Rihanna at the Grammys, wearing Giambattista Valli Couture. Picture / AP Images.
Rihanna at the Grammys, wearing Giambattista Valli Couture. Picture / AP Images.
Commentators can lose perspective with the cruel critiques they throw at celebrities who try too hard.
It's awards season, which means that best and worst dressed lists abound. Baftas, Grammys ... is it really a year since Lorde won big? Funny how wearing a white shirt and black pants to sing in and a long black gown to collect her two Grammys in was seen assome sort of outsider statement. Or maybe it was the black nails that earned her the ridiculous Goth Queen title in 2014.
Needless to say, more cyberspace is devoted to online fashion and beauty critiques than to analysing the performing accomplishments of the various nominees.
You can see why Ella Yelich-O'Connor has mostly avoided walking the red carpet, but since stepping out at the Golden Globes and being dubbed the Crop Top Queen, she's celebrity clickbait like the rest. Good luck staying true to your own course in those murky waters.
Pity poor Keira Knightley who probably needs her actual waters to break live on camera to distract talk about her widely panned pregnancy wardrobe. Imagine the terrific one-liner the late lamented head Fashion Policewoman Joan Rivers would have made of that. Not to mention Madonna's mooning about.
See, it's too easy sizing up women solely by their appearance, although occasionally they ask for it. I'm as guilty as the next person of flicking through magazines and clicking through the websites - and a bit of gratuitous glamour and style inspiration never goes astray - but let's keep it in perspective. The sort of perspective that doesn't include sneaky close-ups of cellulite, searching for surgery scars and measuring thigh gaps.
Image obviously sells - as celebrities marketing themselves and product pushers know - but let's not dress up vacuous envy with cheap laughs or over-exposure.
