You’d think I’d be satisfied being a loser in my teenagers’ eyes. But noooo, I want to be an even bigger loser. Hollywood style.
We’re now in the run of awards shows — Golden Globes, Sags, Emmys and Oscars — where ordinary folks like you and me (but happen to have the title of “celebrity”), who have a job (but happen to earn 4 gazillion more dollars per week than we earn in a decade), get free stuff handed to them. And not the sausage on a toothpick at Sam’s Club type of free stuff – expensive stuff like fur-lined slippers, jewelry, video games and a leather jacket you and I’d have to sell our car to afford.
Businesses and designers compete and pay big bucks for the right to provide party favors for attendees, including all those non-winners, in hopes stars will be seen in public wearing their brand’s $500 hat or $300 wireless headsets.
One year, the Oscar’s Loser Bag contained $7000 worth of gifts, including a pair of Vera Wang sunglasses ($250), a digital pen that remembers and organizes everything you write ($200), a gift certificate for Lasik surgery ($4000) and mink lined slippers.
Since so many celebrities are anti-fur, I, a Loser, could go home with a few extra pairs for my family and friends. “Hey Susan, you’re not really gong to wear those slippers after last month’s protest rally are you? Can I have ’em?”
Oh, and the gift “bag” is not the kind I buy at the Dollar Tree. It’s a $1000 piece of Burberry luggage.
I’d love to be a loser at the Grammys too. Past participants received gifts worth $21,000. Besides the traditional “gift basket”, celebrities “shopped” in the “Gift Lounge” — a room stocked with free goodies provided by vendors. That’s right — they just walked around the room and took whatever they wanted.
I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall to see who took what. Did Faith grab a few LIV Fashion dolls and bottle of Mariah’s new perfume for her daughters? Which smoothie drinking stars went for the $150 Sunbeam blender? Celebrities could time the length of acceptance speeches with $525 watches and take photos with $400 digital cameras. Would they lower themselves to carry around a designer purse that retails for only $800? Perhaps the Nanny’s birthday was coming up.
But what I really want to know is who, among that group of capped and bonded smiles still needed the $600 gift certificate from BriteSmile. And do they want to trade it for a pair of mink lined slippers?
