Noise D’Jour
26 February 2007
The 1994 Australian film, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, celebrated “a c… in a frock on a rock.” Last night, the Academy Awards red-carpet gowns celebrated ‘rocks on frocks’!
The ‘c…s’, a.k.a. blokes, in their standard-issue dinner suits created a pleasantly neutral backdrop for the ornamented evening dresses favored by many this year.
For those Hollywood girls who wore heavily jeweled frocks with more rocks on fingers and wrists, and diamonds in ears and around necks, their appearance resembled decadently-clad characters from The Fall of the Roman Empire (in the making).
With Oscar nominated Blood Diamond in theaters, I can’t imagine that anyone who sees this movie will be comfortable purchasing diamonds without first knowing if they’re “conflict free.”
“In America,” says Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, an ex-mercenary and diamond smuggler, “it’s bling, bling. Out here, it’s bling, bang!”
I mean really, if you knew the “bling” you’ve had your eye on for some time was mined by enslaved African labor and sold clandestinely to finance rebel wars, wouldn’t you consider a lab-cultured alternative?
At the awards, lives lost from blood diamonds were not the hot topic - it was global warming, that Inconvenient Truth.
Even though I was certain a few weeks ago that climate change is a phenomena happening somewhere other than Boulder, I was wrong. It’s “global” and it will get worse if collectively, we don’t do something about it.
Leonardo is onboard with Al Gore et al., lending his sexified and charismatic self to the cause. I’m thinking I’ll become more active, lend something of mine, maybe meet Leo and chat about the weather, and precious stones from Africa - I can do that!
And just when the evening could’ve been a depressing telecast on the dreadful state of our world, up popped naturally regal Helen Mirren.
Wearing a light gold, sequined (no rocks on her frock) Christian Lacroix, the Dame upstaged all the bejeweled-gowned, bling-laden wannabes positioning for the lead in The Fall of the Roman Empire.
Accepting her Oscar for best actress, she said, “Here’s to the Queen!”
And she wasn’t referring to Priscilla.
March 6th, 2007 at 10:40 am