What’s the Opposite of Oscar?
Posted by girlpaint | Filed under fashion, self-improvement
I knew EVERYONE and her dawg was going to be blogging about the Academy Awards today, and for some reason I just wanted to avoid the whole thing.
To be honest with you, I haven’t enjoyed the Oscars–much less any of the other awards shows–in a few years. It seems they’ve all changed their focus from the stuff being honored to the stuff coming down the red carpet. I know, I know. As much as I’m obsessed with beauty and fashion (look at my blog for Gawd’s sake), I’m just afraid “it” has become so homogenized, vanilla, dare-I-say boring? I mean, have you visited the Oscars website? Front and center is a video embed featuring some Entertainment Tonight “correspondent” selling us the latest red-carpet story. Geez-louise.
So, here I am wondering what to post. The opposite of Oscar? But what though? Something sorta punk-rock, independent, vintage, intelligent…?
That train of thought immediately led me to London street fashion, especially in the 1970′s. Iconist images of torn clothing, brightly-colored spikey hair, highly contrasting stripes, the Union Jack, leather, plastic, safety pins.
Then I remembered: every bit of London Street had been packaged and sold, too. Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McClaren, ForbiddenLondon.com (oh really?) and the endless stream of individuals and corporations paying homage to these creative kids and their crazy duds…guess what? That homage became none other than a new fad, the latest fashion trend, packaged, homogenous. I see it even now reflected in the skinny jeans and leather jackets the young hipsters are sporting. All the way down to Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker (okay, that might be a bit of a stretch but not much of one).
I began to wonder: is nothing safe? Sacred? Above being bought and sold?
My answer: no. And that’s the nature of the world of beauty, fashion, and yes, even movies and Hollywood. In fact, Hollywood is one of the biggest “homage-payers,” or offenders, whichever way you want to look at it. The old saying, “everything old is new again” rings true year after year, collection after collection, movie after movie.
So what’s my point? Honestly I’m not sure if I have one, but I think my avoidance of all things-Hollywood this past year right up to Oscar is further evidence of my need for inspiration, something new and fresh. Some thing to pay homage to, if you will.
So I ask: what inspires you? Oh yes, and did your Oscar predictions win?
Tags: fashion, Hollywood, inspiration, Oscar, won
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:15 PM
I’m with ya Girlpaint, the Oscars have become just another marketing platform for Hollywood. They don’t care about making good movies anymore, they’re about making the movie the can then MARKETING THE HELL out of it.
Take Slumdog for example, I’m sure it’s entertaining, but if it’s Oscar worthy, then so were all the movies we grew up with. Give Sixteen Candles or Bad News Bears a retroactive Oscar for god’s sake.
I don’t think I could respect the Oscars until they pulled out the envelope and said “And the Oscar for best picture goes to …. NOBODY, they all sucked.”