Lampoon Award Dupes Press

Recently, life hasn't been so simple for Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

Earlier this month, the vaunted theatrical society saw publications like The New York Times report that its prestigious "Woman of the Year" award would be given to Paris Hilton, the scandalous socialite-cum-TV-star-cum-jailbird. The reaction was scathing: alumni and patrons inundated the society's producers with angry e-mails, and some even demanded refunds on tickets.

But the reports turned out to be false.

"The award traditionally goes to actresses with some theater experience or winners of Academy Awards: Katharine Hepburn, Julia Roberts, Scarlett Johansson," said Theatricals co-producer Joshua E. Lachter '09. "Paris Hilton is not normally considered an award-winning actress."

The reason for the erroneous reports was that The Harvard Lampoon—a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine—had decided to give its own, first-ever award to Hilton.

According to Lampoon officials, the humor magazine plans to honor Hilton—who has gained notoriety through her starring roles in both the reality show "The Simple Life" and an amateur sex video, "1 Night in Paris," that she taped with a former boyfriend—outside the Lampoon castle on Feb. 6, a day before the Theatricals will celebrate its awardees.

A Lampoon official sarcastically feigned sympathy when asked yesterday about the negative press their award has produced for the theatrical society.

"It makes me feel like we should all fall on our swords because we have shirked our duty to maintain the Pudding's reputation and their status as the number-one-big-chief-award-giving organization on campus," said Lampoon treasurer Hayes H. Davenport '08.

But Lachter, who said he had to spend part of his exam period refuting the false reports with numerous e-mails and a radio appearance, insisted that the Lampoon's award was intended to draw a connection to the Pudding.

"It was clearly meant as a jab at our award," he said, claiming that the Lampoon had originally titled the award, "The Hastiest Pudding of The Year," but changed it after the Pudding told Lampoon to stop using its name.

"It's copyright infringement," said Lachter, who is also a member of The Crimson's business department. "The Lampoon is not above the law."

Davenport denied both that their event was targeting the Theatricals and that the Lampoon had ever referenced the society with the title of their award. He called reports that it had "horrifying, hurtful, appalling, [or] any number of words like that."

The name of the prize will be the "Harvard Lampoon Woman of the Year" award, according to a statement from Hilton's media company. The Pudding's Man and Woman of the Year Awards will be announced this Thursday on Access Hollywood, an entertainment-news show, Lachter said.

Though Davenport insisted that the Lampoon's award had never used the theatrical society's name, he did admit that the magazine may have been trading on the theatrical society's prominence to land a big-time celebrity.

"Our number one choice was Scarlett Johansson. Our number two was Catherine Zeta Jones. Those guys were busy with something else once they found out it wasn't the Hasty Pudding, just the Lampoon," Davenport said. "We went down the list, we got to Paris, and it was very generous of her to come."

When asked whether Hilton herself likely realized that the award was from the Lampoon and not the Pudding, he stammered, "Uh oh, man, I'm not sure. Let's just say I hope that Paris doesn't read The Harvard Crimson and start doing the math."

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.