Obviously everyone knows that The People's Choice Awards—which aired last night in a cacophony tunnel specially constructed by CBS from Queen Latifah yells, tinny guitar riffs, and the guy from Rascal Flatts' leather button-down-shirt—exists. It floats above our heads at all times in tiny microscopic pieces like the Wonka bar in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, or like Jenna Elfman's unending ambition. But what no one knows is why the People's Choice Awards exists. What is this proud, pointless popularity contest that seeks to reward popular things by informing them, thru Waterford crystal™ blobs, that they are popular? Don't popular things already know they are popular by virtue of other, more accurate measures, like ratings and ticket sales? Who would make such a thing? Holy shit Johnny Depp actually showed up for this?
The main problem with The People's Choice Awards is that it has no pretense of importance—The Waterford crystal blobs should have giant stickers on the front that say, "Everyone likes you!"—but in order for an awards show to be at all interesting, it has to be pretentious. It has to be "movies change lives" montages, and lifetime achievement awards, and dramatically trembling hands clutching ugly statuettes. Someone has to take it seriously, because if not, this happens:
"Thanks so much for this award! It means so much. Now here are 100s of slices of DiGiornos pizza for you. It's not delivery, it's DiGiornos™!"
Clearly there should be a People's Choice Award for Favorite Seamless Product Integration At The Peoples Choice Awards. (And next year, there defnitely will be.)
And this happens:
"I'd like to thank God for giving everyone in this room a love for entertainment…that they can completely ignore for 2 hours in order to withstand this droning, nonsensical, utterly unenjoyable spectacle. And I'd like to thank God for the bricks that all of you are no doubt hitting yourselves in the head with right now in order to see if it's possible to feel something more painful than watching this show. Thanks!"
If nothing else, at least The People's Choice Awards gave Carrie Underwood an occasion to wear that oversized sugar cage dress (dyed black for evening) that had been sitting in the back of her closet.
Also, this happens:
"That's gonna look so hot on my Facebook. No, wait, my twitter. No, wait, emblazoned on the side of my sword as I commit hara-kiri because at this point it's the only decent thing for me to do after subjecting everyone to that painful two minute commercial interlude for Kodak, the People's Choice for pocket video cameras™."
The People's Choice Awards seems to desperately want to be The MTV Movie Awards Presented To You By Verizon V-Cast Phones, which is a strange goal considering a large number of people throughout the country have built underground shelters to protect themeselves from the hazardous fallout should the MTV Movie Awards implode again. People have taken helicopters just to escape MTV awards shows. No one needs a pale copy of those horror shows with Queen Latifah in place of Russell Brand.