Me Me Me

The Golden Globes are on Sunday and I’m excited, because it’s the only awards show in which the stars are allowed to get drunk. “Can’t they control themselves?” people at home say to the TV screen. No, they can’t. There’s top-drawer champagne on the table, booze on demand, and they’re nervous about whether they’ll win. You’d drink too. 

The awards themselves are something of a joke, voted on by a small number of foreign “journalists” that Brad and Angelina wouldn’t give the time of day except on this one night. (They’ll be there, though: Angelina has won a ton of Globes over the years; those voters love her.) The Golden Globe people are soooo smart: They plunked their show on TV right before the Academy Award nominations come out, so everybody MUST show up and drunkenly make practice acceptance speeches that will get shorter and more polished by the time they pick up their Oscar. (They hope.)

Another entertaining aspect is watching honest-to-god movie stars mixing with TV actors that the real stars don’t recognize OR care about. Here’s an at-home drinking game for Sunday night: Take a shot the first time an obscure TV actor clutching his/her Globe breathily exclaims, “I can’t BELIEVE I’m in the same room with Clint/Meryl/Sean/fill-in-the-blank-of-actor-I’ve-admired-all-my-life!” Bonus shot if they also say, “I’m SO proud to be an actor.”

But the real fun is before the show, on the red carpet. Boy oh boy, I LOVE the red carpet, and I cannot understand the mindset of any actress who claims to hate it. It’s gotta be the best thing about stardom! Designers elbowing each other to provide their newest and most beautiful dresses, jewels dripping off your ears and wrists. The shoes! The little purses! The hair and makeup! Paparazzi shouting, “Kathy! Over here!” Okay, I went off to dreamland for a second.

The newspapers are already writing tiresome stories about how people will “dress down” at awards shows this year because the economy has tanked. How ridiculous! If Cate Blanchett wears widow’s weeds on the red carpet, will anybody get his money back from Bernie Madoff? (That’s not a good example; Cate Blanchett would look beautiful in a potato sack.) For what it’s worth, I hope the stars pull out all the stops, with a little help from Valentino, Marchesa, and Harry Winston. I will definitely be watching.