KESSLER
Scientists, cashiers, plumbers; the list of professional people who are good at their jobs goes on and on, but it doesn’t matter because most of those people are total nobodies who’d still look ugly in free designer clothes and expensive jewelry. They may have a certain knack for performing the menial tasks that make the world spin round, but pretty much nothing they do is good enough to be recognized this awards season, so who needs ‘em. Yes, it’s early February and the act of handing out congratulatory celebrity accolades has begun in earnest. Anyone who’s anyone is eligible to take home a statuette for pretending to be someone else or singing a song about their feelings that impresses everyone, because they were actually able to write it themselves– or at least sing it as though they wrote it themselves.

It all started back in mid-January when the entertainment industry showed us the power of democracy, allowing both the peasants and the prosperous to let it be known just which entertainers they like best, bestowing their favorite actors and actresses with the least meaningful of honors – that of the People’s Choice. While they gleefully accepted such high praise from their adoring fans, being well aware of the fact that most people are idiots, they began to look ahead to getting a more prestigious feather for their metaphorical cap.

Then came the Globes of Golden, given out by adoring international critics of the Hollywood Foreign Press, where anyone who’s anyone was feted with a glorious dinner, a flowing fountain of the finest champagne, and endless praise to inflate their wanting egos. It was a night to remember– even if they had to run the gauntlet of hurtful jabs at the hands of an equally praiseworthy jester.

Following a recent string of accolades brought upon by a jury of their peers, actors and musical performers alike are set to get their most coveted awards in grand ceremony marked by expensive gift bags and increasingly glittery dresses and jewelry. It’s quite the public spectacle and provides irrefutable evidence that celebrities are just better and more talented than normal people–and while we’ll never be amongst them, we have every right to sing their praises and pretend that to them the biggest reward of all is acceptance of their abilities and not the $3 million paycheck they got for pretending to be their own twin sister. After all, it’s honor enough just to be nominated.

DUBLIN
I won’t lie to you, Evan. There were many times as a child where I stood in front of my mirror, holding a Barbie doll, practicing my Oscar acceptance speech. Quite often I’d be wearing one of my mom’s nightgowns to replicate the glamour of evening wear, doing my best haughty actress voice. My father, ever the supportive parent (big NOT), would drolly refer to me as “Sarah Bernhardt” whenever I got overly dramatical, and when I got into NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, he refused to pay the tuition, crushing my acting dreams. After all, this was the man who fell asleep during every single play I was in during high school. Even though I went on to major in Drama at not one, but two different non-NYU establishments, I never got past the fact that people were looking at me, all judgey-like, kind of exactly how my dad made me feel. Issues, yo. So even though I’d try my best in class, I knew deep down in my black little heart that I’d never stand at a podium, thanking my passel of agents and friends for making this honor possible.

Nowadays, I don’t give a shit what people think, and I no longer see myself as Oscar material. But Oscar DATE material? Oh fuck yes. Because no one really cares who wins these things–in fact, it seems to stir more people into frenzies of Tweets when an actor DOESN’T get an award—they care about what they looked like when they showed up. And since you and I are still navigating the Seas of Poverty and Depression (or maybe that’s just me), you have to admit it would not suck in the least to have just one night of non-brain usage. Awards shows are the ultimate celebration of superficiality and frivolity, so I say embrace it for a couple of hours. I have no shame in admitting I’d love the star treatment. The fuss of hair and makeup and designer gownage; to be led into a gifting suite and told I can have THAT and THAT and THAT; to be sat amongst the shiny and pretty people, fed gourmet foodstuffs and fancy fizzy wines; and to meet those who pay more for their jeans than I did for my car. For one night, be it amongst weirdly dressed hip-hop stars at the Grammys who’d scare the be-Moses out of our grandmothers or George Clooney at the SAG Awards, I could put aside my beliefs that the monies spent on these extravanganzas should go to the homeless or my kids’ well-being or something. I’ll entertain any reasonable offers.

Translation: I know where I’ll be come Oscar night: on my couch in my sweats, live-Tweeting the snark while my sons ask me every five minutes if the show is over yet. And we already know the answer to THAT one. Which reminds me, someone get Billy Crystal and Bruce Vilanch on the horn and tell them I infinity-triple-dog dare them to make the show less that three hours. The gauntlet, she is thrown.

