleman caller posed on the red carpet in a jumper bearing the legend “#teamfeltz”, so do let’s hope that translates into Strictly Come Dancing votes for Vanessa – along with various reality TV alumni. And Lulu, obviously. You can’t do these things without Lulu. If Lost in Showbiz had to plump for a favourite attendee, it would probably be singer Diana Vickers, who appears to have found the title of the event slightly opaque, and posed up for the cameras without her glasses.
According to reports, this galaxy of sublebrities “gathered to raise awareness and money for anti-bullying charity Kidscape“.
And yet, did they? Is that what they truly gathered for? Lost in Showbiz has established from Specsavers that the night raised £35,000 for Kidscape. But it does set one wondering how much money could have been given to the charity had Specsavers just handed over, direct to the charity, the cost of a glittering award ceremony at the Royal Opera House. Indeed, if you wish to swell the notional pile of cash Kidscape won’t be getting from this eyeglassed retinue of caring stars, why not add in the cost of all those stylists, red carpet outfits, limos … Somewhat inevitably, Specsavers decline to elaborate on the precise cost of throwing an awards ceremony of this size, but it seems reasonable to conclude that if everyone involved offered to simply stay in and watch telly and donate what they would have spent on everything from venue hire to a new frock, then Kidscape would be looking at the thick end of a rather bigger donation.
As for what convention demands that we style the coveted awards, I am told there was joy for Dame Edna and the daughter of Simon and Yasmin Le Bon, while a former Britain’s Got Talent finalist won the award for Best Newcomer. Newcomer to spectacles or to fame? “To the world of celebrity,” confirms the Specsavers PR. The world of ophthalmic enhancement had been blessed with him for longer, it turns out.
Still, that’s Celebrity Spectacle Wearer of the Year done for another 12 months – and I think I speak for all those fascinated by the business of glasses-wearing to say that the production has left us clamouring for more. In the meantime, the question is where this modern curiosity fits into the canon of other pointless award ceremonies.
After all, it was only the other week that Taylor Swift was gushing from the stage at the 41st Annual Fragrance Foundation awards. And while you might think showbiz perfumery isn’t that unworthy of garlanding, it’s that “41st” in the title that really gives a sense of the scale of the task humanity faces. None of which is to detract from the achievements of Taylor, who scooped the Fragrance Celebrity of the Year award. Not Celebrity Fragrance of the Year – that’s something else entirely, apparently – but Fragrance Celebrity of the Year. (Nope. Me either.)
Then, of course, you’ve got the myriad versions of Celebrity Mum of the Year, run annually by everyone from supermarkets to online gambling firms – none of whose previous winners include Joan Crawford and Medea, although they absolutely would have had the organisers thought either of them would have turned up to the ceremony. The same goes for the equivalent Dad of the Year trophies, with bookies already believed to have stopped taking bets on Simon Cowell for 2014.
And naturally, no discussion of self-satirising awards would be complete without a mention for the Awards Awards, which was inaugurated in 2004 to honour the best award ceremonies of the year.
In the end, though, the one Lost in Showbiz really struggles to get past is Celebrity Nose of the Year. Yes, Celebrity Nose of the Year: here is the award that somehow makes Rear of the Year look like part of the Nobel stable. Less a date for your diary than the final item on an end times checklist – yet an event that is comfortably established after six years on the awards circuit. Last year’s winner? Well, whaddayaknow, my ducks – it was a certain Taylor Swift. And if madam completes the trifecta at next year’s Celebrity Spectacle Wearer of the Year, then I think we can agree her trophy cabinet would make the definitive early-21st-century time capsule.
Filed under: celebrity, humour Tagged: celebrity, marina hyde
