It’s Award Season

Choose your publicist, choose your designer, choose your date: MPM takes a look at the dating game behind Awards ceremonies.

By Tim Shiner

It's Award Season, You've made out your acceptance speech, practiced your "It's an honor to just be nominated" look, and have your designer of choice lined up. There's only one accessory you need: the perfect date. Harry Winston won't have them; Chanel won't, either; you can't find them on Match.com; and your Yenta just won't do for this special night. So, where do you go? Your PR firm, of course!

You can bet that Lindsay Lohan won't be going with a band member from Crash Test Dummies - you see, Award Nights are the perfect Image Booster. Working backward, MPM turns its eyes to how a celebrity on each level of Hollywood's pecking order chooses a date for this season's biggest-ticket events.

D and C celebrities could do worse than to find a date that guarantees them at least a mention on the slew of tabloid worst-dressed lists! With a career to build, the Oscar Wilde-ism rings true: "There's only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is NOT being talked about."

B-class celebrities have a more difficult decision - they would do well to show true style and class, but a bit of scandal isn't bad, either. Now, if the B-lister already has a bit of a bawdy reputation or a checkered Hollywood dating history, then they'll find no one better to take than a close family member. Family dating is "in" at the moment, and A-listers will only be seen with their kin: Charlize and her mom, Nicole Kidman and her sister, Spielberg and his kids - it's a perfectly wholesome look (until the mind's eye recalls that kiss between Angelina Jolie and her brother).

These are times in which celebs attempt to play it safe on the red carpet. In the Golden Years of Hollywood, studios would cultivate and groom their stars, setting them up with the perfect companion to the perfect event. In this day and age, where the media and paparazzi follow fame right into the restroom, it is the individual star's responsibility to create and maintain a certain image.