Thank goodness, it's award season!

Yes, it's that season, folks, when celebrities of greater and lesser fame parade up and down red carpets collecting vaguely phallic trophies as awards, I believe, mostly for showing up, and thereby providing much amusement for us clothes-watchers.

I regard female celebrities as fair game for criticism not only because they put themselves out there for comment, but because they're usually quite good-looking and built for the wearing and display of clothing. So when one of them is looking less than her best it's not because she's dealing with the effects of some immutable genetic characteristic, but because of a lapse of taste, which could have been dealt with by looking in the mirror, chosing a dress of the correct size (and of course for most of these women that means putting on a size 2 instead of a size 0), firing the stylist or wearing a pair of panties. In other words, I'm criticizing the behavior, not the person (although in the case of those starlets who constantly appear without underwear, behavior is affected by character, and that's perhaps a bit more personal).

Anyhoo, this week some organization or other gave out the People's Choice Awards. I don't know who the people choosing the recipients are, and after reviewing the red carpet photos, I don't know who half the people receiving the awards are, either, so I guess these are rather Brand-X awards. Accordingly we got some Brand-X clothing on the red carpet, Exhibit A being the skin tight gold pleather schmatta worn by Halle Berry in the top left photo. When a dress makes one of the most beautiful women in the world look like she has a saggy bosom, a lumpy middle, and heavy thighs, you have to know that's one baaaaaad dress. Ms. Berry's lapse of taste was made more obvious by the presence of Vanessa Williams, a comparable African-American goddess, at the same show. Halle's short and trying-to-hard-to-be-sassy dress looks sleazy, Vanessa's short and really sassy dress looks great, perhaps because it's not short AND low AND tight. Whatever: game Vanessa. Halle, steal her stylist.

Jennifer Anniston was there, receiving an award for "favorite female movie star." As a result of the constant media-whoring of Brangelina, I'm member of "Team Anniston," and I was happy to see Jennifer out in a sexy, form fitting dress. See? See? the former wife, you know, the one who doesn't try to convince the world she invented acting or charity, has a nice rack too. But I wasn't so happy to see her out with what appeared to be a mustache and zits on her chin, both of which were probably the result of bad makeup and shadows cast by unruly hair. Jen, sweety, as my mother used to say to me: "Go comb your hair and put on some lipstick, you'll feel better." Really, even though that bitch is on the cover of January Vogue glowing in a red dress and you had to show up at an awards show where your maybe ex-boyfriend was also honored, you will.

The blonde girl in the pretty retro blue dress (I like the way it looks in the not-so-shiny photo) is an actress named Katherine Heigel. IMDB.com tells me that she's on a TV series called Gray's Anatomy, a show I haven't seen and probably never will see. But damn, she's pretty! Her perfect skin looks like buttercream icing. I think I hate her.

Cameron Diaz and Sandra Oh both got fugged for the black dresses they wore to the awards. I can't agree with the Fug Girls on these two choices. Sure, Cameron's dress, a baby-doll pouf, is probably too young for her, and both dresses could only be worn by ultra-slender celebrity-types, but they ARE being worn by ultra slender celebrity types. The two dresses are also black, which masks a lot of mistakes (imagine them in my current favorite, orange -- oooh, I shudder), they're a bit different from the usual, and they both fit. So like the judges on Project Runway, I'll give both Cameron and Sandra points for taking risks.

I can't do the same for the ladies in the last two pictures, Rebecca Gayheart and Lizzy Caplan. The pale colors of their dresses makes both of them look like they're staggering down the runway in search of transfusions -- when will this damn flesh-colored lipstick and dress trend be over? Rebecca's dress also gives her that dreaded toilet-paper cozy silhouette. Lizzy's dress looks like she got it off the clearance rack at some low-end vintage store specializing in the 1970s castoffs of really tall girls. The whole garment just drags her down, and, it's peach. Peach. I'll stand up and defend orange, tangerine, coral and rust, but peach is a color that doesn't look good on anyone. And what's with that strange mismatched midriff insert? Oh, honey, no. Just. No.