How do you cover red-carpet fashion during #MeToo? The Fug Girls have some ideas.

Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards will kick off the entertainment industry’s 2018 awards season — and with it, a year’s worth of red-carpet coverage. Fashion writers around the world are gearing up to find the best bon mots to describe the glitzy, glamorous gowns and suits of Hollywood’s biggest stars, and among those writers are Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks, a.k.a. the Fug Girls, who have been writing about fashion on their blog Go Fug Yourself with incisive wit since 2004.

But this year’s Golden Globes promises to be a more somber affair than usual. The ceremony is happening as Hollywood is knee deep in the post-Weinstein reckoning with its culture of sexual abuse and systemic sexism, and its promos — some of which feature the tagline, “Hollywood, we’ve got a lot to talk about” — promise that host Seth Meyers won’t be avoiding the issue. And in support of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, many of those attending have pledged to wear black.

It’s an odd, confusing time to be someone who writes about red carpets, and it’s made some fashion writers rethink the way forward. “Given the enormity of our cultural reckoning in the last year with how women are treated in the workplace, on the internet and in Hollywood,” wrote Choire Sicha for the New York Times Style section, “we want to take a fresh look at how we cover this stuff.”

So I spoke with Fug Girls Morgan and Cocks via email to find out how they’re planning to approach this year’s awards season, in a conversation that covered the feminism of red-carpet coverage, the big business behind high fashion, and the subtext of celebrity fashion choices.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Why are awards show red carpets important to begin with? What do we get out of them?

I mean, I don’t know if I think they’re necessary hugely important in the global scheme of the world — they’re not solving the problem of world hunger! However, I do think that watching the red carpet brings a lot of people a lot of great personal enjoyment, and that’s not nothing, especially lately.

In the most simplistic terms, it’s fun to look at fancy gowns; it’s enjoyable to sit on your sofa and see what your favorite and not-so-favorite actors have chosen to wear for a formal event. Clothes are interesting; they tell a story — and people love a good story.

They’re also big business, to be frank: A celebrity making a giant splash in a gorgeous gown helps her own career, in terms of visibility, but she also gives a tremendous boost to the designer who dressed her. Fashion is a difficult business, and the name-brand exposure that comes from a major red-carpet placement can be huge for designers. Obviously, your average red-carpet viewer probably isn’t going to go out and buy a formal Michael Kors gown — but she might buy perfume, or accessories, which is where most designers actually make the bulk of their money, anyway. So it’s not just a totally fluffy enterprise — lots of money rides on red-carpet exposure.

There’s a longstanding debate over whether red carpets are sexist, because they increase the objectification of actresses, or whether a disdain for red carpets is sexist, because it trivializes fashion and the interests of women. Where do you stand on that debate?

My entire job involves discussing red-carpet fashion, and I am a feminist, so I clearly don’t believe that red carpets are sexist. The idea that being interested in clothing is somehow anti-woman is absurd to me. Men are allowed to be interested in all kinds of things which are patently unserious without it becoming a debate on whether or not their hobby is letting down their gender; fashion is an art form, and the red carpet is often where it gets the greatest amount of exposure to the masses.

It is not a personal or intellectual weakness to like clothes and be interested in them. As far as “objectification of actresses” is concerned, I guess I don’t see the red carpet as being about women as objects as much as I see it more pragmatically as a place primarily designed for promotion and branding. Personal promotion, promotion of a project, a place to launch the rebranding of an actor into whatever she and her manager and agent have decided is the right look for her. The wardrobe for a red-carpet event is given a great deal of thought by stylists and managers and the actors themselves — and to assume that all of those people are operating from a perspective where objectification is the primarily goal is inaccurate, in my opinion.

Agreed. I also don’t think that line of thinking gives any of the participants enough credit for being intelligent, thoughtful human beings. These men and women aren’t hapless people who stumbled into a red-carpet situation without knowledge of what it was; they were coached into it and are showing up as part of their jobs. And sure, some of those celebs may find it a super-tedious part of the gig, but some of them might actually really enjoy clothes and fashion and using it as a form of self-expression, and why is that not okay?

And, not for nothing, but fashion can be an interest of men, too, and men are also on red carpets in suave suits and tuxes, and no one seems to worry about whether admiring those means we’re objectifying them — my point being, this “objectification of women” argument too often takes on a sneering tone implying that women are somehow demeaning themselves by showing up in nice clothes that make them feel great. And that’s absurd. You’re allowed to want to look nice without it being a character flaw.

