Into the Madding Crowd

Ryan Seacrest, in all his amber waves of perfectly gelled hair, asks the question du jour of his co-host Giuliana Rancic: “Where were you when he was sworn in?”

“I was actually in hair and makeup. I was listening over the blow dryer,” replies the unnaturally tan, orange sundress donning Rancic.

Missing no step, the American Idol host pulls the patronizing-hand-on-shoulder trick, “I was on the radio…”

Leave it to Seacrest to find some way to plug his radio show on KIIS-FM during E! News’ inauguration coverage.

But so it goes in this hub of Hollywood entertainment news, where self-centeredness is a flattery not a flaw and viewers can see what everyone besides President Obama was doing at the inauguration.

Imagine if CNN Live were a 13-year-old teenybopper with ADHD and you’d be somewhere in the vicinity of the E! News’ roundup of this red-letter day.

While they had their man on the street amongst the lively masses and played a cursory montage of clips from the ceremony, both E! and its audience know that’s not what they’re on this channel for.
Cue the Beyonce and Jay-Z, Dustin and Lisa Hoffman and Oprah Winfrey slide show. “The stars were just like everybody else!” exclaims Rancic in a voice over, attempting to reaffirm a most implausible statement.

And judging by the amount of time devoted to each segment, it seemed as though Ms. Winfrey’s pre-inauguration bash may have eclipsed the event itself. After all, it received a full account and summary thanks to Ken Baker, E! executive news editor. In his ‘exclusive’ behind the scenes interview, the man dropped names like hot cakes, each name accompanied by a two second clip of the star. Blink and you lost the better half of the list: Gayle King, Maria Shriver, Demi and Ashton and Angela Bassett included.

Ne’er you mind though, because the only worthwhile portion of this segment was the close up of Ms. O rapturously singing along to a joint performance by Will.I.Am [Does he ever miss a political publicity stunt, ever?], Seal, Mary J. Blige and Faith Hill.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” attests the nasal-pitched editor.

Loosely leaping from the Oprah party to the Huffington Post one, E! launches into another spiraling tirade of names and faces [Val Kilmer, Jessica Alba, Gerard Butler, Shakira and Fall Out Boy], followed by a medley of the stars commenting on what the day means to them.

The most astonishing thing about E!’s coverage is its ability to marry frivolous gossip to something as significant as the inauguration. Case A for inspection: Oh no, a Jonas Brother and Miley Cyrus awkwardly hugged at Disney Channel’s “Kids Inaugural” concert, if only I possessed less brain cells so that I could be remotely interested in the back story behind it!

Or for the zinger, courtesy Ryan Seacrest: “The question that President Obama is dying to know the answer to, ‘who is this sexy mother in this little bikini?’” he says, unevenly transitioning back into E!’s typical fare — a “how does she get so skinny after just having a baby?” super model.

Perhaps our bright-toothed, modern-day fop of a host says it best when he concludes the show on, “your source for M.I.L.F.’s and the Inauguration.”