Kelly: Shoes

God save Queen Latifah: the poor lady deserves an award of her own for hosting the scaled-back People's Choice Awards and giving her all to a single camera and no audience, which had the overall effect of making the traditionally star-studded event seem like a QVC show that sold nothing but small binders and paperweights.

The awards themselves ranged from confusing to horrifying (Being Jane won best drama? In what universe?!), with lone gay male celebrity nom Neil Patrick Harris losing the Best Scene-Stealing Star win to Chandra Wilson (although lesbian comrade Ellen Degeneres picked up two awards for Talk Show Host and Funny Lady, natch, and gave a hilarious pre-taped acceptance speech). Out dance commander Bruno Tonioli co-accepted for Dancing With the Stars with Carrie Ann Inaba and was as energetic as ever. Good thing their new show isn't called Charisma Wars, or he'd have it wrapped up already.

While the pre-taped format was interesting and allowed some recipients to be pretty creative in their speeches (like Joaquin Pheonix's cue-card acceptance, Paul Rudd's naughty crew gag or Reese Witherspoon's death-defying DOUBLE PLUG of her current project), the most interesting moment of the evening had nothing to do with any of these people. No, it came when Queen read the winner of the Favorite User-Generated Video category:

Shoes.

Yes, that's in, "Let's get some shoes!".

The video sensation that has been clogging bandwidth and inspiring countless imitators for the last few years, charming millions with its tale of a bitchy drag Valley girl "Kelly" hunting for some sweet new kicks, won a People's Choice Award. The video has introduced the word "betch" into the lexicon, and now it's alongside Two and a Half Men and House among America's favorite entertainments. Like, literally:

I have no idea whether Kelly's creator, Liam Kyle Sullivan, is gay or not, but his sensibility and love of drag, Kids in the Hall, and queer and queer-friendly artists means he'd be fun to have brunch with. And if nothing else, aren't you glad that something that entailed more than pulling a sheet over your head and screaming about Britney Spears won the award?

Queen promised that there would be an acceptance video from Sullivan on the PCA website today, but there's nothing up yet. In the meantime, the original infectious video is after the break, for those of you who have no idea what the hell I'm going on about. 

The nominees for the 34th Annual People's Choice Awards were announced last night, and among them is out actor Neil Patrick Harris, in the "Favorite Scene Stealing Star" category. He's up against Chandra Wilson of Grey's Anatomy and Richard Belzer of Law & Order: SVU. Needless to say, it would be awesome to have an out, proud actor win a popular vote like this one, so be sure to click the link at the bottom and cast your ballot! Here's a rundown of the other gay-significant noms...

Celebrities:
Gay-faves Sally Field and Katherine Heigl nabbed noms for "Favorite Female TV Star", Jodie Foster is nominated for "Favorite Female Action Star" and Queen Latifah and Drew Barrymore are nominated for "Favorite Leading Lady". Ellen, Whoopi, and Wanda Sykes make "Favorite Funny Female Star" the best category of the bunch, by far.

Television:
Dirty Sexy Money and Pushing Daisies, which both have gay creators, are up for "Favorite New Drama Series", and out producer Russell T Davies' Doctor Who is up for "Favorite Sci-Fi Series".

Movies:
Recently outed wizard Albus Dumbledore appears in "Favorite Movie Drama" nominee Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and homophobic pigfest Wild Hogs somehow made it into the "Favorite Movie Comedy" category. Likewise, homophobic yet sure-to-win 300 pops up in the "Favorite Action Movie" noms.

Afterthought: I find it interesting that 2 out of 3 "Favorite On-Screen Duo" noms are bromances (Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker and George Clooney/Brad Pitt) and the third, Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst, acted more like they were going through a messy divorce than like lovers in Spiderman 3. Where's the romance?

For all the nominees - and more importantly, to vote yourself (go, NPH!) - head on over to the official website. The winners will be announced on January 8th in a broadcast hosted by Queen Latifah.