KESSLER
How dare you mock my heartfelt sentiment by calling Award Shows “the ultimate celebration of superficiality and frivolity.” I’ll watch the Oscars and Grammy Awards and what-not, but not at the behest of gawking at shinier people. Sure that’s what people at the shallow end of the gene pool will be doing, but I watch to catch a glimpse of the Meryl Streeps, Taylor Swifts, and the Nic Cages’s of the world whose performances have made me feel alive as I stared at a silver screen or blasted musical notes into my ears in the attempt to gain some sort of life experience if only by osmosis.

Not only have they enriched my life with their various talents, but they’ve made the world a better place. Sure the beautiful people may be astoundingly attractive, but they emanate this appeal from the inside out. People like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are better than you and me because they adopt children from all over the world and give them fauxhawks. They carry the mantle of celebrity and do so much good without asking for anything in return because they have so much already. Of course they deserve that moment in the sun to walk that red carpet, as well as that nomination for best actress for The Changeling even though nobody really saw that. After all, if it weren’t for awards season, when would we ever get to hear about what celebrities are up to, let alone see them? There’s nothing superficial and frivolous about it.

While people like you and I are frequently showered with praise every night in dream sequences and the occasional blog comment, celebrities live in an insular world filled with one another at their Hollywood mansions and villas in Turks and Caicos–or some secret island you’ve never heard of. Don’t stare at them like they’re creatures in a zoo; simply clap and say “thank you for your sacrifice, Emilio Estevez. You’ve made my world all the more vibrant in films like The Breakfast Club, Young Guns and Men at Work (but not so much Young Guns II).”

DUBLIN
Definitely not Men at Work. And not Maximum Overdrive, neither.

The common argument against awards shows is why televise them at all, when they have nothing whatsoever to do with the public? We don’t get go to these parties, but we get to watch other people have fun at them. What a masochistic ritual! It’s like eating a steak dinner in front of someone who’s on a diet. It enforces the separatist views in our society, the Star-Bellied Sneeches vs Those With No Stars On Thars. Think about it: who votes for the winners? Their respective industry insiders, not the consumers who shelled out fourteen bucks to see Albert Brooks play the role of his life in Drive, and then have nothing to show for it other that the chance to whine about it on the internet. Of course, burdening Americans with the task of voting for the most deserving winner is indeed hinky. See: George W. Bush and Taylor Hicks, for example.

And if it does have to be televised, may I ask why we need twelve solid hours of pre-show coverage? Honestly, most wars don’t get this amount of camera time. If the people and projects being honored are the best of the best, don’t they deserve better than some bubblehead bobblehead chick from E! who can’t walk in her heels bellowing, “OH MA GAH YOU LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL!” into their faces? Nay, don’t we all deserve better?

KESSLER
I don’t like your intimation that awards shows separate the “star-bellied sneeches” from “Those with No Stars on Thars.” If anything, awards shows are inclusive of many different kinds of people, just not normal people. Why do you think the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated The Help for so many awards this year. It goes to show you that they totally want to give awards to black people and not just Meryl Streep or people who starred in Moneyball. Look how far society has come– and Hollywood is at the forefront of that social revolution. Give yourself a nice pat on the back and make sure to post pictures of Denzel Washington holding that statuette in every newspaper and magazine! Three cheers for us all being equals in Hollywood!

As for your E! red carpet-covering bubblehead comment, the reason for the employment of the specific brand of on-air talent in question is an obvious one. You can’t, in good conscience hire someone so talented that they outshine the stars on these most special of evenings. The night is all about celebrities, not about the lady holding the microphone who knows not the slightest thing about maintaining composure or talking to other human beings. And by comparison, wouldn’t anyone seem the lesser talking to a George Clooney or the ghost of Jessica Tandy?

DUBLIN
Evan always did have a way of explaining things.

Now that you point it out, it all makes perfect sense to me. Better to not question the spectacle and just sit back and enjoy it, regardless of source material or lack thereof. Let those who have worked the long hours on the sets in exotic locales such as London, Bora Bora, and Burbank, bask in the glory that can only come from a self-congratulatory pat on the back.

Pass the popcorn, pal, and don’t put your feet on my coffee table. We gots watching to do.

KESSLER
My money’s on War Horse for best sound mixing. The clickety-clack of those horseshoes just sounded all too real, like a horse and a war was in the room with me.

DUBLIN
That’s the magic of Hollywood, my friend. Embrace it.