You've Been Slimed...

Jack Black 2011 KAC

Every year Nickelodeon puts on a large, spectacular show called the Kids Choice Awards (KCA). It honors the year's biggest television, movie, and music acts, as voted by Nickelodeon viewers. Winners receive a hollow blimp figurine for their award, which is the logo for the network; it also functions as a kaleidoscope. Another tradition and spectacle of Nickelodeon is the green slime. That is another large part of the show's production, often sliming the celebrities at different intervals throughout the show.

When the 2011 KCA aired, we were studying Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. Also, it was when many film, music, and entertainment awards shows were occurring as well. From Debord's aphorism #60, "The celebrity, the spectacular representation of a living human being, embodies this banality by embodying the image of a possible role... Celebrities exist to act out various styles of living and viewing society - unfettered, free to express themselves globally.

Katy Perry - 2011 KCA

#62 "...Wherever there is abundant consumption, a major spectacular opposition between youth and adults comes to the fore among the false roles - false because the adult, master of his life, does not exist and because youth, the transformation of what exists, is in no way the property of those who are now young, but of the economic system, of the dynamism of capitalism. Things rule and are young; things confront and replace one another." 

Host Jack Black & Fergie

This observation rules in favor of the "things", the commodity. It also follows the concept that things are perishable and ready to change at any moment. The concept of "so last season" and need for "the next best thing" drive this spectacle, especially the celebrities, to find and exude new concepts and have those feelings of wanting to be the biggest spectacle, the most remembered. The reason that these people are even considered celebrities is because of our own consumption as a society. We allow these celebrities to dictate many of the choices that we have in the things which we are consuming. 

The SPECTACLE of this particular awards show is shown in costumes, acts, performances, the award it self, and even from the host and the slime. This display is driven by Debord's concept of pseudo-cyclical time, that is a time transformed by the industry. #151 "A product which already exists in a form which makes it suitable for consumption can nevertheless in its turn become a raw material for another product." This industry transformations that the celebrities are competing with create their lively hoods.