This year, we’re heading into awards season in the midst of the #MeToo movement and a heightened awareness of sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood. How do you anticipate that atmosphere changing red-carpet interviews?

Well, this is the big question, isn’t it? Frankly, I fully expect some of these interviews to be a mess, because a lot of the people who do red-carpet interviews don’t have the journalistic skill sets to delicately juggle a complicated topic in the span of two minutes — which is not my negging them; covering serious topics in a short period of time is not something even the best journalists necessarily do well.

Red-carpet interviews are also not designed for a thoughtful conversation, generally — they are so short, by nature, and usually do not encompass anything profoundly serious. By design, they are a party atmosphere, and I’m sure everyone at E! is biting their nails right now trying to figure out how to tackle this in a way that doesn’t come across as glib or ham-handed, but still makes tonal sense for their coverage.

I think they’re gonna need some help from the celebrities. Those who want to talk may want to have their points ready and an elegant way of steering toward them, because I have no doubt E! and its ilk will mean well, but as Jessica said, they might not be accomplished enough to pull this off without the celebs throwing them a bone, so that this works to everyone’s benefit.

However, I don’t see a problem with also obtaining a dress credit, because all these clothes are constructed by a lot of people who work really hard, and given usually for free in exchange for the exposure. It’s still a business. I hope people will still generously give wardrobe credit and then move on to the #AskHerMore and #MeToo topics of their choosing. Heck, tell the producers before you go on and let them put up a graphic saying who you’re wearing, if you don’t want to say it yourself.

How are you planning to approach this season’s red carpets at Go Fug Yourself? Do you see yourself changing anything dramatically?

It’s not going to be a dramatic change, although we’re certainly going to discuss why this particular red carpet is different — we can’t pretend this isn’t happening, and nor do we want to. To be wholly honest, awards season is a big and busy time for our business; our choosing not to cover the Globes red carpet, for example, would be financially ill-advised — and I also think it would be somewhat hypocritical, given that we cover red carpets every other day of the year.

Moreover, I actually think this season’s red carpets are going to be extremely interesting from a sociological perspective, for lack of a better term. One of the things we talk about a lot at Go Fug Yourself is that the way people chose to dress themselves for major events is always saying something.

These choices aren’t ever made in a vacuum, especially for something as high-profile as the Globes. Sometimes those choices say, “LOOK AT ME PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO ME,” and sometimes they say, “I am a serious thespian with eclectic tastes, please respect me as an artist,” and sometimes they say, “Dior paid me several million dollars to wear whatever they send me, so here I am!” I am extremely interested to see what everyone decides to say this awards season, and how they chose to say it. I think we’ll have a lot of interesting things to talk about, even if everyone does wear black.

If everyone is wearing black, how do you plan to approach things? Do you think there’s room to make an aesthetic critique of a political fashion statement? What’s the best way to go about it?

I do, although I don’t think it will be easy — which is fine, obviously. My having an easy time writing my Globes coverage is very much not the priority here, including for me on a personal level. I do think, for us, we’re going to have to see how this all actually shakes out, first.

Obviously, if people are wearing black, we are not going to be like, “Wow, that color is really harsh on you and washes you out; you should have abandoned your political scruples and gone for a jewel tone!” Essentially, we always sort of try, inherently, not to be total assholes if we can help it. And Heather and I support the #MeToo movement, and #TimesUp, and I’m sure we’ll discuss those topics as part of our coverage, as we have throughout the last six months or so.

That said, awards season is going to be a fine line for everyone, and we’re just going to try our best to walk on the right side of it. I’m sure this conversation is being had in newsrooms and at magazines at length right now; I’m interested to see how everyone handles it, frankly.

I would like to note, too, that some supporters of the #MeToo movement will be dressed in black, but it’s not fair to assume that all of them will be. A woman can choose to show up in a color, or a pattern, and still wholeheartedly support #MeToo and #TimesUp.

Protest and activism are intensely personal, and the decision to wear a color or not to wear a color — much like the decision to wear a charity/awareness ribbon, or not to — should not be treated as a decisive commentary on that person’s personal views, or what they do with their spare time. Some people couldn’t make it to the Women’s March. Some, like us, chose not to participate in the Day Without Women walkout, because for a variety of reasons it was detrimental to us to protest in that manner — but we’ve donated our time and money in other ways. Activism comes in all forms, and sometimes the public doesn’t see the action behind it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.