I spend my days discussing things like pedagogy and scholarship. By the time I get home, I’m damn near comatose. I cozy up to my dog, sip some Malbec. Feet up on the ottoman. Then at 7 p.m., E! News.
E! News is my jam. Plenty of other professors watch PBS while listening to NPR and reading the New York Times. Somebody’s got to watch Giuliana Rancic break the day’s shit down.
Awards season is my jammy jam. And we’re in the thick of it. Celebrities, couture, diamonds, sexy men in tuxedos who look like regular sexy men in tuxedos though they’re really sexy men in tuxedos protecting big-ass diamonds. HOT.
You’ve got the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, and the Grammys. And, finally, the big swinging dick: the Oscars.
For anyone who loves awards season as much as I do, you know that some hot mess is required. Two shows deep, we’ve met the quota. At the Golden Globes, Jeremy Renner made that live, on-stage, sexual harassment-y comment about JLo’s own “globes.”
Sunday, on the SAG Awards red carpet, TNT’s Danielle Demski went on about Rashida Jones’s tropical tan, to which Rashida, in a moment of pure honesty that was pure genius, replied, “I’m ethnic.” Last week, Benedict Cumberbatch appeared on Tavis Smiley and used the phrase, “colored actors.” People have called out the Academy for snubbing Selma.
But something else is “trending.” And it won’t stop. E! News is all a-tingle.
Girl-on-girl red carpet action.
It’s true: At the Golden Globes arrivals, Jennifer Aniston, during her live interview with E!, touched Kate Hudson’s butt. Was it such a big deal that E! had to show Aniston footage of that interview while interviewing her, again, at the SAG Awards?
And yes: at said SAG Awards, again on E!, Reese Witherspoon talked about Sofia Vergara’s posterior. Then Vergara joined Witherspoon at the mic so the two of them could talk about making out and squeezing each other.
E! is now Titillation Central. As if Witherspoon and Vergara talking about making out means, at any second, they’ll actually start making out. As if Jennifer Aniston will get up on Kate Hudson’s ass at home, pull a Ray J and film it, and sell the tape to the public.
And, then, of course, the inevitable global moment when the Jell-O comes out and sexy women catfights commence.
Rrrr.
We live in a hyper-sexualized, misogynistic, heteronormative society that can’t negotiate its own homoeroticism. So sayeth Daytime Erica.
Nighttime Erica says, Let’s roll with it. I want E! News to treat Sunday’s Super Bowl like it’s part of awards season.
Giuliana: Run past Security to the sidelines and ask Marshawn Lynch about his package.
Producers: Find a clip of Brady smacking Gronkowski ass. Cut it with footage of Giuliana asking Lynch about his package. Ask Brady and Gronkowski to appear on Monday’s telecast and show them the footage. In slow motion. Ask Lynch for a comment.
#PACKAGE
If this doesn’t happen, I’m boycotting all future red carpets this season.
Of course, no one cares. Ratings won’t suffer. Blah blah blah.
But come on, E!. Guys got to get theirs. Everyone knows that. It’s just like, you know, nature, or something.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2015.
