Monday, August 8, 2011

Look At Your Life, Look At Your Teen Choice Awards

Either Hollywood is totally transparent and every motivation is totally clear or it is totally impenetrable and all we are seeing is the fourth or fifth layer of smoke and mirrors they are throwing in front of us. This can be true of politics too, and interpersonal relationships, even. With no way of knowing for sure what you're really seeing, you essentially have to pick an illusion. Your version of the truth.
Which isn't to say people who are listening to Watch The Throne right now in order to hear the secret Illuminati messages aren't crazy--those people are totally crazy. You should keep Occum's Razor in mind when you are designing your version of the truth. But when Taylor Swift excitedly holds Ashley Greene's hand and Ashley looks game in a kind of passive way, it's either because Taylor Swift really cares about the Teen Choice Awards or because she wants to look like she cares about the Teen Choice Awards (and because Ashley Greene genuinely doesn't care but is a nice person or because she wants to look like she doesn't care and is nice or maybe just because she took a bunch of beta-blockers in the limo).
It's tempting to ignore the urge to set up a kind of bedrock principle of Truth when you talk about celebrities. The act of observing something changes it; the Teen Choice Awards happen in anything but a vacuum. You can't shave your pubic hair with Occum's Razor, you know? It's fun to suggest that their traumatic experiences with Joe Jonas have led Ashley Greene, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato to enter into an emotionally respectful polyamorus relationship together, but that (probably) didn't happen last night. Ashley Greene is a kind of boring and average nice person thrust into a weird set of circumstances; Taylor Swift is a teenager exploiting and being exploited by her tangled and ridiculous teenage emotions. Again: probably.
Because even Taylor Swift is eerily capable of handling a red carpet. The Teen Choice Awards were held at the Gibson Theater in LA last night, the same place where I stood on the red carpet a few months ago and held awkward interviews with whoever the harried publicists threw at me. I watched the live feed from several cameras last night and had Vietnam-like flashbacks at my computer, watching reporters jockey for position and listening to photographers and producers shouting "Ashley! Ashley! Can you look over here Ashley? Can I get Ashley for In-Style? Jesus Christ, can I get Ashley?" People like Zooey Deschanel stood in the midst of all that commotion and struck calculatingly seductive poses. In the pictures she looks fine, I'm sure, but in the context of that whole tableau it was indescribably off-putting and terrifying.
But for every moment that makes Hollywood look like an incomprehensible illusion factory there are human ones, too. On live camera three Joel McHale complained about the heat, couldn't figure out which camera he was supposed to be talking to and then apologized profusely for getting in the way of someone's shot of Nikki Reed. He told reporters he felt bad that they had to stand out there for so long (which is exactly what five or six people on the other side of the barricade told me in June). Right before the show started the live cameras finally found Ashley Greene, who was standing at the barricades by the doors signing autographs and telling everyone it was nice to meet them. "I'm pulling Ashley right now," someone could be heard saying. Ashley glanced over her shoulder at the voice, turned back to the fan she was talking to and said, "It's okay."

Coverage of the TCAs via 247Greene: Part 1, Part 2

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