"Just look at all the awards shows now. It has turned into a catwalk. You have to be wearing a certain designer, a certain dress, and everyone's critiquing"
About this Quote
Portia de Rossi is calling out a red-carpet ecosystem that’s stopped pretending it’s secondary to the art. Awards shows used to be a weird, glamorous annex to the main event: the work. Her line lands because it flips the hierarchy. The “catwalk” isn’t just a metaphor for fashion; it’s an accusation that the ceremony has been reorganized around consumption, branding, and surveillance. The dress becomes the performance, and the actor becomes the mannequin.
The specificity is the point: “a certain designer, a certain dress.” She’s describing a narrow lane of acceptable taste, where individuality is less prized than legibility. Wearing the “right” label signals membership in a club whose currency is access - to stylists, loaned couture, sponsorships, and the photo economy that now extends the show’s lifespan for weeks. The critique isn’t anti-fashion so much as anti-obligation: you don’t choose a look; you comply with a system.
Her last clause, “everyone’s critiquing,” widens the indictment. It’s not just industry gatekeepers. It’s an audience trained to participate in judgment as entertainment, where hot takes about hemlines and bodies feel safer than arguing about performance, power, or politics. Coming from an actress who’s lived inside that machinery, the comment has a weary intimacy: she’s naming how even celebration gets monetized, and how visibility itself becomes labor.
The specificity is the point: “a certain designer, a certain dress.” She’s describing a narrow lane of acceptable taste, where individuality is less prized than legibility. Wearing the “right” label signals membership in a club whose currency is access - to stylists, loaned couture, sponsorships, and the photo economy that now extends the show’s lifespan for weeks. The critique isn’t anti-fashion so much as anti-obligation: you don’t choose a look; you comply with a system.
Her last clause, “everyone’s critiquing,” widens the indictment. It’s not just industry gatekeepers. It’s an audience trained to participate in judgment as entertainment, where hot takes about hemlines and bodies feel safer than arguing about performance, power, or politics. Coming from an actress who’s lived inside that machinery, the comment has a weary intimacy: she’s naming how even celebration gets monetized, and how visibility itself becomes labor.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
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