Airing on Sunday, this year’s Oscars are already a shit show thanks to the controversial decision to banish eight categories from the live broadcast, including awards for editing, makeup, production design, and sound. Today alone, the awards ceremony made headlines for two separate scandals: 1) West Side Story lead Rachel Zegler’s lack of an invite to the ceremony in spite of the film’s seven nominations, and 2) host Amy Schumer’s tone-deaf suggestion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky take a break from leading a country during a devastating war to FaceTime into the telecast and flirt with Frances McDormand, or something.
Essentially, many of the problems with the Oscars can be distilled to the simple explanation that they are out of touch with what people care about outside of the tiny but noisy Hollywood bubble. The Academy is an institution that has been plagued by its racist, sexist past and has struggled for years now to assert its relevance amid all of the other, far more important things going on in the world. And yet, an LA-based marketing firm has decided to continue its tradition of gifting the most famous people in the world hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of swag they neither want nor need.
Not in any way affiliated with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the “Everyone Wins” nominee gift bags are assembled and distributed by a company called Distinctive Assets. Distinctive Assets has been something of a thorn in the side of the Academy after scrutiny from the IRS in the early aughts caused them to discontinue the practice of giving guests extravagant, tax-free gifts. Independently, Distinctive Assets began putting together their own gift packages for nominees. Back in 2016, the Academy went so far as to sue the PR firm for associating the over-the-top swag bags with the Oscars.
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The “Everyone Wins” bags have a six-figure value and are given to 25 top Oscar nominees in the acting and directing categories. This year’s list of recipients include Will Smith, Jessica Chastain, Ariana DeBose, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman, Kristen Stewart, and Kirsten Dunst, among others. As the name suggests, the gift bags are delivered to all nominees as a sort of consolation prize for those who don’t win. Because if Nicole Kidman loses the Best Actress statuette to Jessica Chastain, she can comfort herself with the knowledge that at home waiting for her is an inflatable orca pool float from PETA that says “SeaWorld…BLOWS” and a tin of overpriced German chocolate biscuits.
This year’s swag bag contains some truly insane goodies ranging from scented candles and bougie popcorn to actual cosmetic surgery procedures. The freebie from Art Lipo Plastic Surgery is a trademarked arm-slimming procedure called Celebrity Arms Sculpting, in case any of these A-listers feel like their arms don’t adequately represent their celebrity status, I guess? A different plastic surgeon is also offering up to $10,000 in treatments like botox, chemical peels, and injectable filler.
There are multiple different food items made with edible gold, including gold-flake-infused ARITI extra virgin olive oil that—you can’t make this up—is inspired by Homer’s ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey. The “Everyone Wins” bag, of course, includes several different types of alcoholic beverages, from PRESS hard seltzer to Siempre tequila, because it wouldn’t be a proper swag bag without some booze. CBD supplements are also big this year. They’re even giving away literal plots of land in Scotland that come with the titles of “Lords and Ladies of Glencoe” for the, um, lucky owners.
But really, the “Everyone Wins” gift bags are nothing more than an elaborate marketing scheme for the participating brands. It’s common practice for some celebrities to give away their lavish gift bags or auction them off for charity. Others, however, definitely keep it.
